Case Name: STATE of Louisiana v. Dennis WATKINS and Geri Hart
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1986-05-20
Citations: 499 So. 2d 91
Docket Number: No. K 5248
Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Dennis WATKINS and Geri Hart.
Judges: Before REDMANN, C.J., and WILLIAMS and ARMSTRONG, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 499
Pages: 91–94

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana v. Dennis WATKINS and Geri Hart.
No. K 5248.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
May 20, 1986.
On Rehearing Nov. 21, 1986.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara B. Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., and Terry M. Bou-dreaux, Asst. Dist. Atty., New Orleans, for State.
Joseph Neves Marcal, III, New Orleans, for defendants.
Before REDMANN, C.J., and WILLIAMS and ARMSTRONG, JJ.

Opinion:
REDMANN, Chief Judge.
We granted certiorari to afford to the state review of 'a suppression of evidence seized in execution of a search warrant. We now reverse.
The application for the warrant contains information from four separate reports during a two-day period from "a reliable confidential informant."
The first report is that Dennis Michael Watkins, residing at 2781 Sage street, New Orleans, has been for some time selling marijuana from that address; Watkins normally brings marijuana to the house on a Saturday or Sunday; the informant had been there when Watkins brought marijuana, and Watkins always brought a lot. The informant believed Watkins kept 20 to 30 pounds at the house. The informant had on a number of occasions seen persons leaving the house with what he believed to be large amounts of marijuana. The infor mant stated that Watkins also stores marijuana in a shed in the rear of the house.
The informant's second report, later the same day, is that the informant believes Watkins "might have just received" another shipment of marijuana, and stored it in the back shed. Informant has been present at Watkins's residence when Watkins sold marijuana to others, and at other times when others were present and Watkins got, from a storage locker in which marijuana is stored, marijuana that "all subjects" (i.e., Watkins, informant and the others) smoked.
The third report, the following day, is that Watkins "had gotten rid of several pounds of marijuana and at this very moment was selling the remaining pounds."
The application then contains, as a separately-numbered item, a statement not attributed to the informant: "It should be noted that the shed mentioned . is located at the same municipal address, however it is not connected to the aforementioned house. The shed is a one car shed and made of slate and is in the control of Watkins." (That description by the police officers is the result of their own inspection of the premises on the night of the first two reports, although they do not mention that inspection in the application.)
The fourth report from the informant, later the second day, is that the informant "had just spoken with Watkins, who indicated to him that he was about to move what marijuana he had left, and that if he wanted anything for him to come within the next few hours."
The police officers shortly after that report obtained the search warrant and executed it that same day.
At the hearing on the motion to suppress, one of the police officers testified. He explained that no surveillance of the residence was undertaken because of the information that disposition of the marijuana was imminent. The trial judge found the warrant defective because of lack of corroboration of the confidential informant's tips.
Surveillance "is unnecessary to establish probable cause. Lack of corroboration for the informant does not invalidate the warrant, when the other details of the affidavit support a reasonable inference of reliability." State v. Johnson, 404 So.2d 239, 244 (La.1981).
The amount of detail in an affidavit in support of an application for a search warrant may vary greatly. Perhaps no reasonable person would dissent, at the one extreme, from granting a warrant when a gigantic quantity of detail supports it or, at the other extreme, from refusing a warrant when the affidavit says no more than that a confidential informant says there is marijuana at a given address. But there is surely a not-so-clear area between those extremes, within which reasonable persons might well disagree on the sufficiency of the detail.
Because of the deference that must be given to the issuing magistrate, it is the issuing magistrate's reasonable, commonsense evaluation of the detail in the application that must prevail notwithstanding that a reviewing trial or appellate judge might not have issued a warrant on that application. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983); Massachusetts v. Upton, 466 U.S. 727, 104 S.Ct. 2085, 80 L.Ed.2d 721 (1984). To hold at a later suppression hearing that error in the issuing magistrate's evaluation of the amount of detail invalidates the warrant, the trial judge must find error as a matter of law: that is, he must conclude that no reasonable magistrate could have found the detail sufficient to establish reliability. We conclude that that cannot be said in the present case. There is enough detail in the confidential informant's reports from firsthand observation, as recited in the application, that a reasonable magistrate could find a substantial basis for issuing a warrant despite the absence of corroboration by police investigation other than a superficial inspection of the premises. To the reliability established by the amount of detail may be added the slight further reliability arising from the informant's admis sion against interest that he smoked marijuana at the described premises. See United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971); State v. Ogden, 391 So.2d 434 (La.1980).
We cannot say that the issuing magistrate's acceptance of this application for a search warrant as sufficiently detailed was wrong as a matter of law. The trial judge erred in holding the warrant defective.
Moreover, if one could conclude that the application and therefore the warrant were defective, evidence obtained by its execution is not excludible if the executing officers acted in a good-faith, reasonable reliance on the warrant. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984); Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 104 S.Ct. 3424, 82 L.Ed.2d 737 (1984). Considering the amount of detail provided by the executing officers and the apparent urgency in view of the fourth report from the confidential informant, we equally cannot say that the executing officers acted other than in good faith in reliance on the warrant.
Reversed; motion to suppress denied.
REVERSED.