Court Opinion

ID: 9563793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:47:21.997711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:04.751981
License: Public Domain

VAN HOOMISSEN, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the majority opinion. I write separately to express my opinion that the legislature should follow the lead of the United States Supreme Court and abandon the Aguilar/Spinelli1 “two-pronged” test that is codified in ORS 133.545(4).2
In Illinois v. Gates, 462 US 213, 103 S Ct 2317,76 L Ed 2d 527, reh den 463 US 1237 (1983), the United States Supreme Court concluded that the “two-pronged” test exalted form over substance:
“[T]he ‘two-pronged test’ has encouraged an excessively technical dissection of informants’ tips with undue attention being focused on isolated issues that cannot sensibly be divorced from the other facts presented to the magistrate.
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“The rigorous inquiry into the Spinelli prongs and the complex superstructure of evidentiary and, analytical rules that some have seen implicit in our Spinelli decision, cannot be reconciled with the fact that many warrants are — quite properly — issued on the basis of nontechnical, common-sense judgments of laymen applying a standard less demanding than those used in more formal legal proceedings. Likewise, given the informal, often hurried context in which it must be applied, the ‘built-in subtleties’ of the ‘two-pronged test’ are particularly unlikely to assist magistrates in determining probable cause.
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“[T]he direction taken by decisions following Spinelli poorly serves ‘[t]he most basic function of any government’: ‘to provide for the security of the individual and of his property.’ The strictures that inevitably accompany the ‘two-pronged test’ cannot avoid seriously impeding the task of law enforcement.” 462 US at 234. (Footnotes and citations omitted.)
*305The drafters of ORS 133.545 only intended that the statutory requirement as to content of the allegations in an affidavit reflect the Fourth Amendment requirements as expressed in then existing and forseeable decisions of the United State Supreme Court. State v. Russell, 293 Or 469, 473, 650 P2d 79 (1982). Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution is similarly construed. State v. Souders, 74 Or App 123, 128, 700 P2d 1050 (1985).
Although an informant’s veracity, reliability and basis of knowledge continue to be relevant in determining the value of the informant’s information under the totality of circumstances test, see Illinois v. Gates, supra, 462 US at 230, they should only be factors to be considered by a magistrate in determining whether probable cause is shown.

Aguilar v. Texas, 378 US 108, 84 S Ct 1509, 12 L Ed 2d 723 (1964); Spinelli v. United States, 393 US 410, 89 S Ct 584, 21 L Ed 2d 637 (1969).

ORS 133.545(4) provides, in relevant part:
“If an affidavit is based in whole or in part on hearsay, the affiant shall set forth facts bearing on any unnamed informant’s reliability and shall disclose, as far as possible, the means by which the information was obtained.”