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elieved or concluded that there were narcotics in petitioner’s possession. The magistrate here certainly could not ‘judge for himself the persuasiveness of the facts relied on ... to show probable cause.’ He necessarily accepted ‘without question’ the informant’s ‘suspicion,’ ‘belief’ or ‘mere conclusion.’ ” Id., at 113-114, 84 S.Ct., at 1513-1514 (footnote omitted).2 While recognizing that a warrant may be based on hearsay, the Court established the following standard: “[T]he magistrate must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded *279 that **2354 the narcotics were where he claimed they were, and some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer concluded that the informant, whose identity need not be disclosed ... was ‘credible’ or his information ‘reliable.’ Otherwise, ‘the inferences from the facts which lead to the complaint’ will be drawn not ‘by a neutral and detached magistrate,’ as the Constitution requires, but instead, by a police officer ‘engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime’ ... or, as in this case, by an unidentified informant.” Id., at 114-115, 84 S.Ct., at 1513-1514 (footnote omitted). The Aguilar standard was refined in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969). In Spinelli, the Court reviewed a search warrant based on an affidavit that was “more ample,” id., at 413, than the one in Aguilar. The affidavit in Spinelli contained not only a tip from an informant, but also a report of an independent police investigation that allegedly corroborated the informant’s tip. Ibid. Under these circumstances, the Court stated that it was “required to delineate the manner in which Aguilar ‘s two-pronged test should be applied....” Ibid. The Court held that the Aguilar test should be applied to the tip, and approved two additional ways of satisfying that test. First, the Court suggested that if the tip contained sufficient detail describing the accused’s criminal activity it might satisfy Aguilar ‘s basis of knowledge prong. Id., at 416, 89 S.Ct., at 589. Such detail might assure the magistrate that he is “relying on something more substantial than a casual rumor circulating in the underworld or an accusation based merely on an individual’s general reputation.” Ibid. Although the tip in the case before it did not meet this standard, “[t]he detail provided by the informant in Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959), provide[d] a suitable benchmark,” ibid., because “[a] magistrate, when confronted with such detail, could reasonably infer that the informant *280 had gained his information in a reliable way.” Id., at 417, 89 S.Ct., at 589 (footnote omitted).3 **2355 Second, the Court stated that police corroboration of the details of a tip could provide a basis for satisfying Aguilar. Id., at 417, 89 S.Ct., at 589. *281 The Court’s opinion is not a model of clarity on this issue since it appears to suggest that corroboration can satisfy both the basis of knowledge and veracity prongs of Aguilar. Id., at 417-418, 89 S.Ct., at 589-590.4 Justice WHITE’s concurring opinion, however, points the way to a proper reading of the Court’s opinion. After reviewing the Court’s decision in Draper v. United States, supra, Justice WHITE concluded that “[t]he thrust of Draper is not that the verified facts have independent significance with respect to proof of [another unverified fact].” Id., at 427, 89 S.Ct., at 594. In his view, “[t]he argument instead relates to the reliability of the source: because an informant is right about some things, he is more probably right about other facts, usually the critical, unverified facts.” Ibid. Justice WHITE then pointed out that prior cases had rejected “the notion that the past *282 reliability of an officer is sufficient reason for believing his current assertions.” Ibid. Justice WHITE went on to state: “Nor would it suffice, I suppose, if a reliable informant states there is gambling equipment in Apartment 607 and then proceeds to describe in detail Apartment 201, a description which is verified before applying for the warrant. He was right about 201, but that hardly makes him more believable about the equipment in 607. But what if he states that there are narcotics locked in a safe in Apartment 300, which is described in detail, and the apartment manager verifies everything but the contents of the safe I doubt that the report about the narcotics is made appreciably more believable by the verification. The informant could still have gotten his information concerning the safe from others about whom nothing is known or could have inferred the presence of narcotics from circumstances which a magistrate would find unacceptable.” Id., at 427, 89 S.Ct., at 594. I find this reasoning persuasive. Properly understood, therefore, Spinelli stands for the proposition that corroboration of certain details in a tip may be sufficient to satisfy the veracity, but not the basis of knowledge, prong of Aguilar. As noted, Spinelli also suggests that in some limited circumstances considerable detail in an informant’s tip may be adequate to satisfy the basis of knowledge prong of Aguilar.5 *283 **2356 Although the rules drawn from the cases discussed above are cast in procedural terms, they 64
advance an important underlying substantive value: Findings of probable cause, and attendant intrusions, should not be authorized unless there is some assurance that the information on which they are based has been obtained in a reliable way by an honest or credible person. As applied to police officers, the rules focus on the way in which the information was acquired. As applied to informants, the rules focus both on the honesty or credibility of the informant and on the reliability of the way in which the information was acquired. Insofar as it is more complicated, an evaluation of affidavits based on hearsay involves a more difficult inquiry. This suggests a need to structure the inquiry in an effort to insure greater accuracy. The standards announced in Aguilar, as refined by Spinelli, fulfill that need. The standards inform the police of what information they have to provide and magistrates of what information they should demand. The standards also inform magistrates of the subsidiary findings they must make in order to arrive at an ultimate finding of probable cause. Spinelli, properly understood, directs the magistrate’s attention to the possibility that the presence of self-verifying detail might satisfy Aguilar ‘s basis of knowledge prong and that corroboration of the details of a tip might satisfy Aguilar ‘s veracity prong. By requiring police to provide certain crucial information to magistrates and by structuring magistrates’ probable cause inquiries, Aguilar and Spinelli assure the magistrate’s role as an independent arbiter of probable cause, insure greater accuracy in probable cause determinations, and advance the substantive value identified above. Until today the Court has never squarely addressed the application of the Aguilar and Spinelli standards to tips from anonymous informants. Both Aguilar and Spinelli dealt with tips from informants known at least to the police. See also, e.g., Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1923, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972); United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 575, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 2078, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971); Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 565, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 1035, 28 L.Ed.2d 306 (1971); *284 McCray v. Illinois, 386 U.S. 300, 302, 87 S.Ct. 1056, 1057, 18 L.Ed.2d 62 (1967); Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 268-269, 80 S.Ct. 725, 735, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960). And surely there is even more reason to subject anonymous informants’ tips to the tests established by Aguilar and Spinelli. By definition nothing is known about an anonymous informant’s identity, honesty, or reliability. One commentator has suggested that anonymous informants should be treated as presumptively unreliable. See Comment, Anonymous Tips, Corroboration, and Probable Cause: Reconciling The Spinelli/Draper Dichotomy in Illinois v. Gates, 20 65 Am.Crim.L.Rev. 99, 107 (1982). See also Adams v. Williams, supra, 407 U.S., at 146, 92 S.Ct., at 1923 (suggesting that an anonymous telephone tip provides a weaker case for a Terry stop than a tip from an informant known to the police who had provided information in the past); United States v. Harris, supra, 403 U.S., at 599, 91 S.Ct., at 2089 (Harlan, J., dissenting) (“We cannot assume that the ordinary law-abiding citizen has qualms about [appearing before a magistrate]”). In any event, there certainly is no basis for treating anonymous informants as presumptively reliable. Nor is there any basis for assuming that the information provided by an anonymous informant has been obtained in a reliable way. If we are unwilling to accept conclusory allegations from the police, who are presumptively reliable, or from informants who are known, at **2357 least to the police, there cannot possibly be any rational basis for accepting conclusory allegations from anonymous informants. To suggest that anonymous informants’ tips are subject to the tests established by Aguilar and Spinelli is not to suggest that they can never provide a basis for a finding of probable cause. It is conceivable that police corroboration of the details of the tip might establish the reliability of the informant under Aguilar ‘s veracity prong, as refined in Spinelli, and that the details in the tip might be sufficient to qualify under the “self-verifying detail” test established by Spinelli as a means of satisfying Aguilar ‘s basis of knowledge prong. The Aguilar and Spinelli tests must be applied to anonymous informants’ tips, however, if we are to continue to insure *285 that findings of probable cause, and attendant intrusions, are based on information provided by an honest or credible person who has acquired the information in a reliable way.6 In light of the important purposes served by Aguilar and Spinelli, I would not reject the standards they establish. If anything, I simply would make more clear that Spinelli, properly understood, does not depart in any fundamental way from the test established by Aguilar. For reasons I shall next state, I do not find persuasive the Court’s justifications for rejecting the test established by Aguilar and refined by Spinelli. *286 II In rejecting the Aguilar-Spinelli standards, the Court suggests that a “totality-of-the-circumstances approach is far more consistent with our prior treatment of probable cause than is any rigid demand that specific ‘tests’ be satisfied by every informant’s tip.” Ante, at 2328
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UNIVERSITY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUM
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article that appeared in the period
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incarcerated children in the Distri
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Section 3: Writing Exercise Section
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Opinion PERRY, J. 73 So.3d 34 Supre
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activities, or statements that he e
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Page 15 and 16: B. “Sniff Test” at a Private Ho
Page 17 and 18: was standing in front of the door,
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Page 21 and 22: The probable cause affidavit listed
Page 23 and 24: unwavering expectation that there w
Page 25 and 26: otherwise prompt his dog to alert.
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Page 29 and 30: society recognizes as reasonable. A
Page 31 and 32: obtained through the search is not
Page 33 and 34: without implicating the Fourth Amen
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Page 39 and 40: nuisance. IV Blackstone, Commentari
Page 41 and 42: The other ‘eroding’ case cited
Page 43 and 44: 11 Jones v. United States, 362 U.S.
Page 45 and 46: 103 S.Ct. 2317 Supreme Court of the
Page 47 and 48: accompanying remedy. Here, for exam
Page 49 and 50: northbound on an interstate frequen
Page 51 and 52: inapplicable to the decision to iss
Page 53 and 54: L.Ed. 1879 (1949). Justice BRENNAN
Page 55 and 56: case. As the Court points out, “I
Page 57 and 58: forcefully suggest that the exclusi
Page 59 and 60: S.Ct., at 3073-3074. (WHITE, J., di
Page 61 and 62: law-enforcement officers have recog
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Page 67 and 68: Americans must be that the Court gi
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Page 77 and 78: 8 Rugendorf v. United States, 376 U
Page 79 and 80: 104 S.Ct. 1652 Supreme Court of the
Page 81 and 82: will not be betrayed.” United Sta
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Page 91 and 92: 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1688 (1960); Henry
Page 93 and 94: 26 See, e.g., Michigan v. Long, 463
Page 95 and 96: Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 181, 110 S
Page 97 and 98: how relatively warm—Kyllo was hea
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Page 101 and 102: homeowner would even care if anybod
Page 103 and 104: 4 This view comports with that of a
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Page 111 and 112: 3 Kyllo was concerned with whether
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authority to allow police inside th
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AFFIRMED. We retain jurisdiction an
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that “[t]he right of the people t
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field” did not constitute a Fourt
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Government’s unrestrained power t
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y the government upon the privacy o
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own difficulties. It involves a deg
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search unless it is achieved by suc
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88 Or. L. Rev. 829 Oregon Law Revie
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hidden in open locations, such as f
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While the Place Court’s failure t
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location may be important in evalua
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III Framing the Canine Home-Sniff D
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seemingly making impermissible what
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possessions. Without minimizing the
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4. Even Surreptitious Canine Sniffs
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the sniff--to the satisfaction of a
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focused on the routineness of the a
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6 See People v. Dunn, 564 N.E.2d 10
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27 See Robert C. Bird, An Examinati
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323 (Friedrich G. Barth et al. eds.
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pre-Place decisions issued by the U
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97 See Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.
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121 Id. at 37 n.4 (majority opinion
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147 462 U.S. 696 (1983). 148 See in
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171 Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 2
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199 As Justice Souter explained,
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to school). 219 Cf. Katz & Golembie
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240 See Kyllo v. United States, 533
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263 In 2004, photographs emerged th
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285 Id. at 1362. The story of this
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306 But cf. Fitzgerald v. State, 86
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328 Riley, 488 U.S. at 448 (observi
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1 Search & Seizure § 2.3 (4th ed.)
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establish a right to privacy therei
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were locked and could only be opene
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The Wright rule also should not be
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to investigate. Noting that a metal
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active domestic use. It housed ten
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Ciraolo,191 involving aerial survei
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ackyard of the building was complet
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feet. The viewing from the helicopt
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cases as Ciraolo, Riley and Dow man
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premises were abandoned where all c
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22 Young v. Harrison, 284 F.3d 863
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37.1 McKenney v. Harrison, 635 F.3d
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(1983); State v. Eddy, 519 A.2d 113
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68 Dinkens v. State, 291 So.2d 122
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eceived no answer to knock on front
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870 (1987). In such a case, the fac
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“Second, the agents had a legal r
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131 United States v. Llanes, 398 F.
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167 The reference is to the “open
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however by fact lights were on insi
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properly crossed defendant’s land
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view”); State v. Merrill, 252 Neb
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the area within the ‘curtilage’
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is not to conclude that a search of
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265 Such analysis was challenged by
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