Court Opinion

ID: 9536111
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:55:02.897835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:27.460722
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur in part and dissent in part.
The petitioner is entitled to one of two alternatives. The trial court gave him neither; that was error. The majority generously give him both; that is equally erroneous.
If the affidavit for the warrant is defective because (a) the facts related in the conversation are not matters within the personal knowledge of the informant (People v. Hamilton (1969) 71 Cal.2d 176, 180 [77 Cal.Rptr. 785, 454 P.2d 681]), or (b) no facts are shown relating the underlying circumstances of how the informant knows the conversants were present at the scene (Spinelli v. United States (1969) 393 U.S. 410 [21 L.Ed.2d 637, 89 S.Ct. 584]), then clearly the informant was not a material witness and his disclosure should not be compelled. On the other hand, if the informant appears to be a percipient witness to the events at issue and his identity must therefore be revealed, it follows that the affidavit based upon his information does not fall into the category of impermissible hearsay.
The majority hold the informer was not present for purposes of the affidavit, but he was present for purposes of disclosure. The incongruity is too glaring to require belaboring.
I would require the disclosure of the informant because the affidavit for the warrant implies in several instances that he had personal knowledge of significant events. The terms “personal knowledge” and “known by him” are code words meaning firsthand knowledge which can be obtained only by physical • presence. The informer was thus a material witness and his *845identity must be revealed by the People or they must incur a dismissal. (Honore v. Superior Court (1969) 70 Cal.2d 162, 167 [74 Cal.Rptr. 233, 449 P.2d 169].)
By that same token, however, the informer’s information related in the police officer’s affidavit is reduced from hearsay upon hearsay to mere hearsay. It is clear, of course, that an affidavit may be based upon hearsay if there are underlying circumstances related in support thereof. (Aguilar v. Texas (1964) 378 U.S. 108 [12 L.Ed.2d 723, 84 S.Ct. 1509].) The following underlying circumstances adequately buttress the hearsay in the affidavit:
(1) the officer set forth with sufficiency the basis upon which he knew the informant to be reliable;
(2) the informant had personal knowledge—i.e., he saw—a rifle with a telescopic sight in possession of the petitioner two days before the crime involved was committed;
(3) the crime was of such a nature that it could have been committed most readily from a distance by the use of a rifle with a telescopic sight;
(4) the petitioner lived in the vicinity in which the offense was committed;
(5) the officer knew “upon his personal knowledge”—not hearsay— that petitioner was present one block from the area where the assault took place shortly after the assault;
(6) the crime involved a serious breach of the peace, and the necessity for immediate solution, as well as for the prevention of further violence, indicated exigent circumstances.
Thus the authorities had the petitioner placed at or near the scene of a crime of violence, close to the time the offense was committed, and they had him in recent possession of the type of lethal weapon most likely used in the assault. This combination of corroborative allegations, under exigent circumstances, adequately meets the test for determining the sufficiency of an affidavit for the issuance of a search warrant, as prescribed by People v. Stout (1967) 66 Cal.2d 184, 192-193 [57 Cal.Rptr. 152, 424 P.2d 704], namely, “whether the facts contained in the affidavit are such as would lead a man of ordinary caution or prudence to believe, and conscientiously entertain, a strong suspicion of the guilt of the accused.” To the foregoing rule must be added the Spinelli caveat that the test to be applied by the magistrate is that “based upon a common sense reading of the entire affidavit.”
*846The majority cling to the rhetoric but overlook the ratio decidendi of Aguilar and Spinelli. It is, as noted on pages 110-111 of Aguilar, that an “evaluation of the constitutionality of a search warrant should begin with the rule that ‘the informed and deliberate determinations of magistrates empowered to issue warrants ... are to be preferred over the hurried action of officers and that the protection of the Fourth Amendment consists in requiring that the inferences of reasonable men “ ‘be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.’ ”
The affidavit for this warrant was detailed, not merely an abbreviated form. It was submitted to a neutral and detached magistrate. It was thoughtfully reviewed in a 10-page memorandum by the superior court judge. It was reviewed again by the- Court of Appeal, which denied petitions for prohibition and mandate. I cannot hold that all three courts erroneously approved the issuance of the warrant.
In finding error, the majority now add another to the unfortunate congeries of cases that can only have an inhibiting effect upon law enforcement agencies which seek in good faith to comply with the public policy favoring reliance upon warrants instead of probable cause. (See my dissents in People v. Sesslin (1968) 68 Cal.2d 418, 431 [67 Cal.Rptr. 409, 439 P.2d 321]; People v. Hamilton (1969) supra, 71 Cal.2d 176, 183; People v. Scoma (1969) 71 Cal.2d 332, 340 [78 Cal.Rptr. 491, 455 P.2d 419].)
I would grant a peremptory writ of mandate directing the respondent superior court to order the disclosure of the identity of the confidential informer, but I would deny a writ ordering suppression of evidence.