Court Opinion

ID: 9792694
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:34:46.08667+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:44.707885
License: Public Domain

MACY, Chief Justice,
specially concurring.
I concur in the disposition of this ease, but I write separately because I am uncomfortable with what appears to be condonation of “false” information contained in an affidavit supporting a search warrant. I recognize that United States Supreme Court decisions interpreting the United States Constitution, and similar decisions by many of our sister states, have held that such a warrant may be upheld and that the fruits of the search may be used as evidence even though some of the material information included in the affidavit has been proven to be false. See Wanda Ellen Wakefield, Annotation, Disputation of Truth of Matters Stated in Affidavit in Support of Search Warrant—Modern Cases, 24 A.L.R. 4th 1266 (1983). However, we are free to find a greater protection within the provisions of our own constitution than is afforded under the United States Constitution. Brenner v. City of Casper, 723 P.2d 558, 561 (Wyo.1986) (citing City of Pasco v. Mace, 98 Wash.2d 87, 653 P.2d 618, 623 (1983) (en banc)).
I am of the opinion that we should not interpret the Wyoming Constitution in such a manner as to allow the use of material false statements in an affidavit to support a search warrant regardless of whether the statements were made with the intent to deceive or through mere negligence. Our constitution provides: “[N]o warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by affidavit.” Wyo. Const, art. 1, § 4. False statements which are material can never be the foundation for probable cause!
I am able to concur in the result here only because I would not characterize the Georgia agent’s statement in the affidavit as being “false.” The statement at issue here is at most an example of confusion: “Confusion is a rather general term suggesting any mixing, blending, adding together that blurs identities and distinctions or any result of such mixing.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 477 (1961). The statement contained in the affidavit confused a body of information concerning taped telephone conversations between an informant and the appellant’s sister, as well as other facts pertinent to the overall investigation. Had the material information which was available to the Georgia agent been more clearly stated in the affidavit, the affidavit would have been as sound as it was with the confused version of those facts.