Carroll v. United States

Undercover prohibition agents met with the defendant and two accomplices to buy illegal whiskey. The defendant left to get the whiskey but could not do so because his source was not in. One of his accomplices informed the undercover agents they would deliver it the next day. The officers observed the vehicle and registration number the defendant and his accomplices were using during these negotiations.

The defendant did not make the arranged delivery the following day. A week later, while patrolling a highway commonly used to smuggle whiskey into the country the agents saw the defendant in the same car as before. They gave pursuit but lost the car. Two months after that, the agents again saw the defendant in the same car on the same road. The agents believed they had probable cause as the highway was often used in the illegal transportation of liquor, and they had information that the car and its occupants were engaged in the illegal business of “bootlegging.” The agents stopped the defendant, searched the car, and found sixty-eight bottles of illegal whiskey.