Court Opinion

ID: 9461271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:10:14.28007+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:58.596528
License: Public Domain

LAY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from Part I of the majority opinion which holds that the magistrate had probable cause to issue the search warrant. The legal question of when probable cause to issue a search warrant exists is a recurring one but, in my judgment, the legal principles involved are now crystallized. I believe they establish reasonable tests which are objective in nature and relatively simple in application.
The two-pronged test of Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964), requires the magistrate to find, on the basis of the showing made, (1) underlying circumstances sufficient to demonstrate the credibility of the informant or the reliability of his information, and (2) the underlying circumstances from which the informant reliably reached the conclusion that criminal activity was involved.
In the present case, the majority agrees that the second part of the Aguilar test “has not been satisfied here because the affidavit revealed nothing as to how the informant reached his conclusion that the truck contained slot machines.” Reliance is then placed on this court’s opinion in United States v. Marihart, 472 F.2d 809 (8th Cir. 1972) (Lay and Heaney, JJ., dissenting), which indicates that probable cause may still exist if the information before the magistrate “is sufficiently detailed, or sufficiently corroborated, to supply as much trustworthiness as does the Aguilar test.” Id. at 813. The court in Marihart relied on United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971), and Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959). However, eonclusory statements such as “sufficient detail” or “sufficient corroboration” fail to explain the reasoning behind the result in those cases. Marihart, Harris and Draper held, essentially, that the factual basis for the information contained in an affidavit need not be contained in the affidavit if the information disclosed is such that it could only have been the re-*332suit of “firsthand observation and activity” by the informant. Marihart, supra, 472 F.2d at 814. Cf. McCreary v. Sigler, 406 F.2d 1264, 1268-1269 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 984, 89 S.Ct. 2149, 23 L.Ed.2d 773 (1969).
Thus, in Harris, as in Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1969), the affidavit recited
. . . personal and recent observations by an unidentified informant of criminal activity factor showing that the information had been gained in a reliable manner, and serving to distinguish both tips from that held insufficient in Spinelli, ... in which the affidavit failed to explain how the informant came by his information. (Emphasis added.)
403 U.S. at 579, 91 S.Ct. at 2080.1
In Marihart the affidavit stated that the informant’s tip had b'een partially verified by a police officer who observed three men as they unloaded a large pasteboard box, believed to contain the stolen firearms, and placed it in a vacant apartment. The affidavit in Mari-hart described clandestine activity, thus borrowing from Harris (the observed criminal activity), and from Draper (extensive corroboration of the informant’s tip).
In the present ease there was no reference to any personal observation of criminal activity. There was nothing in what the affidavit related which indicated firsthand knowledge of criminal activity. Cf. McCreary v. Sigler, supra. The affidavit merely described a truck and its license number and correctly identified its driver, owner and destination. This fails to indicate in any way firsthand knowledge of criminal activity. This is no different from the agents being told that the defendant in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969), lived at a certain apartment address and had unlisted telephone numbers. Verification of the information concerning the truck’s destination did no more to complete the affidavit in this case than did the verification of the information concerning Spinelli’s readily observable movements in that case. It is true that this fact tended to corroborate the informant’s tip, but it hardly reveals minute details from which firsthand knowledge of the criminal activity could be reliably implied. It did not afford the same level or degree of corroboration found in Draper, where the Court held that a detailed description of the alleged offender provided reasonable grounds to believe that information concerning criminal activity was based on first hand observation.
In United States v. Mitchell, 425 F.2d 1353 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 853, 91 S.Ct. 85, 27 L.Ed.2d 90 (1970), Judge Blackmun observed that Draper turns on the same judicial standard set forth in Aguilar and Spinelli. In commenting on Draper, the Supreme Court observed in Spinelli:
A magistrate, when confronted with such detail, could reasonably infer that the informant had gained his information in a reliable way. . . .
Nor do we believe that the patent doubts Aguilar raises as to the report’s reliability are adequately re*333solved by a consideration of the allegations detailing the FBI’s independent, investigative efforts .... Once again, Draper provides a relevant comparison. Independent police work in that case corroborated much more than one small detail that had been provided by the informant. There, the police, upon meeting the inbound Denver train on the second morning specified by informer Hereford, saw a man whose dress corresponded precisely to Hereford’s detailed description. It was then apparent that the informant had not been fabricating his report out of whole cloth; since the report was of the sort which in common experience may be recognized as having been obtained in a reliable way, it was perfectly clear that probable cause had been established. (Emphasis added.)
393 U.S. at 417-418, 89 S.Ct. at 589.
Information that a person is going to travel from one town to another (especially if he lives in the latter community) is hardly of the sort that common experience, sense or logic finds so unusual or indicative of personal knowledge or observation that the reliability of allegations of criminal activity may be premised upon it.
The exclusionary rule by which illegally seized evidence is not admissible at trial is seldom understood by laymen or law enforcement officials who zealously attempt to rid crime-infested cities of criminals. Emotional attacks are continually made on its efficacy and continuing viability. The Fourth Amendment right, which the exclusionary rule seeks to protect, i. e., the right to enjoy the sanctity and privacy of one’s person and home free from unlawful governmental intrusion, is, however, fundamental. It is one of the basic rights separating all of us from a totalitarian state.
It is of fundamental importance, if the rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment are to remain inviolate, that law enforcement officials fully comprehend the line of demarcation between a legal and an illegal search. Magistrates, unless they profess to be a mere conduit for issuance of illegal warrants, must be able to easily discern the legal requirements of probable cause. This will never occur as long as we premise lawful searches on quantitative standards which turn only on the subjective analysis of these officials.
If the law governing search and seizure is to have any clarity, the principles governing sufficiency of probable cause must be objectively defined. A valid search cannot turn on conclusory affidavits which contain neither an express nor an implied revelation of the underlying circumstances by which the information is acquired. None was shown here and the evidence should have . been suppressed.

. In Jones the affidavit read :
[O]n many occasions the source of information has gone to said apartment and purchased narcotic drugs from the above-mentioned persons and that the narcotics were secreated [sic] in the above mentioned places. The last time being August 20, 1957.
362 U.S. at 267-268 n. 2, 80 S.Ct. at 734.
In Harris the affidavit read :
This person has personal knowledge of and has purchased illicit whiskey from within the residence described, for a period of more than 2 years, and most recently within the past two weeks, has knowledge of a person who purchased illicit whiskey within the past two days from the house, has personal knowledge that the illicit whiskey is consumed by purchasers in the outbuilding known as and utilized as the “dance hall,” and has seen Roosevelt Harris go to the other outbuilding, located about 50 yards from the residence, on numerous occasions, to obtain the whiskey for this person and other persons.
403 U.S. at 575-576, 91 S.Ct. at 2078.