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children, had visited his home (R. 20–22). He admitted that he had made a sworn statement to the officers that on Monday, June 1, prior to midnight, Wong Sun and Toy had come to his house, and that on Wednesday evening, June 3, Toy had phoned before 11 p.m. that he would be by, and that he and Wong Sun had come up between 11:00 p.m. and midnight (R. 30). He stated, however, that he had lied in making the latter statements (R. 30). The government thereupon dismissed the witness.
II. The Opinion of the Court of Appeals
The court of appeals, one judge dissenting, affirmed the convictions. The court concluded that the arrest of each petitioner had been based on information not known to be reliable, and hence was without probable cause, but held that the illegality of the arrests did not render inadmissible the voluntary confessions, or preclude the agents from using information obtained from the pre-confession statements as leads for tracking down the criminals (R. 135–145).
Summary of Argument
The court of appeals considered petitioners' arrests to have been based on insufficient probable cause but held, in effect, that there was nothing in the arrest of petitioner Toy which required him to accuse Johnny Yee and to send the narcotics agents to Yee's house, and hence that the surrender of the narcotics by Yee could not be deemed the fruit of the arrest of Toy. Similarly, the unanticipated statements by Yee, which
