Taylor v. Alabama (457 U.S. 687)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 23, 1982 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 457 U.S. 687 · 102 S. Ct. 2664
- Decided
- June 23, 1982
- Term
- October Term 1981
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Marshall
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the narrow question whether petitioner’s confession should have been suppressed as the fruit of an illegal arrest. The Supreme Court of Alabama held that the evidence was properly admitted. Because the decision below is inconsistent with our decisions in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 (1979), and Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), we reverse. I In 1978, a grocery store in Montgomery, Ala., was robbed. There had been a number of robberies in this area, and the police had initiated an intensive manhunt in an effort to apprehend the robbers. An individual who was at that time incarcerated on unrelated charges told a police officer that “he had heard that [petitioner] Omar Taylor was involved in the robbery.” App. 4. This individual had never before given similar information to this officer, did not tell the officer where he had heard this information, and did not provide any details of the crime. This tip was insufficient to give the police probable cause to obtain a warrant or to arrest petitioner. Nonetheless, on the basis of this information, two officers arrested petitioner without a warrant. They told petitioner that he was being arrested in connection with the grocery-store robbery, searched him, and took him to the station for questioning. Petitioner was given the warnings required by…
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