Court Opinion

ID: 9513768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:40:24.103604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:01.800022
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
[¶ 17] I concur in the majority opinion. We rely on or distinguish many of our precedents involving “no-knock” warrants in deciding the issue of the validity of a search warrant authorizing a nighttime search. Indeed, much of the underlying constitutional rationale is the same, and, under our current statutes and rules, probable cause is required for both the “no-knock” and nighttime search warrants. We have rejected a per-se rule justifying a “no-knock” warrant and we now reject a per-se rule on the issuance of nighttime warrants.
[¶ 18] I write separately to note that while we reject the per-se presumption that drugs are “easily disposed of” to justify either the “no-knock” or nighttime search warrant, the term “easily disposed of’ has significantly different temporal meanings in the two contexts. In the “no-knock” warrant the term “easily disposed of’ refers to the ability to dispose of drugs in the very brief time between the knock and the entry if a knock were required. In the context of the nighttime search *239warrant the time which would elapse between execution and the entry, if no nighttime search warrant were issued, is much greater and the term “easily disposed of’ logically refers to disposition other than, for example, flushing down the toilet or swallowing the drug. Thus evidence that a subject of a search warrant consumed or delivered drugs within a few hours of their receipt or made deliveries in the nighttime hours would justify issuance of a nighttime search warrant. Perhaps that is what the magistrate, relying on similar words Officer Eisenmann used in testifying at the hearing on the Application for Search Warrant, meant in this instance when authorizing the nighttime warrant because of “the odd hours maintained by the subject. ...” However that is far from clear to me and it would be speculation at best to determine that is what the officer or magistrate meant and, further, that meaning would not be substantiated by .the evidence offered in support of the Application.
[¶ 19] DALE V. SANDSTROM, J., concurs.