# 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/9883120

## 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 Blackmun
- **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/9883120

## 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 Blackmun,
concurring.
I join the opinion of The Chief Justice and the judgment of the Court, but I add a personal comment in order to make very clear my posture , as to Spinelli v. United States, 393 U. S. 410 (1969), cited in several places in that opinion. I was a member of. the 6-2 majority of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Spinelli v. United States, 382 F. 2d 871 (1967), which this Court by a 5-3 vote reversed, with the pivotal Justice concluding his con *586 curring opinion, 393 U. S., at 429 , by the observation that, “Pending full-scale reconsideration of that case [Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307 (1959)], on the one hand, or of the Nathanson-Aguilar cases on the other, I join the opinion of the Court and the judgment of reversal, especially since a.vote to affirm would produce an evenly divided Court.” Obviously, I then felt that the Court of Appeals had correctly decided the case. Nothing this Court said in Spinelli convinced me to the contrary. I continue to feel today that Spinelli at this level was wrongly decided and, like Mb. Justice Black, I would overrule it.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9883120. Public record. Not legal advice.