Court Opinion

ID: 9704869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:48:49.38758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:05.099356
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
President Judge Crumlish, Jr.:
I concur in the result only because I believe, under these circumstances, this Court is constrained to follow prior case law.
However, it is fundamentally unjust to place a policeman in the position of Officer Benvignati, who was on temporary assignment to the Organized Crime Unit and who was advised by regular officers of that unit that signing out a warrant in this manner was “standard operating procedure.”
In a police force—which rightly places a premium on chain of command and obedience to superior officers—if a policeman does not follow orders, he faces mistreatment by those superiors and his colleagues. If he does obey an order and an error in the affidavit is discovered, it is he who takes the fall. This places officers such as Benvignati in completely untenable positions, forcing them to choose between the proverbial “rock and a hard place,” knowing that their judgments, however faulty, may be second-guessed.