Summary

Lustig v. United States — Opinion of the Court

On the basis of what was before him the trial judge admitted the evidence because he did not 'see any connivance or arrangement on the part of the Federal officers to have an illegal search made to get evidence they could not secure under the Federal law.' We therefore accept as a fact that Greene did not request the search, that, beyond indicating to the local police that there was something wrong, he was not the moving force of the search, and that the search was not undertaken by the police to help enforcement of a federal law. But search is a functional, not merely a physical, process.
Source: Wikisource

Lustig v. United States — Opinion of the Court

We are confronted by a ruling of the District Court, sustained by the Court of Appeals, admitting the evidence. But the question before us is not foreclosed by the respect to be accorded to a ruling on an issue of fact by the trial court until analysis discloses that the ruling was merely on an issue of fact and that no issue of law was entwined in the ruling. Insofar as what the lower courts found as facts may properly be so regarded, they are to be accepted
Source: Wikisource

Lustig v. United States — Opinion of the Court

Search is not completed until effective appropriation, as part of an uninterrupted transaction, is made of illicitly obtained objects for subsequent proof of an offense. Greene's selection of the evidence deemed important for use in a federal prosecution for counterfeiting, as part of the entire transaction in Room 402, was not severable, and therefore was part of the search carried on in that room.
Source: Wikisource

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