Case Name: STATE of Louisiana v. Byron Bernel MELSON
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1973-10-29
Citations: 284 So. 2d 873
Docket Number: No. 53610
Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Byron Bernel MELSON.
Judges: SUMMERS, J., concurs in part and dissents in part and assigns written reasons. The result is correct.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 284
Pages: 873–879

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana v. Byron Bernel MELSON.
No. 53610.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Oct. 29, 1973.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 30, 1973.
Robert Glass, New Orleans, for defendant-relator.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., LeRoy A. Hartley, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jim Garrison, Dist. Atty., Frank Klein, Louise Korns, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-respondent.

Opinion:
DIXON, Justice.
Writs were granted in this case to determine whether, on a motion to suppress, a defendant could traverse the accuracy of the factual statements in the affidavit upon which a search warrant was issued.
Two search warrants had been issued for two separate apartments in the investigation of a murder. Both warrants issued upon the identical affidavits by Detective Egan, who recited to the magistrate:
"Upon returning to the Homicide Office to obtain written statements from Collier and Bertrand Dets. Baumy and Egan were contacted by two eye witnesses to the actual shooting who named the perpetrator. The two eye witnesses stated that they witnessed the actual shooting and saw the perpetrator flee from the scene. The perpetrator was identified by the two eye witnesses as one Bryan Bernell Melson, negro male, approximately 16 years old."
The amended motion to suppress referred to this statement and alleged that it was false, as follows:
"Defendant alleges that the two eyewitnesses referred to did not contact Detectives Baumy and Egan as stated in the affidavit; that the two eyewitnesses did not personally know the defendant, nor identify him to police officers from personal knowledge, as indicated in the affidavit; that if any such information was received by any police officer from the eyewitnesses, it was related to the officer receiving it as hearsay from an unidentified source of unidentified reliability; and that the affiant officer knew that at the time he swore out the affidavit, the statement quoted in paragraph 1 hereof was false and misleading."
This amendment was filed May 10, 1973, and contained a further allegation that the State had stipulated at a prior hearing in the case that no identification of the defendant had been made by any witness.
At the hearing on the amended motion to suppress, the district judge denied the request of defendant to take evidence on the allegations of the motion, relying on State v. Anselmo, 260 La. 306, 256 So.2d 98 (1971) and State v. George, 273 So.2d 34 (La., 1973), to which ruling defendant excepted.
As noted in the concurring opinion in State v. George, 273 So.2d 34, 37, the majority of this court placed a "restrictive interpretation" on State v. Anselmo. The only essential question in Anselmo was whether the veracity of the informer of the peace officer who executed the affidavit upon which the search warrant issued was subject to attack in a motion to suppress. We held that it was not. The language of the opinion in Anselmo was much broader than necessary for that decision, indicating that the only permissible review of the magistrate's finding of probable cause was to determine whether the allegations of facts and circumstances in the affidavit, as a matter of law, supported the magistrate's finding of probable cause.
State v. George departed from the implications of Anselmo, but approved its holding that "the truthfulness of the facts which were supplied to an affiant by a confidential informer and which were then recited by the affiant in his application for a search warrant could not later be attacked at a hearing on a motion to suppress." State v. George, 273 So.2d 34, 36. Then we tacitly approved the right of the defendant to attack the veracity of the af-fiant, himself. Nevertheless, we affirmed the decision of the trial judge, finding no falsification by the affiant in the affidavit.
Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964) prohibits the issuance of a search warrant upon the conclusion of the affiant, and requires that the affidavit itself disclose the factual basis for the finding of probable cause. In Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1964), the obligation of the magistrate to judge the information according to the Aguilar standards was referred to as the "long standing principle" that probable cause must be determined by the magistrate, and not by the police officer.
These reasons support the conclusion that there is a right on the part of a defendant to traverse the allegations of the affiant in the affidavit upon which a search warrant is issued:
1. To permit the affiant to execute an affidavit, either intentionally or unintentionally inaccurate, is to allow the affiant himself, and not the magistrate, to make the determination of probable cause, contrary to the holding of Aguilar v. Texas, supra.
2. To protect the right of privacy (not for the defendant whose privacy has already been invaded, but for law-abiding citizens in the State) is and should be of primary importance to the courts. To this end, untrue allegations of the affiant must he subject to judicial examination. No other method of deterring unwarranted police conduct has been developed.
3. The integrity of the judicial process must be protected. It can only be weakened if we permit the abrogation of the right of privacy by protecting untrue allegations from judicial examination.
4. When a search warrant is issued, it is issued on an ex parte request, frequently presented to a magistrate at times and places not conducive to consider-ered determination by the magistrate. Such an ex parte determination to issue a search warrant is not such a "judicial determination" as to place this initial finding of probable cause beyond the pale of review of a district judge. There is specific statutory provision for judicial review of finding of probable cause in the district court. C.Cr.P. 703. We need only delineate the extent of that inquiry.
5. Finally, since the question of probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant is a question involving rights under the United States Constitution and the Louisiana State Constitution, if probable cause does not exist, there would be a constitutional infirmity in the search warrant. It matters not whether the infirmity arise because of the faulty legal conclusions of the issuing magistrate, or the false allegations of the affiant.
All the reasons which support a conclusion to allow a defendant to test the veracity of the affiant would also permit testing the accuracy of the information given by the affiant's informer. There are, however, factors which justify treating the veracity of the affiant and the veracity of his informer differently. There is sometimes a need to protect the identity of informers. But see Roviaro v. United States, 353 U.S. 53, 77 S.Ct. 623, 1 L.Ed.2d 639 (1957). Criminal activity in today's society seems to demand speed and efficiency in police work, consistent with constitutional standards; the constitutional prohibition against the issuance of search warrants is relaxed when there is probable cause for a magistrate to act, a finding reached with much less reliable evidence than real and actual cause. Therefore, balancing the interests involved we adhere to the "restrictive interpretation" of the opinion in State v. Anselmo, supra.
For these reasons, the judgment of the district court is reversed and an evi-dentiary hearing is ordered to allow the defendant an opportunity to prove the well pleaded allegations of affiant's misrepresentation in the applications for the search warrants involved in this case.
SUMMERS, J., concurs in part and dissents in part and assigns written reasons. The result is correct.
SANDERS, C. J., dissents and assigns written reasons.
MARCUS, J., dissents.
. Probable Cause: Veracity of Underlying Pacts, 33 La.L.Rev. 339.
. The Outwardly Sufficient Search Warrant Affidavit: What If It's False? 19 U.C.L.A. L.Rev. 96.