Opinion ID: 106990
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Fourth Amendment states:

Text: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause. supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. [1] We begin our analysis of this constitutional rule mindful of the fact that in this case a search was made pursuant to a search warrant. In discussing the Fourth Amendment policy against unnecessary invasions of privacy, we stated in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108: An evaluation of the constitutionality of a search warrant should begin with the rule that `the informed and deliberate determinations of magistrates empowered to issue warrants . . . are to be preferred over the hurried action of officers . . . who may happen to make arrests.' United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U. S. 452, 464. The reasons for this rule go to the foundations of the Fourth Amendment. 378 U. S., at 110-111. In Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257, 270, this Court, strongly supporting the preference to be accorded searches under a warrant, indicated that in a doubtful or marginal case a search under a warrant may be sustainable where without one it would fall. In Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, and Chapman v. United States, 365 U. S. 610, the Court, in condemning searches by officers who invaded premises without a warrant, plainly intimated that had the proper course of obtaining a warrant from a magistrate been followed and had the magistrate on the same evidence available to the police made a finding of probable cause, the search under the warrant would have been sustained. Mr. Justice Jackson stated for the Court in Johnson: The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. Any assumption that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate's disinterested determination to issue a search warrant will justify the officers in making a search without a warrant would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people's homes secure only in the discretion of police officers. Johnson v. United States, supra, at 13-14. The fact that exceptions to the requirement that searches and seizures be undertaken only after obtaining a warrant are limited [2] underscores the preference accorded police action taken under a warrant as against searches and seizures without one. While a warrant may issue only upon a finding of probable cause, this Court has long held that the term `probable cause' . . . means less than evidence which would justify condemnation, Locke v. United States, 7 Cranch 339, 348, and that a finding of probable cause may rest upon evidence which is not legally competent in a criminal trial. Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307, 311. As the Court stated in Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 173, There is a large difference between the two things to be proved [guilt and probable cause], as well as between the tribunals which determine them, and therefore a like difference in the quanta and modes of proof required to establish them. Thus hearsay may be the basis for issuance of the warrant so long as there [is] a substantial basis for crediting the hearsay. Jones v. United States, supra, at 272. And, in Aguilar we recognized that an affidavit may be based on hearsay information and need not reflect the direct personal observations of the affiant, so long as the magistrate is informed of some of the underlying circumstances supporting the affiant's conclusions and his belief that any informant involved whose identity need not be disclosed . . . was `credible' or his information `reliable.'  Aguilar v. Texas, supra, at 114. These decisions reflect the recognition that the Fourth Amendment's commands, like all constitutional requirements, are practical and not abstract. If the teachings of the Court's cases are to be followed and the constitutional policy served, affidavits for search warrants, such as the one involved here, must be tested and interpreted by magistrates and courts in a commonsense and realistic fashion. They are normally drafted by nonlawyers in the midst and haste of a criminal investigation. Technical requirements of elaborate specificity once exacted under common law pleadings have no proper place in this area. A grudging or negative attitude by reviewing courts toward warrants will tend to discourage police officers from submitting their evidence to a judicial officer before acting. This is not to say that probable cause can be made out by affidavits which are purely conclusory, stating only the affiant's or an informer's belief that probable cause exists without detailing any of the underlying circumstances upon which that belief is based. See Aguilar v. Texas, supra . Recital of some of the underlying circumstances in the affidavit is essential if the magistrate is to perform his detached function and not serve merely as a rubber stamp for the police. However, where these circumstances are detailed, where reason for crediting the source of the information is given, and when a magistrate has found probable cause, the courts should not invalidate the warrant by interpreting the affidavit in a hypertechnical, rather than a commonsense, manner. Although in a particular case it may not be easy to determine when an affidavit demonstrates the existence of probable cause, the resolution of doubtful or marginal cases in this area should be largely determined by the preference to be accorded to warrants. Jones v. United States, supra, at 270.