Desist v. United States

The petitioners were convicted by a jury in the District Court for the Southern District of New York of conspiring to import and conceal heroin in violation of the federal narcotics laws.1 An important part of the Gov*245ernment’s evidence consisted of tape recordings of conversations among several of the petitioners in a New York City hotel room. The tapes were made by federal officers in the adjoining room by means of an electronic recording device which did not physically intrude into the petitioners’ room.2 Because there was no “trespass” or “actual intrusion into a constitutionally protected *246…