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Text: On March 1, 1976, a special agent of the Illinois Bureau of Investigation presented a "Complaint for Search Warrant" to a judge of an Illinois Circuit Court. The complaint recited that the agent had spoken with an informant known to the police to be reliable and:

"3. The informant related . . . that over the weekend of 28 and 29 February he was in the [Aurora Tap Tavern, located in the city of Aurora, Ill.] and observed fifteen to twenty-five tin-foil packets on the person of the bartender `Greg' and behind the bar. He also has been in the tavern on at least ten other occasions and has observed tin-foil packets on `Greg' and in a drawer behind the bar. The informant has used heroin in the past and knows that tin-foil packets are a common method of packaging heroin.
"4. The informant advised . . . that over the weekend of 28 and 29 February he had a conversation with `Greg' and was advised that `Greg' would have heroin for sale on Monday, March 1, 1976. This conversation took place in the tavern described."
On the strength of this complaint, the judge issued a warrant authorizing the search of "the following person or place: . . . [T]he Aurora Tap Tavern. . . . Also the person of `Greg', the bartender, a male white with blondish hair appx. 25 years." The warrant authorized the police to search for "evidence of the offense of possession of a controlled substance," to wit, "[h]eroin, contraband, other controlled substances, money, instrumentalities and narcotics, paraphernalia used in the manufacture, processing and distribution of controlled substances."

In the late afternoon of that day, seven or eight officers proceeded to the tavern. Upon entering it, the officers announced their purpose and advised all those present that they were going to conduct a "cursory search for weapons." One of the officers then proceeded to pat down each of the 9 to 13 customers present in the tavern, while the remaining officers engaged in an extensive search of the premises.

The police officer who frisked the patrons found the appellant, Ventura Ybarra, in front of the bar standing by a pinball machine. In his first patdown of Ybarra, the officer felt what he described as "a cigarette pack with objects in it." He did not remove this pack from Ybarra's pocket. Instead, he moved on and proceeded to pat down other customers. After completing this process the officer returned to Ybarra and frisked him once again. This second search of Ybarra took place approximately 2 to 10 minutes after the first. The officer relocated and retrieved the cigarette pack from Ybarra's pants pocket. Inside the pack he found six tinfoil packets containing a brown powdery substance which later turned out to be heroin.

Ybarra was subsequently indicted by an Illinois grand jury for the unlawful possession of a controlled substance. He filed a pretrial motion to suppress all the contraband that had been seized from his person at the Aurora Tap Tavern. At the hearing on this motion the State sought to justify the search by reference to the Illinois statute in question. The trial court denied the motion to suppress, finding that the search had been conducted under the authority of subsection (b) of the statute, to "prevent the disposal or concealment of [the] things particularly described in the warrant." The case proceeded to trial before the court sitting without a jury, and Ybarra was found guilty of the possession of heroin.

On appeal, the Illinois Appellate Court held that the Illinois statute was not unconstitutional "in its application to the facts" of this case. 58 Ill. App. 3d 57, 64, 373 N. E. 2d 1013, 1017. The court acknowledged that, had the warrant directed that a "large retail or commercial establishment" be searched, the statute could not constitutionally have been read to "authorize a `blanket search' of persons or patrons found" therein. Id., at 62, 373 N. E. 2d, at 1016. The court interpreted the statute as authorizing the search of persons found on premises described in a warrant only if there is "some showing of a connection with those premises, that the police officer reasonably suspected an attack, or that the person searched would destroy or conceal items described in the warrant." Id., at 61, 373 N. E. 2d, at 1016. Accordingly, the State Appellate Court found that the search of Ybarra had been constitutional because it had been "conducted in a one-room bar where it [was] obvious from the complaint . . . that heroin was being sold or dispensed," id., at 62, 373 N. E. 2d, at 1016, because "the six packets of heroin . . . could easily [have been] concealed by the defendant and thus thwart the purpose of the warrant," id., at 61, 373 N. E. 2d, at 1016, and because Ybarra was not an "innocent strange[r] having no connection with the premises," ibid. The court, therefore, affirmed Ybarra's conviction, and the Illinois Supreme Court denied his petition for leave to appeal. There followed an appeal to this Court, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 440 U. S. 790.