Record
Court opinion
1974-01-08
CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion
United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338 (1974)
Supreme Court decision of January 8, 1974 holding that a grand jury witness may not refuse to answer questions on the ground that they rest on evidence from an unlawful search. The case began with a December 1970 federal search of John Calandra's Royal Machine & Tool Co. in Cleveland.
- Date
- 1974-01-08
- Kind
- court-opinion
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Docket
- No. 72-734; 414 U.S. 338
- Rights
- Opinion of a United States court. Works of the federal judiciary are in the public domain in the United States. The text was read on CourtListener.
Supreme Court of the United States, argued October 11, 1973, decided January 8, 1974; opinion by Justice Powell, with a dissent by Justice Brennan. The Court states: “On December 11, 1970, federal agents obtained a warrant authorizing a search of respondent John Calandra’s place of business, the Royal Machine & Tool Co. in Cleveland, Ohio. The warrant was issued in connection with an extensive investigation of suspected illegal gambling operations.” The agents executed it on December 15, 1970, and a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Ohio later sought to question Calandra about loansharking.
Calandra moved to suppress the seized evidence and refused to answer questions based on it; the lower courts sided with him. The Supreme Court held that the exclusionary rule does not extend to grand jury proceedings, so a witness may not refuse to answer on that ground. “The judgment of the Court of Appeals is Reversed.”
The opinion does not describe Calandra as a member of any organization. It does not say whether he is the John P. Calandra who was a defendant in United States v. Licavoli (1984), and this archive does not link the two.