Page:Brief for the United States, Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963).djvu/26

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

20

with a narcotics agent's badge and identification. The narcotics agent did not arrest Toy upon the word of the informer (Hom Way) alone. He first went to Toy's door for further investigation and sought to engage Toy in conversation under guise of seeking laundry and, then, by making known his identity as a federal narcotics agent. At this point Toy took flight, and the agent pursued and arrested him.

In the arrest of Wong Sun, the identification was the product of the combined information from both Yee and Toy; the former was the authentic possessor of the heroin and the latter the supplier of exact and correct information as to the location of the heroin and of Wong Sun.

A. Under Common Law and 20 U.S.C. 7607, Arrests May be Made Without Warrant Upon Probable Cause or Upon "Reasonable Grounds to Believe That The Person to be Arrested Has Committed" a Narcotics Felony

Probable cause for arrest under the Fourth Amendment and the specific statutory "reasonable grounds" upon which federal narcotic agents may arrest without a warrant "are substantial equivalents of the same meaning". Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 310. The broad requirements of probable cause, to be applied to the specific facts of cases as they arise, have been stated by this Court as follows:

In dealing with probable cause, * * * as the very name implies, we deal with probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act. The standard of proof is ac-