An informant told the Eagan, Minnesota, police that while walking past the window of a ground-floor.

An informant told the Eagan, Minnesota, police that while
walking past the window of a ground-floor apartment, he had observed people
putting a white powder into bags. Officer Thielen went to the apartment
building to investigate. He looked in the window through a gap in the closed
blind and observed the bagging operation for several minutes. When two men left
the building in a previously identified Cadillac, other police officers stopped
the car. While one of the car’s doors was open, the officers observed a black
zippered pouch and a handgun on the floor of the vehicle. The officers
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An informant told the Eagan, Minnesota, police that while
walking past the window of a ground-floor apartment, he had observed people
putting a white powder into bags. Officer Thielen went to the apartment
building to investigate. He looked in the window through a gap in the closed
blind and observed the bagging operation for several minutes. When two men left
the building in a previously identified Cadillac, other police officers stopped
the car. While one of the car’s doors was open, the officers observed a black
zippered pouch and a handgun on the floor of the vehicle. The officers arrested
the car’s occupants, Carter and Johns. A later search of the vehicle resulted
in the discovery of pagers, a scale, and 47 grams of cocaine in plastic
baggies. After seizing the car, the officers returned to the apartment and
arrested its occupant, Thompson. A search of the apartment (conducted on the
basis of a warrant) revealed cocaine residue on the kitchen table and plastic
baggies similar to those found in the Cadillac. Officer Thielen identified
Carter, Johns, and Thompson as the persons he had observed taking part in the
bagging operation. It was later learned that Thompson was the apartment’s
lessee and that Carter and Johns, both of whom lived in Chicago, had come to
the apartment for the sole purpose of packaging the cocaine. Carter and Johns
had never been to the apartment before and were in the apartment for
approximately two and one-half hours at the general time the bagging operation
was conducted. In return for the use of the apartment, Carter and Johns had
given some of the cocaine to Thompson. Carter and Johns were charged with
controlled substance–related crimes. Prior to trial, they moved to suppress all
evidence obtained from the apartment and the Cadillac. They contended that
Officer Thielen’s observation of them through the apartment window was an
unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment and that all evidence
obtained as a result was inadmissible. Were Carter and Johns entitled to claim
the protection of the Fourth Amendment?

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