Opinion ID: 1516571
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Probable Cause New Jersey Case Law

Text: This Court's decisions in cases concerning probable cause have been relatively uncontroversial. As would be expected, many of our opinions emphasize the same principles that have been recognized by decisions in the federal courts. We have consistently characterized probable cause as a common-sense, practical standard for determining the validity of a search warrant. In State v. Kasabucki, 52 N.J. 110, 116 (1968), we said: Probable cause is a flexible, nontechnical concept. It includes a conscious balancing of the governmental need for enforcement of the criminal law against the citizens' constitutionally protected right of privacy. It must be regarded as representing an effort to accommodate those often competing interests so as to serve them both in a practical fashion without unduly hampering the one or unreasonably impairing the significant content of the other. See State v. Davis, 50 N.J. 16, 24 (1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1054, 88 S.Ct. 805, 19 L.Ed. 2d 852 (1968); State v. Laws, 50 N.J. 159, 173 (1967), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 971, 89 S.Ct. 408, 21 L.Ed. 2d 384 (1968); State v. Mark, 46 N.J. 262, 271 (1966); State v. Contursi, 44 N.J. 422, 428-29 (1965); State v. Boyd, 44 N.J. 390, 393 (1965). This Court has also been unwavering in its insistence that affidavits submitted in support of a warrant application allege specific facts so that the issuing judge can determine independently whether or not probable cause has been established: The crucial determination is to be made not by the police officer but by a neutral issuing judge. Before the judge is in a position to make his determination for issuance, he must properly be made aware of the underlying facts or circumstances which would warrant a prudent man in believing that the law was being violated. Legal proof sufficient to establish guilt is, of course, not required; but suspicion and good faith on the officer's part, without more, will not suffice. As the Supreme Court succinctly put it in Nathanson v. United States , a search warrant may not issue unless the issuing magistrate can find probable cause from the facts or circumstances presented to him under oath or affirmation  Mere affirmance of belief or suspicion is not enough. [ State v. Macri, supra, 39 N.J. at 257 (quoting Nathanson v. United States, 290 U.S. 41, 47, 54 S.Ct. 11, 13, 78 L.Ed. 159 (1933)).] See State v. Fariello, 71 N.J. 552, 564-65 (1976); State v. Ebron, 61 N.J. 207, 212 (1972); State v. Mark, supra, 46 N.J. at 273; State v. Moriarty, 39 N.J. 502, 503 (1963); State v. Burrachio, 39 N.J. 272, 275-76 (1963). Like the federal courts, we have permitted reliance on hearsay for the purpose of establishing probable cause, but have insisted that the officer's affidavit provide the warrant-issuing judge with a substantial basis for crediting the hearsay. State v. Ebron, supra, 61 N.J. at 212; State v. Perry, 59 N.J. 383, 394 (1971); State v. Burrachio, supra, 39 N.J. at 275; State v. Macri, supra, 39 N.J. at 262; State v. Southard, 144 N.J. Super. 501, 504 (App.Div. 1976). We have infrequently been required to consider the validity of warrants based on hearsay in the context of the Aguilar-Spinelli two-pronged test. In State v. Perry, supra, 59 N.J. 383, the affidavit was based on information from a reliable informant, who ha[d] in the past given reliable information leading to arrests, that stolen property consisting of monies, jewelry, doctor's bag, narcotics barbituates [sic], and narcotics paraphernalia could be found in the defendant's apartment. Id. at 387. We held that the informant's veracity was adequately established by the officer's reference to his past reliability. As to the basis-of-knowledge prong, we noted that the information contained in the informant's tip is of such a detailed nature that it could reasonably lead a magistrate to infer that the informant had probably observed the items himself which he knew to be stolen, or had gained his information in a reliable way.    We think the detailed description in this case    is of the type which the Spinelli Court regarded as sufficient to establish that the information was obtained in a reliable way. [ Id. at 392.] In State v. Ebron, supra, 61 N.J. 207, the officer's allegation that defendant was selling narcotics from his mother's home was based in part on information from an informant who ha[d] prove[n] reliable in the past [9] and in part on a surveillance of the residence by police over a three-day period. We concluded that the officer's assertions as to the informant's past reliability satisfied the veracity prong of Aguilar-Spinelli, but that the basis-of-knowledge prong had not been satisfied. Id. at 212. Nevertheless, the warrant was sustained on the ground that although the informant's tip did not satisfy the basis-of-knowledge prong, it could be supplemented by the totality of the proofs submitted to the issuing magistrate, id., including the facts established by the officers during their surveillance of defendant's residence. [10] We held that [w]hen the informant's statement fails to meet this `two-pronged test,' the affidavit may nevertheless be sufficient if elsewhere in the application there is enough to `permit the suspicions engendered by the informant's report to ripen into a judgment that a crime was probably being committed.' We think the affidavit before us meets this test. 61 N.J. at 212 (quoting Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 418, 89 S.Ct. 584, 590, 21 L.Ed. 2d 637).