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Record

Court opinion

1937-12-20

CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States

Nardone v. United States, 302 U.S. 379 (1937)

Supreme Court decision of December 20, 1937 holding that section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 barred federal agents from testifying to the contents of telephone messages they had intercepted by wiretap, and reversing an alcohol-smuggling conviction.

Date
1937-12-20
Kind
court-opinion
Source
CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Docket
302 U.S. 379 (1937), No. 190
Rights
Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, a federal work in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. CourtListener (Free Law Project) hosts the text; it is not the source institution.

Decided December 20, 1937; No. 190. The petitioners were convicted on an indictment charging the smuggling of alcohol, possession and concealment of smuggled alcohol, and conspiracy. Federal agents testified to the substance of interstate telephone messages they had intercepted by tapping wires.

The Court read section 605 of the Communications Act of 1934 to reach federal officers: “Taken at face value the phrase “no person” comprehends federal agents, and the ban on communication to “any person” bars testimony to the content of an intercepted message.” (302 U.S. at 381.) The testimony was inadmissible, and the judgment was “Reversed.”

The opinion discusses Olmstead v. United States (1928), which had held that wiretapping was not a search under the Fourth Amendment; Nardone rests on the statute instead. In 1968, section 803 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act rewrote section 605 to begin “Except as authorized by chapter 119, title 18”, the new court-ordered interception chapter filed here as Title III.

itemOmnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Title III: Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance (Public Law 90-351), 82 Stat. 211Title III of the 1968 Act added chapter 119 to title 18: it prohibited private interception of wire and oral communications and set up court-ordered interception for listed offenses. Its findings state: "Organized criminals make extensive use of wire and oral communications in their criminal activities."itemOlmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)The Supreme Court holds, 4 June 1928, that federal prohibition officers' wiretapping of telephone lines without entering the defendants' premises was not a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment, so the intercepted conversations were admissible.