Brewer v. Mele

It is the realistic judgment of state and national con stitutions as well as that of the common law that personal liberties must sometimes yield to the needs of public order upon the basis of probabilities which are less than certainties. The balance, painstakingly arrived at, is adjusted to reduce significantly the incidence of mistake, but it does not presume to eliminate it. That a decision based upon probable cause should upon occasion yield an improbable consequence is of the very nature of such reliance upon probability. Inherent in the process is the sometime bad arrest of the guilty…