Court Opinion

ID: 9759185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:08:22.015964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:00.052575
License: Public Domain

John I. Purtle, Justice, dissenting. The majority opinion is an excellent statement of the law with the exception of its reliance on Toland v. State, 285 Ark. 415, 688 S.W.2d 718 (1985), and McFarland v. State, 284 Ark. 533, 684 S.W.2d 233 (1985) in affirming the present appeal. The majority misinterprets Toland, and McFarland is not on point. I believe that the case before us is controlled by State v. Anderson, 286 Ark. 58, 688 S.W.2d 947 (1985) which we held was controlled by the “good faith” exception established in Leon. In Anderson there was no affidavit or recorded testimony to support the search warrant. The officer executing the search warrant was the same officer who applied for the warrant. He knew that there was no affidavit on file, therefore, he could not have been acting in good faith under the Leon doctrine. We stated in Anderson'. Leon holds “objective good faith reliance” by a police officer upon the acceptance of affidavit by a detached, neutral magistrate will avoid application of the exclusionary rule in the event the magistrate’s assessment is found to be in error. Under this rationale the exclusionary rule is designed to deter misconduct on the part of the police rather than to punish errors of judges and magistrates, and admitting evidence seized pursuant to a defective warrant will not reduce incentives on the part of judicial officers to comply with the dictates of the Fourth Amendment. 104 S.Ct. 3418. Massachusetts v. Sheppard, [104 S.Ct. 3424] a companion case to Leon, applied the Leon rule to technical deficiencies in the warrant and found the officers had acted in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant which was technically inadequate. The above quoted statement is a fair summary of the Leon opinion. However, we anchored the Anderson opinion upon the basic procedural safeguards afforded a defendant under the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure. In Anderson, this Court stated: “We review that particular section [A.R.Cr.P.] Rule 13.1 as a threshold requirement before we consider the question of good faith on the part of the police.” The pertinent part of the rule concerns the reliability of the information furnished by informants. If an affidavit for a search warrant is based upon hearsay the affiant or witness “shall set forth particular facts bearing upon the informant’s reliability and shall disclose, as far as practicable, the means by which the information was obtained.” A.R.Cr.P. Rule 13.1 (b). No facts bearing on the reliability of the informant were contained in the affidavit in this case, neither were they presented to the magistrate. Therefore, the threshold requirement was not satisfied. Neither the rule nor the law has changed since we decided Anderson. The affidavit in the case at bar is absolutely silent as to the particular facts bearing upon the reliability of the informant. The affidavit in this case stated: “Reliable informant advised affiant that he gave another boy $20.00 to get him some marijuana and watched him go to Spike Jackson’s house. . . .” In fact neither boy was ever identified, thereby making it impossible for the appellant to investigate the informant’s reliability. There were no reasons given why the informant should remain unknown. The affiant in the present case was a deputy sheriff. There is no reason to believe that the officers who executed the search warrant did not know that the supporting affidavit must state facts bearing upon the informant’s reliability. The warrant itself clearly reveals that it was based upon the hearsay information of a “confidential informant.” Such information should have been a warning to the executing officers. There can be no “good faith” reliance by an officer on a warrant which he knows is invalid. This type of action does not come within the Leon “good faith” exception. The result reached in the majority opinion is partially based on a misunderstanding of our decision in Toland v. State, supra. We upheld the warrant there under the totality of the circumstances test stated in Thompson v. State, 280 Ark. 265, 658 S.W.2d 350 (1983), and opined that the search could also have been upheld under the Leon rule. The decision in Toland is inapposite to the present appeal because the search warrant in that case was not based upon information furnished by an informant. Toland had cultivated an outdoor patch of marijuana. The investigating officer was the affiant and his information was based upon his own personal knowledge. True, an informant furnished the officer information which was used in investigating the case. However, the reliability of the informant was no longer at issue after the officer confirmed, by land and air, that Toland was indeed growing marijuana. In my opinion both Anderson and Toland were correctly decided. We have established a line of cases interpreting Leon and we should hold to those decisions. All of the reasons stated in the majority opinion require reversal. The majority opinion effectively emasculates A.R.Cr.P. Rule 13.1(b) without any warning. The purpose of the rule is to provide built-in safeguards against unreasonable searches. The majority today holds that as long as the police are “acting in good faith,” it is irrelevant whether the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure have been complied with. The bench and bar of this state should be able to rely upon our own rules until they are prospectively changed. The rules should not be changed during the game. I would reverse.