Court Opinion

ID: 9637930
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:26:53.273042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:24.652458
License: Public Domain

CAPPY, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority today authorizes the issuance of a search warrant based solely upon the uncorroborated hearsay of a confidential informant because the informant has provided reliable information in the past. In reaching that conclusion the majority has stripped the probable cause requirement of any meaning; thus, I must respectfully dissent.
Probable cause sufficient to justify the intrusion of the state into the privacy of a citizen’s life and home, is best understood as the reasonable, rational determination of a neutral and detached magistrate, that evidence of criminal activity will probably be found at the time the warrant is issued, in the place, or on the person, to be searched. See generally, Commonwealth v. Baker, 532 Pa. 121, 615 A.2d 23 (1992). The question of what quantum of information is sufficient to establish probable cause has long plagued the judiciary. Of particular concern are warrants where the affidavit of probable cause is based upon hearsay information provided by unnamed informants.
Over thirty years ago with the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. *4291509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964) and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969), a strict two-pronged test was developed to establish probable cause when the affidavit to search was premised upon information from an unnamed informant. The Aguilar/Spinelli test required that the issuing authority ascertain the informant’s “basis of knowledge,” and, the informant’s “veracity” and “reliability,” before issuing a warrant. In 1983, with its decision in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), the United States Supreme Court abrogated the Aguilar/Spinelli test, and replaced it with a less stringent approach to probable cause, referred to as “the totality of the circumstances” test. This approach to probable cause determinations was adopted by the Pennsylvania Courts in Commonwealth v. Gray, 509 Pa. 476, 503 A.2d 921 (1985).
The totality of the circumstances test was adopted to interject common sense into the process of reviewing affidavits of probable cause based upon information from unidentified informants. In abandoning the Aguilar/Spinelli test the Gates Court stated:
[W]e conclude that it is wiser to abandon the “two-pronged test” established by our decisions in Aguilar and Spinelli. In its place we reaffirm the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that traditionally has informed probable-cause determinations. The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the “veracity” and “basis of knowledge” of the persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a “substantial basis for ... concluding]” that probable cause existed.
Gates, 462 U.S. at 238-39, 103 S.Ct. at 2332. [citations omitted, footnote omitted]. The intent of the Gates Court was to encourage the magistrate to look at the warrant as a whole in order to reach a conclusion that probable cause exists. However, the totality of the circumstances test does not mean *430that even if the informant is credible, or, if the informant is reliable, we can dispense with the necessary nexus between the informant’s reliability and the basis for the informant’s knowledge. That nexus is the crucial link upon which a magistrate must rely before reasonably concluding that the affidavit sufficiently supports the probability that evidence of criminality will presently be in the location to be searched.
In the present case the affidavit of probable cause,1 read in a common sense, non-technieal fashion, tells us that within the last 24 hours an informant “recently” observed a drug sale generated by the appellant, on a public street. Further, this informant, sometime within the last two months, was in the appellant’s apartment and observed various drugs and drug paraphernalia. Also, within the last two months the informant observed people coming and going from the appellant’s apartment after 3:00 p.m. and into the late evening hours. The affiant believes the informant to be reliable because the confidential informant has provided reliable information in the past.
Assuming that the informant has been reliable in the past, what information is provided from which the magistrate could reasonably conclude that the “recently” observed drug sale is related to the distant observation of drugs in the appellant’s apartment? The time frame for the informant’s observations are quite vague. The only clear reference to time is that the informant told the affiant of all his observations within the last 24 hours. There is no valid interpretation of this affidavit by which a reasonable magistrate could determine that the information contained therein is not stale.2 Is it truly probable that drugs observed two months ago would still be in the appellant’s apartment given the common sense awareness of. most law enforcement officers that drug suppliers move their merchandise as quickly as possible? The mere belief of this *431affiant that the informant is rehable does not establish probable cause.
The majority position, that corroboration of a confidential informant’s information is unnecessary, when the informant has proven to be reliable in the past, strips the concept of reviewing warrants under the “totality of the circumstances” of the very element of common sense upon which it was founded. Under the majority approach, the magistrate no longer serves the critical function of reviewing the affidavit to ascertain with a neutral and independent eye, whether a reasonable basis has been established for relying upon the informant’s information regarding the existence of evidence of criminality in the location to be searched. Not only does the majority position relieve the affiant of any obligation to corroborate the information, the affiant is further relieved of the duty to ascertain that the evidence is at the location to be searched at the time the warrant is to be executed. The magistrate now serves no other purpose than to rubber stamp the affidavit of probable cause whenever the affiant swears to the past reliability of the informant.
As the majority today guts the probable cause requirement of any substance, and authorizes the issuance of search warrants based solely on the untimely, uncorroborated, hearsay statements of unnamed informants, I dissent.
FLAHERTY, J., joins this dissenting opinion.

. The entire affidavit is set forth in the Majority opinion at page 422-423.

. The necessity of establishing a time frame for the informant's observation of criminal activity is an essential element of probable cause. See, Commonwealth v. Edmunds, 526 Pa. 374, 586 A.2d 887 (1991).