Court Opinion

ID: 9487059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:07:15.366221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:04.725464
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I concur in the majority’s decision affirming defendant George’s sentence. I disagree with the majority’s decision regarding Sona-gere’s suppression motion. The affidavit in support of the search warrant did not support a finding of probable cause and no reasonable police officer would have relied on the validity of the warrant. The seized evidence should have been suppressed.
The majority, citing Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), relies completely on the “extreme” richness of detail provided by the anonymous “information source.” In the majority’s view, that detail combined with the suspiciousness of two men welding the hinges of a door shut provide probable cause to issue a search warrant.
The majority is forced to overlook the many troubling aspects of this case and to give strained interpretations to Gates and Leake in order to reach their result. The “information source” here had never been used by the police before, the police officer testified that he had no basis to judge the source’s credibility or reliability, the affidavit failed to provide any indication of the reliability of the source, the affidavit failed to state whether the source knew the name or names of the persons who owned the contraband or leased the warehouse, it failed to provide any date or dates upon which the source saw the contraband other than to say it was within the last ten days, it failed to set forth how the source was able to gain entry into the warehouse and it failed to describe any planned future activity that could have been verified by the police.
Even more troubling, the police officers did nothing to corroborate any of the information or develop independent information that might supplement that of the information source. After the police received the information they merely drove by the ware*55house and noticed two nervous individuals welding a door shut. That corroborates nothing that the “information source” told to the police and in no way indicates that marijuana is being grown inside the warehouse.
The majority is correct that rich detail can be an important element in assessing an anonymous tip. Detail becomes compelling, as in Gates, when the police are able to corroborate it through independent police work. “The court’s decision in Gates rested primarily upon the very specific details in the letter, and the subsequent thorough police confirmation of many of those details.” United States v. Leake, 998 F.2d 1359, 1363 (6th Cir.1993) (emphasis added). In this case, the police failed to follow the dictates of Gates or Leake when they failed to do any investigation before applying for the search warrant, a basic principle which the Court has ignored.
If the majority is correct that detail is all that is needed to support a search warrant, the Fourth Amendment will no longer be any constraint or check on the issuance of search warrants. Any “detailed” information, uncorroborated by the police, from virtually any unknown, unreliable source, would support issuance of a search warrant. That cannot possibly be the meaning of probable cause under the Fourth Amendment. Now any sort of fabricated information designed to harass an enemy will get a search warrant issued. A home is not much of a castle anymore. The great drug war of our times has reduced the castle to a hovel where the state may presume that marijuana is grown.