Court Opinion

ID: 9429235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:06.862874+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:18.092001
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Brennan joins,
dissenting.
The fact that Lance and Sue Gates made a 22-hour nonstop drive from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Bloomingdale, Illinois, only a few hours after Lance had flown to Florida provided persuasive evidence that they were engaged in illicit activity. That fact, however, was not known to the judge when he issued the warrant to search their home.
What the judge did know at that time was that the anonymous informant had not been completely accurate in his or her predictions. The informant had indicated that “ ‘Sue . . . drives their car to Florida where she leaves it to be loaded up with drugs .... Sue fl[ies] back after she drops the car off in Florida.”’ 85 Ill. 2d 376, 379, 423 N. E. 2d 887, 888 (1981) (emphasis added). Yet Detective Mader’s affidavit reported that she “ ‘left the West Palm Beach area driving the Mercury northbound.’” 82 Ill. App. 3d 749, 757, 403 N. E. 2d 77, 82 (1980).
The discrepancy between the informant’s predictions and the facts known to Detective Mader is significant for three reasons. First, it cast doubt on the informant’s hypothesis that the Gates already had “ ‘over [$100,000] worth of drugs in their basement,’ ” 85 Ill. 2d, at 379, 423 N. E. 2d, at 888. The informant had predicted an itinerary that always kept one *292spouse in Bloomingdale, suggesting that the Gates did not want to leave their home unguarded because something valuable was hidden within. That inference obviously could not be drawn when it was known that the pair was actually together over a thousand miles from home.
Second, the discrepancy made the Gates’ conduct seem substantially less unusual than the informant had predicted it would be. It would have been odd if, as predicted, Sue had driven down to Florida on Wednesday, left the car, and flown right back to Illinois. But the mere facts that Sue was in West Palm Beach with the car,1 that she was joined by her husband at the Holiday Inn on Friday,2 and that the couple drove north together the next morning3 are neither unusual nor probative of criminal activity.
*293Third, the fact that the anonymous letter contained a material mistake undermines the reasonableness of relying on it as a basis for making a forcible entry into a private home.4
Of course, the activities in this case did not stop when the judge issued the warrant. The Gates drove all night to Bloomingdale, the officers searched the car and found 400 pounds of marihuana, and then they searched the house.5 However, none of these subsequent events may be considered in evaluating the warrant,6 and the search of the house was legal only if the warrant was valid. Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U. S. 30, 33-35 (1970). I cannot accept the Court’s casual conclusion that, before the Gates arrived in Bloomingdale, there was probable cause to justify a valid entry and search of a private home. No one knows who the informant in this case was, or what motivated him or her to write the note. Given that the note’s predictions were faulty in one *294significant respect, and were corroborated by nothing except ordinary innocent activity, I must surmise that the Court’s evaluation of the warrant’s validity has been colored by subsequent events.7
Although the foregoing analysis is determinative as to the house search, the car search raises additional issues because “there is a constitutional difference between houses and cars.” Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 52 (1970). Cf. Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 589-590 (1980). An officer who has probable cause to suspect that a highly movable automobile contains contraband does not need a valid warrant in order to search it. This point was developed in our opinion in United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982), which was not decided until after the Illinois Supreme Court rendered its decision in this case. Under Ross, the car search may have been valid if the officers had probable cause after the Gates arrived.
In apologizing for its belated realization that we should not have ordered reargument in this case, the Court today shows high regard for the appropriate relationship of this Court to state courts. Ante, at 221-222. When the Court discusses the merits, however, it attaches no weight to the conclusions of the Circuit Judge of Du Page County, Illinois, of the three judges of the Second District of the Illinois Appellate Court, or of the five justices of the Illinois Supreme Court, all of whom concluded that the warrant was not based on probable cause. In a fact-bound inquiry of this sort, the judgment of three levels of state courts, all of which are better able to evaluate the probable reliability of anonymous informants in *295Bloomingdale, Illinois, than we are, should be entitled to at least a presumption of accuracy.8 I would simply vacate the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court and remand the case for reconsideration in the light of our intervening decision in United States v. Ross.

 Lance does not appear to have behaved suspiciously in flying down to Florida. He made a reservation in his own name and gave an accurate home phone number to the airlines. Cf. Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 493, n. 2 (1983); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544, 548 (1980) (Stewart, J., announcing the judgment). And Detective Mader’s affidavit does not report that he did any of the other things drug couriers are notorious for doing, such as paying for the ticket in cash, Royer, 460 U. S., at 493, n. 2, dressing casually, ibid., looking pale and nervous, ibid.; Mendenhall, supra, at 548, improperly filling out baggage tags, Royer, 460 U. S., at 493, n. 2, carrying American Tourister luggage, ibid., not carrying any luggage, Mendenhall, 446 U. S., at 564-565 (POWELL, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), or changing airlines en route, ibid.

 Detective Mader’s affidavit hinted darkly that the couple had set out upon “that interstate highway commonly used by travelers to the Chicago area.” But the same highway is also commonly used by travelers to Disney World, Sea World, and Ringling Brothers and Bamum and Bailey Circus World. It is also the road to Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, and Washington, D. C. I would venture that each year dozens of perfectly innocent people fly to Florida, meet a waiting spouse, and drive off together in the family car.

 The Court purports to rely on the proposition that “if the [anonymous] informant could predict with considerable accuracy the somewhat unusual travel plans of the Gateses, he probably also had a reliable basis for his statements that the Gateses kept a large quantity of drags in their home.” Ante, at 245-246, n. 14 (emphasis added). Even if this syllogism were sound, but see Spinelli v. United States, 393 U. S. 410, 427 (1969) (White, J., concurring), its premises are not met in this case.

 The officers did not enter the unoccupied house as soon as the warrant issued; instead, they waited until the Gates returned. It is unclear whether they waited because they wanted to execute the warrant without unnecessary property damage or because they had doubts about whether the informant’s tip was really valid. In either event their judgment is to be commended.

 It is a truism that “a search warrant is valid only if probable cause has been shown to the magistrate and that an inadequate showing may not be rescued by post-search testimony on information known to the searching officers at the time of the search.” Rice v. Wolff, 513 F. 2d 1280, 1287 (CA8 1975). See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 450-451 (1971); Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U. S. 560, 565, n. 8 (1971); Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108, 109, n. 1 (1964); Jones v. United States, 357 U. S. 493, 497-498 (1958); Giordenello v. United States, 357 U. S. 480, 486 (1958); Taylor v. United States, 286 U. S. 1, 6 (1932); Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 33 (1925).

 Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307 (1959), affords no support for today’s holding. That case did not involve an anonymous informant. On the contrary, as the Court twice noted, Mr. Hereford was “employed for that purpose and [his] information had always been found accurate and reliable.” Id., at 313; see id., at 309. In this case, the police had no prior experience with the informant, and some of his or her information in this case was unreliable and inaccurate.

 The Court holds that what were heretofore considered two independent “prongs” — “veracity” and “basis of knowledge” — are now to be considered together as circumstances whose totality must be appraised. Ante, at 233. “[A] deficiency in one may be compensated for, in determining the overall reliability of a tip, by a strong showing as to the other, or by some other indicia of reliability.” Ibid. Yet in this case, the lower courts found neither factor present. 85 Ill. 2d, at 390, 423 N. E. 2d, at 893. And the supposed “other indicia” in the affidavit take the form of activity that is not particularly remarkable. I do not understand how the Court can find that the “totality’' so far exceeds the sum of its “circumstances.”