Court Opinion

ID: 9759048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:01:25.827854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:58.571905
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
Even under the more relaxed standard for evaluating the existence of probable cause under Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) as adopted by this Court in Commonwealth v. Gray, 509 Pa. 476, 503 A.2d 921 (1985), I cannot condone the majority’s total departure from objective evaluation and in its stead embrace a wholly subjective ethereal world where “criminal events ... have a life of their own, in which hours and days are measured not by clocks and calendars, but rather by who will be watching; and when will the coast be clear.” Majority Opinion at 28. While I concede that the “totality of the circumstances” test does introduce an element of subjectivi*31ty into the evaluation, that subjectivity is viewed against specific, objective facts, which are subject to examination and analysis, not “guesstimation”.
If in fact “[m]any police informants, particularly in drug related offenses, themselves often victims, are hard pressed to know night from morning, and live a permanent dateless time”, Maj.Opinion at 28, then I certainly must question the ability of those same disoriented informants to reliably name a specific actor rather than a range of actors. I certainly cannot comprehend that the quantum leap suggested by the majority today was ever intended under the relaxed standard of Commonwealth v. Gray. That test at its very minimum contemplates viewing objective facts in the light of experience or circumstances, however there must first be objective facts from which to apply that subjective element. Here we have no specific, objective facts, merely conjecture from which the majority now asks the magistrate to exact enough certainty to rise to the level of probable cause. This I cannot accept. Therefore, I must dissent.