ABSTRACT
Government agents suspected Danny Kyllo of growing marijuana in his apartment. To substantiate this suspicion, the federal agents obtained a thermal- scanning device that would detect large amounts of heat emanating from the triplex where Kyllo lived. When the agents scanned his apartment from the street, his apartment and garage registered hotter than other units in the building. The agents used the information to obtain a warrant to search Kyllo's home, where they found marijuana growing. At a suppression hearing, Kyllo sought to have this evidence thrown out, but eventually the district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the admission of the evidence. Kyllo is an important search and seizure case. It stands for the proposition that police and the government cannot generally search the interior of a person's residence without a warrant.
