| Court: | US Supreme Court |
| Facts: | Postal inspectors get a tip that Watson has stolen credit cards. The tipster has been reliable in the past. They arrange a meeting between the informant and Watson. The informant will signal if there are credit cards there. Signal! Arrest! Search! Cards are found. Watson moves to suppress the cards because there was no probable cause for arrest. |
| Posture: | Court of appeals rules that the cards were inadmissable because if the arrest was invalid then Watson wouldn't ever have consented to the search. |
| Issue: | Was the arrest invalid? |
| Holding: | No. Reversed. |
| Rule: | There is statutory authorization for warrantless arrest, and there was probable cause. |
| Reasoning: | This isn't a general-purpose warrantless arrest authorization. It just applies to crimes committed in the presence of the officers, or situations where there is reasonable gounds. |
| Dicta: | |