Case Name: Anthony PESCE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1974-01-18
Citations: 288 So. 2d 264
Docket Number: No. 72-1006
Parties: Anthony PESCE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: OWEN, C. J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 288
Pages: 264–271

Head Matter:
Anthony PESCE, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 72-1006.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
Jan. 18, 1974.
James. M.- Campbell, Law Offices of J. Russell Hornsby, Orlando, for appellant.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Nelson E. Bailey, Stephen Koons and C. Marie Bernard, Asst. Attys. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellee.

Opinion:
WALDEN, Judge.
Appellant was tried by jury and convicted of two counts of violating the gambling statute, Section 849.01, F.S.1971, F.S.A. We reverse and remand with instructions that appellant be discharged.
We find merit in part 1 of appellant's Point I, only. It is a challenge to the adequacy of the affidavit upon which the search warrant dated June 7, 1972, was based. That affidavit provided:
[1] "Your affiant is a Police Officer and has been employed by the Orlando Police Department as such for the past seven (7) years. Your affiant is currently assigned to the Vice Section and has been so assigned for the past year. During this time, your affiant has had occasion to make investigations concerning illegal gambling activities, many of which have resulted in convictions of various defendants in'both City of Orlando Municipal Court and in the Criminal Court of Record of Orange County, Florida.
"During the period beginning in February of 1972 until the present time, your affiant has received information from several reliable sources which stated that a gambling game known as poker, played with cards for money, is being conducted every Wednesday night at the above described premises. The reliable sources further stated that a light would be burning at the front, outside, of the above premises on Wednesday night if the game was in progress. The reliable sources further gave your af-fiant the names of certain persons who attend this game on a regular basis. The reliable sources further related to your affiant that this game was conducted by Anthony Pesce, who is in fact the owner of the above premises. [2]
[3] "During the period of time indicated above, surveillances have been conducted upon the above described premises. During these surveil-lances, several persons whose names were given to your affiant as participants in the above mentioned poker game have been observed entering the above described premises on Wednesday nights. It has been further observed, that persons whose names were given as participants, have had vehicles which were registered to them, parked on Hyer Avenue in very close proximity to the above described residence, on Wednesday nights.
[4] "The light which is supposed to be burning outside the above residence if the game is in progress has been observed burning on Wednesday nights, and has not been turned on on any other night.
[5] "It is further known by your af-fiant that on one occasion during the above period of time, that your affiant placed a telephone call to the above described residence and advised the person who answered the phone that the house was going to be raided by the Police Department. At this time, Sgt. Tom Wylie and Inv. Crystal Graham were in a position of surveillance and observed several persons depart from the above described premises shortly after they were notified of an alleged impending raid.
[6] "It is further known by your af-fiant that on December 2nd, 1970, a Wednesday, Mr. Anthony Pesce made an official report to the Orlando Police Department of an attempted armed robbery of a card game which was in progress on that date. Mr. Pesce is quoted in this report as having said that he has several people who play cards regularly at his home and that some of these players have flashed quite a bit of money around at times." (Paragraph numbers supplied.)
Simply stated, the affidavit does not reflect probable cause under Section 933.04, F.S.1971, F.S.A. Thus, the resulting warrant was defective and the items and evidence seized thereunder should have been suppressed.
Looking now at the affidavit, Paragraph 1 is prefatory and affords no weight. Paragraph 2 has to do with the confidential informants and constitutes the gravamen of the affidavit. It is notable for its vagueness and we can not tell from it whether the affiant had one or ten informants. We can not tell if all supplied the condemning information or if it was piecemeal. Further, and more importantly, we are unable to determine whether the so-called "reliable sources" or any of them perceived the fact or facts asserted, or whether these incriminating assertions were hearsay, simple or gross, based upon second, tenth, or twentieth hand accounts, or a mixture thereof. The Supreme Court in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969) conceded that hearsay could result in probable cause but only if some satisfactory attempt is made to prove that an informant is reliable. The attempt here was unsuccessful.
It is to be noted also that the paragraph is subject to criticism because the dates on which affiant has received information are not stated with particularity. A firsthand glean would indicate that gambling was conducted every Wednesday night from February 1972 until June 1972, a period of approximately eighteen weeks. Did affiant receive his information every Thursday morning of each week? Or was there a guesswork basis for the statement? Clearly a February 1972 event would be stale with reference to a June 1972 warrant. Hamelmann v. State, Fla.App.1959, 113 So.2d 394.
And now to the most critical evaluation of the "reliable" sources' information; it must be determined that it be treated as unsupported hearsay at best. This being true, then there must be corroboration to supply a good reason for believing it. Spinelli v. United States, supra; Andersen v. State, Fla.1973, 274 So.2d 228; State v. Smith, Fla.1970, 233 So.2d 396. In Spinelli the Federal Supreme Court said:
" • . .If the tip is found inadequate under Aguilar [v. Texas], [378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964)], the other allegations which corroborate the information contained in the hearsay report should then be considered. At this stage as well, however, the standards enunciated in Aguilar must inform the magistrate's decision. He must ask: Can it fairly be said that the tip, even when certain parts of it have been corroborated by independent sources, is as trustworthy as a tip which would pass Aguilar's tests without independent corroboration ?"
And in Andersen the Florida Supreme Court quoted Justice White's concurrence in Spinelli which "succinctly stated Aguilar's principle to be:
" 'If the affidavit rests on hearsay—an informant's report—what is necessary under Aguilar is one of two things: the informant must declare either (1) that he has himself seen or perceived the fact or facts asserted; or (2) that his information is hearsay, but there is good reason for believing it.' " (Emphasis supplied by Florida Supreme Court.)
Looking at Paragraphs 3 and 4, we feel that such attempt at corroboration was an insufficient showing because, although surveillances were conducted, it is not stated by whom such surveillances were conducted. Was it by the so-called "reliable sources"? Was it by the affiant, or was it most likely conducted by some of his associates on the police force? Simply stated again, we feel that this must be likewise treated as hearsay rather than firsthand corroboration by the affiant under oath. Such hearsay corroboration can not serve to validate the unsupported and hearsay informant testimony. Spinelli, supra.
Next we come to Paragraph 5. If corroboration is to be found, it is here, because clearly the affiant had some firsthand knowledge. As reflected, a phone call was made to the premises. Advice was given that there would be a raid and several persons departed. We opine that this is clearly insufficient to justify a finding of probable cause to issue a search warrant because the incident is too tenuous to support a conclusion that illegal activity was taking place. We think it equally foreseeable that visitors even at an innocent gathering would be predictably likely to remember some pressing business elsewhere upon being told that a police raid was imminent. Another defect is that the events in this paragraph were not given a date and, hence, could have been accomplished in stale fashion as early as February 1972.
Finally, we turn our gaze to Paragraph 6 of the affidavit. It is fatally stale. Hamelmann v. State, supra. That court held that a six month's lapse between an affidavit execution and a warrant issuance rendered the latter invalid because it followed that six months at least had elapsed between the occurrence and the warrant and:
" . . . while there is no strict rule as to the permissible number of days which may elapse between the date of the observed offense and the making of the affidavit upon which the search warrant is based, the nearer the time is at which the observation was made to the time when the affidavit is or was executed, the more probable it is that a conclusion of probable cause may be justified."
We have considered the allegations singly and in combination and from our analysis we conclude that the affidavit was insufficient to reflect probable cause of the existence of gambling in the appellant's premises as prohibited in Section 849.01, F.S.1971, F.S.A., and the evidence seized under the search warrant must be suppressed under authority of Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L. Ed.2d 637 (1969), and Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964).
We reverse and remand with instructions that appellant be discharged.
Reversed and remanded.
OWEN, C. J., concurs.
MAGER, J., dissents, with opinion.