FedEx employees accidentally damaged a package with a forklift, and so they examined the contents of the package (apparently there's a policy that they do that with damaged goods for insurance reasons). They found that the package contained nothing except baggies of white powder, so the called the police. A federal agent arrived (by then the FedEx employees had put the cocaine back in the package, but didn't seal it), reopened the package, and extracted a small sample from the baggies with a knife. It tested positive for cocaine, and the feds got a warrant for the house that the cocaine was being shipped to. Jacobsen et al were arrested at that house, charged with and convicted of possession with intent to distribute. They appealed their conviction, arguing that the warrant was obtained as the result of an illegal search and seizure.
The US Supreme Court explained that the Fourth Amendment restricts two different categories of government actions: searches (where the government infringes an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable) and seizures (where the government interferes with a person's possessory interest in the item being seized). The Fourth Amendment only protects against government actions. If a private person conducts a search that would be unreasonable for a police officer, that search does not violate the Fourth Amendment. So the initial search by the FedEx employees doesn't require the suppression of any evidence.
The rule for subsequent warrantless searches by law enforcement are that they can not expend the scope of the original private search. Jacobsen's expectation of privacy in the package was compromised by the actions of the FedEx employees (the same as it would have been if he had given the package to a third person who had chosen of his own accord to open it for the police). Once an expectation of privacy is compromised by a private person, the police are not required to ignore information obtained from that source. And reexamining the cocaine wasn't likely to reveal any information other than what the feds already knew from the FedEx employees. So even though the cocaine was repackaged when the feds got there, the agents were within their authority when they took it out of the package to examine it.
Holding on to the package instead of allowing it to continue on to its destination was a seizure, but it was held to be a reasonable one because the package obviously contained contraband. Field testing the cocaine (which involved removing a trace amount with the knife and destroying it) was a more serious seizure, because it was permanent. This was still held to be reasonable, because the courts balanced the government's interests in enforcing drug laws against the defendant's possessory interest in the cocaine. Since people do not have a legitimate possessory interest in contraband, since the outcome of the test was virtually certain before the test was conducted, and since the amount removed for the test was so slight, the government's interests were held to outweight Jacobsen's interests in this case, and the seizure was held reasonable.
Jacobsen et al's convictions were upheld.
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