Opinion ID: 2347993
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Informant

Text: No authority need be cited for the proposition that probable cause to issue a search warrant may be based upon information furnished by an unidentified informant. In the instant case, however, we do not think such information was sufficient to justify a conclusion that there was probable cause to believe the defendant was concealing stolen property on his premises when the warrant issued. The affidavit contained the following factual recitals relayed by the unidentified informant to the affiant: 1) The defendant asked the informant to buy two crates of eggs, informing him that the eggs had come with a semi-trailer unit he had acquired. The defendant then displayed a Massachusetts registration for the said semi-trailer. The informant referred to the semi-trailer as the stolen egg trailer. This information was given the affiant on May 7, 1975, but related to a conversation with defendant on April 23, 1975, some eighty-eight days before applying for this warrant. 2) The defendant stated to the informant that he had sold a semi-trailer to a person who had recently died and that the deceased's relatives were unable to sell the semi-trailer because there were no serial numbers thereon. The defendant said someone was checking up on him. This information was relayed in mid-June, 1975, but referred, without any specificity, to some previous occasion. 3) The defendant stated to the informant that they were checking into a stolen Winnebago trailer and that his father had told him to cut down for a while. The defendant also stated his father later told him that things had quieted down and that they had to get things rolling again. The Winnebago transaction related to an episode occurring on November 25, 1974. 4) While at defendant's place of business in June, 1975, the informant had observed a freshly painted Gooseneck low-boy flatbed semi-trailer. Even if we assume that these facts, as related to the affiant by the informant, are reliable, tested against the standards specified in State v. Willey, supra , they do not establish probable cause to believe that the defendant was concealing stolen property on his premises at the time the search warrant was issued. We have said that [w]hen allegedly criminal conduct is to be penetrated by a search, the search must be based on more than mere suspicion. State v. Gamage, Me., 340 A.2d 1, 15 (1975). The information supplied by the informant does not rise above the level of suspicion. In light of this conclusion, we find it unnecessary to discuss whether the affidavit satisfied the requirements of Aquilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964), relating to information supplied by informants.