Court Opinion

ID: 9749847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 13:58:03.275856+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:32.850379
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Pomeroy:
I am unable to agree that the existence of probable cause as the pre-condition for the issuance of a search warrant, a basic constitutional requirement, can be satisfied by testimony given months later, after challenge to a warrant has been made, to the effect that the police officer orally and while under oath told the magistrate more than the supporting affidavit discloses. I therefore respectfully dissent.
No one disputes that the search warrant affidavit in the present case was constitutionally defective: it contained no indication whatever of the reliability of the unidentified informant. See, e.g., Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 12 L. Ed. 2d 723 (1964) ; Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 21 L. Ed. 2d 637 (1969); United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 29 L. Ed. 2d 723 (1971). Over four months after use of the warrant1 a hearing was held on appellant’s motion to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant. At this hearing the issuing magistrate and the police officer stated that the detective had given additional sworn testimony of reliability, namely, that the informant had led the police to the body of a person allegedly murdered by the accused. Assuming, arguendo, that this information was sufficient to supply the element of reliability, the question is whether the original deficiency of the warrant affidavit can be repaired in this manner. As indicated, I think not. I am persuaded that if the written and signed affidavit showing probable cause is not *319able to stand on its own feet, any supplementation thereof in the form of sworn oral statements must be reduced to writing contemporaneously;2 otherwise, the ex post facto reconstruction violates both the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures contained in the Fourth Amendment.
(1) A suppression hearing is essentially an appeal from a magistrate’s initial determination that probable cause exists for the issuance of a warrant. The Supreme Court of the United States has characterized suppression proceedings in terms of appellate procedure: “Although the reviewing court will pay substantial deference to judicial determinations of probable cause, the court must still insist that the magistrate perform his neutral and detached’ function and not serve merely as a rubber stamp for the police”. (Emphasis added.) Aguilar v. Texas, supra, at 111. It is by now well established that the federal Constitution requires that when the right to appeal a judicial order is granted, there must be a record of sufficient completeness to permit “proper consideration of [appellant’s] claims”, and “adequate and effective appellate review”. Mayer v. City of Chicago, 404 U.S. 189, 30 L. Ed. 2d 372 (1971). *320See also, Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 20, 100 L. Ed. 891 (1956) ; Commonwealth v. Anderson, 441 Pa. 483, 272 A. 2d 877 (1971). TMs court held in Anderson that “while a transcript per se is not an absolute due process necessity, there must at least be an equivalent ‘picture’ of what transpired below”. Id. at 493. In this analogous situation, I am satisfied that the testimony of police officers or a magistrate at a trial or suppression hearing concerning what occurred at some earlier time when the warrant issued cannot provide such an “equivalent picture”.
The record in the present case illustrates the hazards inherent in relying on the memories of those present at the time a warrant is issued. As stated above, appellant’s suppression hearing was held more than four months after the challenged search. At that hearing, as the majority opinion states, “Detective Burbush was initially unable to recall giving any oral testimony whatsoever. The magistrate, while acknowledging the existence of the sworn oral testimony, admitted that his memory was dimmed by the fact that the proceeding was ‘some time ago’ ”. It is not surprising that the recollections of these witnesses were clouded. During a four month period a policeman normally makes numerous search warrant requests to a magistrate who must, in every case, make an independent review of the sworn facts presented to him and determine whether they constitute probable cause. To expect officer and magistrate to recall with accuracy at some later time what transpired on each such occasion is to place an impossible burden on the individual officials and an onerous burden on the efficient administration of justice.
In a different but analogous context the United States Supreme Court has pertinently observed: “the consequences of failure to provide an appeal, to record *321the [juvenile court] proceedings, . . . may be to throw a burden upon the machinery for habeas corpus, to saddle the reviewing process with the burden of attempting to reconstruct a record, and to impose upon the Juvenile Judge the unseemly duty of testifying under cross-examination as to the events that transpired in the hearings before him.” In Re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 58, 18 L. Ed. 2d 527 (1967). To require a magistrate to reconstruct his grounds for determining probable cause from what must often be a cloudy memory is equally “unseemly”, and as in this case and several others that are presently pending in this court, both the suppression court and the appellate court are saddled with the burden of attempting to reconstruct a record.3
The dangers alluded to above have recently been well expressed by Judge Ely of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, dissenting in Boyer v. Arizona, 455 F. 2d 804 at 807-808 (1972) : “The problem inherent in relying upon belated oral testimony to find that the existence of probable cause was demonstrated at an earlier hearing is obvious. Memories are blurred by the passage of time and by the wisdom gained through hindsight. Critical facts may be forgotten, and the possible initial uncertainty of the affiant may vanish when the search proves to be fruitful. Inadvertent additions to the remembered conversations are not unlikely. ... I believe that the risk of error we are asked to ignore in this case places an intolerable restriction upon our power effectively to review a magistrate’s decision as to probable cause.”
(2) In the interest of protecting the right of all citizens to be free from unreasonable searches, the *322Fourth Amendment requires that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation. ...” Concededly, that amendment has been construed to allow sworn oral testimony to be given to the magistrate, and does not expressly require the making of a contemporaneous record of the facts relied upon to provide probable cause.4 While the United States Supreme Court has not spoken directly to this point, the whole philosophy of Aguilar,' Spinelli and Harris, supra, as I read them, is to require the information about an informant which is necessary to establish probable cause to be readily demonstrable as of the time the probable cause was allegedly made out. This is not susceptible of being accomplished in any way other than a record, which means a contemporaneous writing; the cited Supreme Court opinions appear to presuppose affidavits or the equivalent as the vehicle through which probable cause is made to appear.
It is worth observing that the Fourth Amendment is also silent as to the effect of violation of its terms. Nowhere does it state that evidence seized without probable cause shall be excluded at trial. Without the exclusionary rule, however, the assurance of freedom from unreasonable searches or seizures, whether state or federal, would be, as the Supreme Court has said, merely “ ‘a form of words’, valueless and undeserving of mention in a perpetual charter of inestimable human liberties”. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 6 L. Ed. 1081 (1961); see also Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 58 L. Ed. 652 (1914). By the same token, so it *323seems to me, the Amendment to be effective reasonably requires a contemporary written record as to probable cause, whether it be an affidavit or a transcription of sworn oral statements outside the affidavit.
The Court, finding no constitutional violation, nevertheless recognizes the dangers which inhere in the present practice. It proposes to avoid them by a rale of criminal procedure. I applaud this recourse in a proper case, but no rule for the future can serve to restore to appellant Milliken, and the others similarly situated whose cases are before us,5 what I consider to have been a deprivation of the constitutional requirement of probable cause, and of due process in reviewing the magistrate’s finding that such cause existed.

 The warrant was issued on July 22, 1968; the suppression hearing was held on December 3, 1968.

 I agree with Justice Mand'ertno, in his separate dissenting opinion herein, that Article I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution of Pennsylvania requires not only a writing, but a writing “subscribed to by the affiant”, who is the officer supplying the information to support the issuance of a warrant. The words “subscribed to by the affiant” do not appear in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I cannot agree with the Superior Court that the only purpose of this phrase in our state constitution was “so that the accusations and the accuser’s name would be in writing”. Commonwealth v. Crawley, 209 Pa. Superior Ct. 70, 77, 223 A. 2d 885 (1966), aff'd per curiam, 432 Pa. 627, 247 A. 2d 226 (1968). Thus the Pennsylvania Constitution alone would require the granting of the suppression motion in this case. This point was not raised in the lower court or argued in this court.

 The evils of such a procedure are compounded by the fact that the magistrate’s initial determination is made at an ex parte proceeding, so that a defendant has no way to challenge these recollections.

 Commonwealth v. Crawley, 209 Pa. Superior Ct. 70, 223 A. 2d 885 (1966) ; Boyer v. Arizona, 455 F. 2d 804 (9th Cir. 1972); Lopez v. United States, 370 F. 2d 8 (5th Cir. 1966) ; Gillespie v. United States, 368 F. 2d 1 (8th Cir. 1966) ; Miller v. Sigler, 353 F. 2d 424 (8th Cir. 1965) ; Sparks v. United States, 90 F. 2d 61 (6th Cir. 1937). But see, Poldo v. United States, 55 F. 2d 866 (9th Cir. 1932).

 Six appeals, all involving the identical issue presented herein, were argued (3 for a second time) at the Fall session of the court in November, 1972, a.nd are awaiting disposition.