Court Opinion

ID: 9707879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:23:46.741979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:39.270548
License: Public Domain

Heffernan, J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion fails to consider the facts of record and completely overlooks the posture of the case on this appeal. The majority opinion is apparently based upon the hypothesis, and it is only that, that the facts now considered by this court on appeal were before the magistrate at the time of the preliminary examination and probable cause was found on the basis of the evidence adduced at that hearing. The facts of record are clearly to the contrary. None of the facts which the majority relies upon to show probable cause for the police conduct and the subsequent bindover were before the magistrate at the preliminary examination. The question is not whether the verdict was sustainable on the basis of the evidence adduced at trial or that such evidence showed probable cause. The question posed by the record is whether probable cause for the arrest was shown at the preliminary examination and whether there was probable cause to bind the defendants over for trial. The majority opinion apparently proceeds on the unwarranted assumption that it is sufficient to show at trial probable cause that could have been shown at the preliminary examination but was not. The record is clear that the state did not attempt to prove probable cause at the preliminary examination. At that proceeding the state’s witnesses merely asserted that an unnamed informant was “reliable,” but no evidence was put in to show the basis for such conclusional testimony. Such information was not even offered until the time of trial.
*686There was no testimony whatsoever at the preliminary to show from what facts or from what circumstances the informant concluded that his information was reliable. Such evidence was never submitted — even at trial.
Defense counsel attempted to elicit such proof from the state’s witnesses, but the prosecutor’s objections kept out the very information which might have tended to prove probable cause. It is apparent that the magistrate erroneously thought that the Spinelli test, Spinelli v. United States (1969), 398 U. S. 410, 89 Sup. Ct. 584, 21 L. Ed. 2d 637, was not controlling in a Wisconsin case. Spinelli teaches that there is a dual test that must be met if a court is to conclude that an informant’s tip is sufficient to show probable cause that an offense has been committed. See State ex rel. Furlong v. Waukesha County Court (1970), 47 Wis. 2d 515, 177 N. W. 2d 333. There must be evidence that the person giving the information was of proved reliability and there must be a showing of the underlying circumstances revealing how the informer received his information, so that the reliability of the informant’s tip can be appraised. Because of the state’s objections and its refusal to put in affirmative testimony, probable cause for the police conduct — that is, the attempted arrest at the stop sign— was not shown. All that was shown was that the defendants, during the course of an attempted arrest, threw a substance on the street that was later shown to be heroin.
The facts shown at the preliminary, without a showing of probable cause for the police conduct, did no more than to prove an attempted illegal arrest. That being the case, the evidence obtained thereby was excludable as the “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Wong Sun v. United States (1963), 371 U. S. 471, 83 Sup. Ct. 407, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441.
Probable cause must be shown at the preliminary before a defendant is bound over for trial. An illegal ar*687rest or search cannot be bootstrapped into a legal act merely because post hoc it proves to have been correct, in the sense that a culpable party was arrested, or that evidence was made apparent that revealed guilt. The legality of the arrest or search or the discovery of contraband by other than illegal means is the condition precedent that must be satisfied if the evidence is to be admissible.
It is clear and apparently conceded by the state that probable cause was not proved at the preliminary. There was no evidence at the preliminary to show the reliability of the informer or of his information, as required by Aguilar v. Texas (1964), 378 U. S. 108, 84 Sup. Ct. 1509, 12 L. Ed. 2d 723, and Spinelli, supra.
The majority opinion completely disregards the failure of proof at the preliminary and the fact that defendants made appropriate motions that should have resulted in a dismissal at that stage.
At trial defendants sought to exclude evidence tending to show probable cause for the arrest on the ground that they had tried to elicit it at the preliminary examination, but erroneously had been prohibited by the magistrate from posing the necessary questions. The trial judge refused even to consider these objections to evidence on the ground that it would be inappropriate for him, a county judge, to overrule a circuit judge who had been acting as magistrate at the preliminary.
Even at trial the reliability of the information was supported not by the fact that there was a showing that the informer had the opportunity to secure reliable information, but rather that his information happened to prove to be correct.
The majority opinion persuasively argues that the police had probable cause for their conduct that led up to the arrest. This position is perhaps arguably correct. The argument is flawed, however, for it considers evidence that came in for the first time at trial. It is the *688theme of the majority that the police acted reasonably and had probable cause to attempt an arrest, and that it is therefore irrelevant that the prosecutor failed to show probable cause at the preliminary examination. On the contrary, sufficient proof at this point was the sine qua non of holding the defendants for trial. Probable cause was not proved at the preliminary examination, and the court was powerless to hold the defendants for trial.
Under the state of the facts shown at the preliminary examination, the magistrate had the clear duty, as provided in sec. 954.12, Stats. 1967, to order the “defendant discharged forthwith.” Defendants were denied their constitutional right to be tried upon indictment or information based upon a finding of probable cause. They were held for trial almost six months on a fatally deficient preliminary.
The effect of the majority’s ruling is to convert the preliminary examination into a nullity. Henceforth, it is apparently sufficient to bind a defendant over for trial without indictment and without probable cause being proved. Under the majority’s thinking probable cause can now be proved for the first time at trial.
It should not be the function of this court to countenance criminal convictions when, as in this case, procedural due process has not been observed.
While justice in the instant case was probably done— at least in the sense that the evidence at trial is overwhelming in its proof of the defendants’ guilt — the majority’s opinion really stands for the proposition that a citizen may be arrested where no probable cause is shown prior to the actual trial. This smacks of the philosophy that all citizens are fair game for police invasions of their privacy. If, after trial, guilt is proved, the violations of personal liberty are to be excused on the grounds that the guilty have been punished. If guilt *689is not revealed by an illegal arrest and search, the invasion of an innocent party’s rights is excused as being necessary to ferret out criminal conduct. The facts of this case show that such shortcut procedures are unnecessary and destructive of fundamental principles of due process. Here, the facts eventually revealed at trial arguably, though minimally, would perhaps have been sufficient to show probable cause at the preliminary and could have been produced then. By countenancing this sloppy prosecutorial (not police) procedure, all citizens —the innocent as well as the guilty — may be placed on trial without probable cause being shown to justify an arrest or the seizure of evidence. A “hard” case involving criminals who no doubt should be convicted should not result in bad law that may be used to invade the rights of the innocent.
The instant case is simply one that should not have gone to trial. The complaint should have been dismissed following the preliminary. If, after such dismissal, the state felt it had sufficient evidence to show probable cause for a bindover for trial, it could have commenced another preliminary examination, as provided by sec. 955.20, Stats. 1967, and then proceed with its proof of probable cause if such proof were then available.1
*690Inasmuch as the defendants were tried without proof of probable cause and without proof properly elicited at the preliminary examination to show that there was probable cause for the attempted arrest, the judgments of conviction should be set aside, with the state having the election to proceed with a second preliminary examination.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Wilkie joins in this dissent.

 Since, as the writer perceives the undisputed facts of this ease, it is the validity of the bindover for trial that is the only issue, it is unnecessary to discuss the doubtful rationale of the majority opinion. Suffice it to say, the judge who reviewed the preliminary hearing made the finding of fact that a warrant could have been secured and there were no exigent circumstances.
The majority would counter this by asserting that no crime had been committed until defendants were in illegal possession of the heroin in Milwaukee county and, therefore, no warrant was se-curable. Basic and elementary criminal law is to the contrary. See. 939.31, Stats., provides that, “Whoever, with intent that a crime be committed, agrees or combines with another for the purpose of committing that crime may, if one or more of the parties . . . does an act to effect its object . . . ,” be charged with a con*690spiracy and may be subject to penalties that do not exceed the maximum provided for the completed crime.
The information received from the informer clearly stated that Lopez and his wife were going to Chicago to pick up heroin and return it to Milwaukee. This information, if reliably obtained, as asserted by the majority, spells out the basis for a conspiracy warrant.
It is no service to law enforcement to make the fantastic assertion that inchoate or uncompleted crimes cannot be charged. The state, unlike the majority of this court, at no time asserted that no warrant was obtainable. It merely argues that it was unnecessary.