Court Opinion

ID: 9564433
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:00:29.144769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:24.416109
License: Public Domain

LEHMAN, Justice,
dissenting.
The focus of my dissent is how the majority applied the law to the facts of this case. Wyoming has well-settled law regarding the test of whether an affidavit in support of a search warrant contains sufficient information for the issuing judge to make an independent judgment that probable cause exists for the issuance of a search warrant. See Davis v. State, 859 P.2d 89 (Wyo.1993); Bland v. State, 803 P.2d 856 (Wyo.1990); Bonsness v. State, 672 P.2d 1291 (Wyo.1983); Ostrowski v. State, 665 P.2d 471 (Wyo.1983); Hyde v. State, 769 P.2d 376 (Wyo.1989); Smith v. State, 557 P.2d 130 (Wyo.1976).
Wyoming precedent should be the foundation of our discussions, after which we may be guided by other courts in the orderly development of the law in Wyoming. The logic contained in the majority opinion does not adhere to that principle; therefore, I respectfully dissent.
The brute fact is that not all precedent represents currency of equal value. An authoritative gradation of legal precepts does exist. Some precedents are much more important than others. Recognition that a hierarchy of value exists is essential if judges are to find the proper grounds of decision; if lawyers are to find the basis for prediction as to the course of decision; and if members of society are to find reasonable guidance toward conducting themselves in accordance with the demands of legal order. Even more important — much more important — is the necessity to bring greater order to the design of law by identifying clearly, and at the earliest opportunity, the fundamental family of law implicated in the case.
* * * * * *
The time has come for judges to simplify, rather than complicate, current legal issues. The time has come to identify *463clearly the controversy in each case, and to isolate the branch of the law governing that controversy. The first step must be to concentrate on the tree’s trunk and its main branches, rather than to fuss over the buds and blossoms which continually sprout and grow, but with the fall will be gone.
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* * * The call for more simplicity and more order in briefs and opinions will cause us not to regress, but to progress. * * * It will seek to remove from judicial decisions everything that is idiosyncratic, and in its place will attempt to establish predictability and reekonability.
Aldisert, Ruggero J., Opinion Writing, § 9.1 at 112-13 (1990).