# United States v. Harris

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 28, 1971 · 403 U.S. 573

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9883119

## Case

- **Full name:** United States v. Harris
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 28, 1971
- **Citations:** 403 U.S. 573; 91 S. Ct. 2075; 29 L. Ed. 2d 723; 1971 U.S. LEXIS 18
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Black
- **Judges:** Mr. Justice Stewart Joins
- **Cited by:** 1,526 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Questioned by United States v. Zucco, 537 F. Supp. 901 (1982).
- Negative treatments: 2
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9883119

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- reasoning, in part, that “[p]eople do not lightly admit a crime and place critical evidence in the hands of the police in the form of their own admissions. Admissions of crime, like admissions against proprietary interests, carry their own indicia of credibility―sufficient at …
- stating that “[pjeople do not lightly admit crime and place critical evidence in the hands of the police in the form of their own admissions. Admissions of crime ... carry their own indicia of credibility____”
- stating that "[p]eople do not lightly admit crime and place critical evidence in the hands of the police in the form of their own admissions. Admissions of crime ... carry their own indicia of credibility...."
- finding not “especially significant that neither the name nor the person of the informant was produced before the magistrate. The police themselves almost certainly knew his name . . . .”
- stating that information that tends to implicate an informant in criminal activity is likely to be reliable, even if “the informant may be paid or promised a ‘break’” for the information

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Black,
concurring..
While I join the opinion of The Chief Justice which distinguishes this case from Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U. S. 108 (1964), and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U. S. 410 (1969), I would go further and overrule those two cases arid wipe their holdings from the books for the reasons, among others, set forth in the dissent of Mr. Justice Clark in Aguilar , which I joined, and my dissent in Spinelli .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9883119. Public record. Not legal advice.