## Facts

- Federal and local officers in Buffalo, New York, acted on an informant’s plan to purchase counterfeit gasoline ration coupons from Buttitta at a specified location.
- Officers approached Buttitta’s parked car and found the informant in the back seat holding two counterfeit coupons; he stated he obtained them from Buttitta, the driver.
- Di Re was seated in the front passenger seat; officers had no prior information implicating him.
- Without a warrant, officers arrested all three men and conducted a brief frisk at the scene; they did not search the car there.
- At the station house, officers ordered Di Re to empty his pockets, producing counterfeit ration coupons; later, during booking, a more thorough search found additional counterfeit coupons concealed under his clothing.
- The counterfeit coupons taken from Di Re’s person were admitted at trial and formed the decisive evidence supporting his federal conviction for knowingly possessing counterfeit ration coupons.
- The court of appeals reversed, ruling the arrest and search unlawful; the United States sought review limited to that suppression ruling.

## Issues

1. Whether officers had probable cause to arrest Di Re without a warrant based solely on his presence in a vehicle connected to a contraband transaction.
2. Whether the automobile search doctrine, even if applicable to the vehicle, justified a warrantless search of Di Re’s person absent individualized cause.
3. Whether the search could be upheld as incident to a lawful arrest, and what law governs the validity of a warrantless arrest in a federal prosecution when no federal statute applies.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment reversing the conviction.
- The Court held the warrantless arrest of Di Re was invalid under the governing state law standard, and the ensuing search of his person violated the Fourth Amendment.
- Even assuming reasonable cause to search the automobile, that did not justify searching Di Re’s person without particularized probable cause.
- Because the decisive evidence was the product of an unlawful arrest and search, it was inadmissible and the conviction could not stand.

## Legal Principles

- In the absence of an applicable federal statute, the law of the state where a warrantless arrest occurs determines the arrest’s validity in a federal prosecution.
- Mere presence in a suspected automobile does not, without more, establish probable cause to arrest or search an occupant.
- Authority to search an automobile for contraband does not automatically authorize a search of each occupant’s person; a body search requires individualized justification.
- Probable cause cannot be inferred from an arrestee’s silence, lack of protest, or submission to custody.
- A search is evaluated at its inception; it is not validated by the discovery of incriminating evidence.
- Difficulty of enforcement does not excuse unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment.

## Conclusion

The Court required individualized probable cause to arrest and search a passenger and rejected extending any vehicle-based search authority to a person absent particularized suspicion; with no controlling federal statute, state law governed the warrantless arrest’s validity, rendering the seized coupons inadmissible.


United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581 (1948)