# Sibron v. New York > Supreme Court of the United States · June 10, 1968 · 392 U.S. 40 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423758 ## Case - **Full name:** Sibron v. New York - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 10, 1968 - **Citations:** 392 U.S. 40; 44 Ohio Op. 2d 402; 88 S. Ct. 1889; 20 L. Ed. 2d 917; 1968 U.S. LEXIS 1346 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Douglas - **Judges:** Warren, Douglas, White, Fortas, Harlan, Black - **Cited by:** 3,502 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423758 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that “[n]othing resembling probable cause existed” when an officer merely observed an individual talking to a number of known narcotics addicts, did not know the nature of the conversations, and saw nothing pass between them; the inference that persons who talk to addi… - stating 12 that “deliberately furtive actions and flight at the approach of strangers or law officers 13 are strong indicia of mens rea, and when coupled with specific knowledge on the part 14 of the officer relating the suspect to the evidence of crime, they are proper factor… - stating that “deliberately furtive actions and flight at the approach of strangers or law officers are strong indicia of mens rea, and when coupled with specific knowledge on the part of the officer relating the suspect to the evidence of crime, they are proper factors to be c… - explaining that because of the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness re- Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 5 ALITO, J., dissenting quirement, “[t]he constitutional validity of a warrantless search is pre-eminently the sort of question which can only be decided in the concrete factual… - recognizing, in the context of deciding whether to "entertain[ ] moot controversies," that "it is far better to eliminate the source of a potential legal disability than to require the citizen to suffer the possibly unjustified consequences of the disability itself for an inde… ## Opinion text Me. Justice Douglas, concurring in No. 74. Officer Lasky testified that he resided in a multiple-dwelling apartment house in Mount Vernon, New York. His apartment was on the sixth floor. At about 1 in the afternoon, he had just stepped out of the shower and was drying himself when he heard a noise at his door. Just then his phone rang and he answered the call. *69 After hanging up, he looked through the peephole of his door and saw two men, one of whom was appellant, tiptoeing out of an alcove toward the stairway. He phoned his headquarters to report this occurrence, and then put on some clothes and proceeded back to the door. This time he saw a tall man tiptoeing away from the alcove, followed by appellant, toward the stairway. Lasky came out of his apartment, slammed the door behind him, and then gave chase, gun in hand, as the two men began to run down the stairs. He apprehended appellant on the stairway between the fourth and fifth floors, and asked what he was doing in the building. Appellant replied that he was looking for a girl friend, but refused to give her name, saying that she was a married woman. Lasky then “frisked” appellant for a weapon, and discovered in his right pants pocket a plastic envelope. The envelope contained a tension bar, 6 picks and 2 Allen wrenches with the short leg filed down to a screwdriver edge. Appellant was subsequently convicted for possession of burglary tools. I would hold that at the time Lasky seized appellant, he had probable cause to believe that appellant was on some kind of burglary or housebreaking mission. * In my view he had probable cause to seize appellant and accordingly to conduct a limited search of his person for weapons. See N. Y. Pen. Code §§140.20, 140.25 (1967). --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9423758. Public record. Not legal advice.