MASSACHUSETTS v. UPTON
No. 83-1338
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided May 14, 1984
466 U.S. 727
At noon on September 11, 1980, Lieutenant Beland of the Yarmouth Police Department assisted in the execution of a search warrant for a motel room reserved by one Richard Kelleher at the Snug Harbor Motel in West Yarmouth. The search produced several items of identification, including
At 3:20 p. m. on the same day, Lieutenant Beland received a call from an unidentified female who told him that there was “a motor home full of stolen stuff” parked behind #5 Jefferson Ave., the home of respondent George Upton and his mother. She stated that the stolen items included jewelry, silver, and gold. As set out in Lieutenant Beland‘s affidavit in support of a search warrant:
“She further stated that George Upton was going to move the motor home any time now because of the fact that Ricky Kelleher‘s motel room was raided and that George [Upton] had purchased these stolen items from Ricky Kelleher. This unidentified female stated that she had seen the stolen items but refused to identify herself because ‘he‘ll kill me,’ referring to George Upton. I then told this unidentified female that I knew who she was, giving her the name of Lynn Alberico, who I had met on May 16, 1980, at George Upton‘s repair shop off Summer St., in Yarmouthport. She was identified to me by George Upton as being his girlfriend, Lynn Alberico. The unidentified female admitted that she was the girl that I had named, stating that she was surprised that I knew who she was. She then told me that she‘d broken up with George Upton and wanted to burn him. She also told me that she wouldn‘t give me her address or phone number but that she would contact me in the future, if need be.” See 390 Mass., at 564 n. 2, 458 N. E. 2d, at 718, n. 2.
Following the phone call, Lieutenant Beland went to Upton‘s house to verify that a motor home was parked on the property. Then, while other officers watched the premises, Lieutenant Beland prepared the application for a search war-
On appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court, respondent argued that the search warrant was not supported by a sufficient showing of “probable cause” under the
“It is not clear that the Gates opinion has announced a significant change in the appropriate Fourth Amendment treatment of applications for search warrants. Looking at what the Court did on the facts before it, and rejecting an expansive view of certain general statements not essential to the decision, we conclude that the Gates opinion deals principally with what corroboration of an informant‘s tip, not adequate by itself, will be sufficient to meet probable cause standards.” 390 Mass., at 568, 458 N. E. 2d, at 720.
Prior to Gates, the
“We do not view the Gates opinion as decreeing a standardless ‘totality of the circumstances’ test. The informant‘s veracity and the basis of his knowledge are still important but, where the tip is adequately corroborated, they are not elements indispensible [sic] to a finding of probable cause. It seems that, in a given case, the corroboration may be so strong as to satisfy probable cause in the absence of any other showing of the informant‘s ‘veracity’ and any direct statement of the ‘basis of [his] knowledge.‘” 390 Mass., at 568, 458 N. E. 2d, at 721.
Turning to the facts of this case, the Massachusetts court reasoned, first, that the basis of the informant‘s knowledge was not “forcefully apparent” in the affidavit. Id., at 569, 458 N. E. 2d, at 721. Although the caller stated that she had seen the stolen items and that they were in the motor home, she did not specifically state that she saw them in the motor home. Second, the court concluded that “[n]one of the common bases for determining the credibility of an informant or the reliability of her information is present here.” Ibid. The caller was not a “tried and true” informant, her statement was not against penal interest, and she was not an “ordinary citizen” providing information as a witness to a crime. “She was an anonymous informant, and her unverified assent to the suggestion that she was Lynn Alberico does not take her out of that category.” Id., at 570, 458 N. E. 2d, at 722.
Finally, the court felt that there was insufficient corroboration of the informant‘s tip to make up for its failure to satisfy the two-pronged test. The facts that tended to corroborate the informant‘s story were that the motor home was where it was supposed to be, that the caller knew of the motel raid which took place only three hours earlier, and that the caller knew the name of Upton and his girlfriend. But, much as the Supreme Court of Illinois did in the opinion we reviewed in Gates, the Massachusetts court reasoned that each item of corroborative evidence either related to innocent, nonsuspicious conduct or related to an event that took place in
We think that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts misunderstood our decision in Gates. We did not merely refine or qualify the “two-pronged test.” We rejected it as hypertechnical and divorced from “the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.” Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 175 (1949). Our statement on that score was explicit. “[W]e conclude that it is wiser to abandon the ‘two-pronged test’ established by our decisions in Aguilar and Spinelli. In its place we reaffirm the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that traditionally has informed probable-cause determinations.” Gates, 462 U. S., at 238. This “totality-of-the-circumstances” analysis is more in keeping with the “practical, common-sense decision” demanded of the magistrate. Ibid.
We noted in Gates that “the ‘two-pronged test’ has encouraged an excessively technical dissection of informants’ tips, with undue attention being focused on isolated issues that cannot sensibly be divorced from the other facts presented to the magistrate.” Id., at 234-235 (footnote omitted). This, we think, is the error of the Massachusetts court in this case. The court did not consider Lieutenant Beland‘s affidavit in its entirety, giving significance to each relevant piece of information and balancing the relative weights of all the various indicia of reliability (and unreliability) attending the tip. Instead, the court insisted on judging bits and pieces of information in isolation against the artificial standards provided by the two-pronged test.
The Supreme Judicial Court also erred in failing to grant any deference to the decision of the Magistrate to issue a warrant. Instead of merely deciding whether the evidence
Examined in light of Gates, Lieutenant Beland‘s affidavit provides a substantial basis for the issuance of the warrant. No single piece of evidence in it is conclusive. But the pieces fit neatly together and, so viewed, support the Magistrate‘s determination that there was “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime” would be found in Upton‘s motor home. 462 U. S., at 238. The informant claimed to have seen the stolen goods and gave a description of them which tallied with the items taken in recent burglaries. She knew of the raid on the motel room—which produced evidence connected to those burglaries—and that the room had been reserved by Kelleher. She explained the connection between
The Massachusetts court dismissed Lieutenant Beland‘s identification of the caller as a mere “unconfirmed guess.” 390 Mass., at 569, n. 6, 458 N. E. 2d, at 721, n. 6. But “probable cause does not demand the certainty we associate with formal trials.” Gates, supra, at 246. Lieutenant Beland noted that the caller “admitted that she was the girl I had named, stating that she was surprised that I knew who she was.” It is of course possible that the caller merely adopted Lieutenant Beland‘s suggestion as “a convenient cover for her true identity.” 390 Mass., at 570, 458 N. E. 2d, at 722. But given the caller‘s admission, her obvious knowledge of who Alberico was and how she was connected with Upton, and her explanation of her motive in calling, Lieutenant Beland‘s inference appears stronger than a mere uninformed and unconfirmed guess. It is enough that the inference was a reasonable one and conformed with the other pieces of evidence making up the total showing of probable cause.
In concluding that there was probable cause for the issuance of this warrant, the Magistrate can hardly be accused of approving a mere “hunch” or a bare recital of legal conclusions. The informant‘s story and the surrounding facts possessed an internal coherence that gave weight to the whole. Accordingly, we conclude that the information contained in Lieutenant Beland‘s affidavit provided a sufficient basis for the “practical, common-sense decision” of the Magistrate. “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.” United States v. Ventresca, supra, at 109.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE BRENNAN and JUSTICE MARSHALL dissent from the summary disposition of this case and would deny the petition for certiorari.
JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in the judgment.
In my opinion the judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts reflects an error of a more fundamental character than the one this Court corrects today. It rested its decision on the
If the Magistrate had violated a state statute when he issued the warrant, surely the State Supreme Judicial Court would have so held and thereby avoided the necessity of deciding a federal constitutional question. I see no reason why it should not have followed the same sequence of analysis when an arguable violation of the State Constitution is disclosed by the record. As the Oregon Supreme Court has stated:
“The proper sequence is to analyze the state‘s law, including its constitutional law, before reaching a federal constitutional claim. This is required, not for the sake either of parochialism or of style, but because the state does not deny any right claimed under the federal Constitution when the claim before the court in fact is fully met by state law.” Sterling v. Cupp, 290 Ore. 611, 614, 625 P. 2d 123, 126 (1981).3
The maintenance of the proper balance between the respective jurisdictions of state and federal courts is always a difficult task. In recent years I have been concerned by what I have regarded as an encroachment by this Court into territory that should be reserved for state judges. See, e. g., Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1065 (1983) (STEVENS, J., dissenting); South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553, 566 (1983) (STEVENS, J., dissenting); Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456, 477-489 (1981) (STEVENS, J., dissenting); Idaho Department of Employment v. Smith, 434 U. S. 100, 103-105 (1977) (STEVENS, J., dissenting in part). The maintenance of this balance is, however, a two-way
The absence of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution proposed by the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787 was a major objection to the Convention‘s proposal. See, e. g., 12 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 438 (Boyd ed. 1955). In defense of the Convention‘s plan Alexander Hamilton argued that the enumeration of certain rights was not only unnecessary, given that such rights had not been surrendered by the people in their grant of limited powers to the Federal Government, but “would even be dangerous” on the ground that enumerating certain rights could provide a “plausible pretense” for the Government to claim powers not granted in derogation of the people‘s rights. The Federalist No. 84, pp. 573, 574 (Ford ed. 1898) (A. Hamilton). The latter argument troubled the First Congress during deliberations on the Bill of Rights, and its solution became the Ninth Amendment. See 1 Annals of Congress 439 (1789) (remarks of Rep. Madison).
The Ninth Amendment provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” To the extent that the Bill of Rights is applicable to the States under the
In my view, the court below lost sight of this truism, and permitted the enumeration of certain rights in the
Whatever protections Art. 14 does confer are surely disparaged when the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts refuses to adjudicate their very existence because of the enumeration of certain rights in the
It must be remembered that for the first century of this Nation‘s history, the Bill of Rights of the
Accordingly, I concur in the Court‘s judgment.
Notes
“If we have correctly construed the significance of Illinois v. Gates, the Fourth Amendment standards for determining probable cause to issue a search warrant have not been made so much less clear and so relaxed as to compel us to try our hand at a definition of standards under art. 14. If we have misassessed the consequences of the Gates opinion and in fact the Gates standard proves to be unacceptably shapeless and permissive, this court may have to define the protections guaranteed to the people against unreasonable searches and seizures by art. 14, and the consequences of the violation of those protections.” 390 Mass. 562, 573-574, 458 N. E. 2d 717, 724 (1983).