## Facts

- Jack Payner, an Ohio businessman, was prosecuted for violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001 by falsely denying on his 1972 federal tax return that he maintained a foreign bank account.
- During an IRS investigation into offshore tax evasion, a private investigator working with an IRS agent stole a foreign bank officer’s briefcase, had it opened and copied, and returned it.
- The government’s evidence included a loan guarantee agreement indicating Payner’s interest in a Bahamian account; the government located that agreement through the unlawful briefcase search.
- The district court found the briefcase search “flagrantly illegal” but also found it did not violate Payner’s own Fourth Amendment rights.
- Invoking supervisory authority, the district court suppressed the tainted evidence, left only the tax return and related testimony, and then set aside Payner’s conviction for insufficient proof.
- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the suppression order and resulting dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether a defendant may suppress evidence under the Fourth Amendment when the unlawful search invaded only a third party’s privacy interests.
2. Whether federal courts may use supervisory power to suppress otherwise admissible evidence obtained through an unlawful search of a third party to deter government misconduct.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed.
- Payner lacked Fourth Amendment standing because the search invaded no legitimate expectation of privacy belonging to him.
- Federal courts’ supervisory power does not permit suppression of evidence on the theory of deterring misconduct when the defendant is not the victim of the unlawful search.
- The evidence could not be excluded on supervisory-power grounds merely because exclusion would be unavailable under Fourth Amendment standing limits.

## Legal Principles

- Fourth Amendment exclusion is available only to a defendant whose own legitimate expectation of privacy was invaded; being the target of an investigation or suffering derivative harm is insufficient.
- Deterrence of unlawful searches does not justify exclusion at the request of a party who was not the victim of the challenged conduct.
- Federal supervisory power over criminal justice administration cannot be used to circumvent established limits on the exclusionary rule or to create a broader suppression remedy than the Fourth Amendment allows.
- Sanctions for serious investigative misconduct, when suppression is unavailable due to lack of standing, must come from other lawful mechanisms rather than case-specific evidentiary exclusion for an uninjured defendant.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Payner could not suppress evidence derived from an illegal search of a third party’s briefcase because his own Fourth Amendment rights were not violated, and it rejected the use of supervisory power to exclude evidence in a way that would expand the exclusionary rule beyond its standing limitations.


United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727 (1980)