Frank v. Maryland

Frank v. Maryland, 359 U.S. 360 (1959), was a United States Supreme Court case interpreting the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Frank v. Maryland
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 5, 1959 Decided May 4, 1959
Full case name	Aaron D. Frank v. State of Maryland
Citations	359 U.S. 360 (more) 79 S. Ct. 804; 3 L. Ed. 2d 877
Case history
Subsequent	Rehearing denied, June 15, 1959.
Holding
Section 120 is valid, and appellant's conviction for resisting an inspection of his house without a warrant did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Felix Frankfurter William O. Douglas · Tom C. Clark John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Charles E. Whittaker · Potter Stewart
Case opinions
Majority	Frankfurter, joined by Clark, Harlan, Whittaker, Stewart
Concurrence	Whittaker
Dissent	Douglas, joined by Warren, Black, Brennan
Overruled by
Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523 (1967)

Frank refused to allow the health inspectors into his home citing the Fourth Amendment. Inspectors were trying to perform an administrative search for code violations, specifically a rat infestation, not a criminal investigation, so they did not believe they were violating the Fourth Amendment. The Court, in an opinion written by Felix Frankfurter, decided in favor of the inspectors claiming that the search would benefit the public more than Frank's interests in privacy.[1]

The Supreme Court would reverse this decision eight years later in Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523 (1967), ruling that the City of San Francisco could not prosecute a person for refusing to consent to a search of their home by a city inspector, and the inspector may only search either by having consent, or must have a search warrant issued based on probable cause of a violation of law.[2]