United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98 (1959)

Henry v. United States

No. 17

Argued October 20-21, 1959

Decided November 23, 1959

361 U.S. 98

Syllabus

Without a warrant for search or arrest, federal officers who were investigating a theft from an interstate shipment of whiskey twice observed cartons being placed in a motor car in a residential district, followed and stopped the car, arrested petitioner and another man who were in it, searched the car, and found and seized cartons containing radios stolen from an interstate shipment. At petitioner's trial for unlawfully possessing radios stolen from an interstate shipment, his timely motion to suppress the evidence so seized was overruled, and he was convicted.

Held: on the record in this case, the officers did not have probable cause for the arrest when they stopped the car; the search was illegal; the articles seized were not admissible in evidence; and the conviction is reversed. Pp. 361 U. S. 98-104.

259 F.2d 725 reversed.