Court Opinion

ID: 9598741
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:11:22.159857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:54.702896
License: Public Domain

Weaver, J.
(dissenting) — I dissent for two interrelated reasons.
Use of Affidavit
The majority opinion states that:
Some of the factors considered by this, court in determining that probable cause for the arrest existed, were attested to in this affidavit [of Detectives Sprinkle- and Waitt] without contradiction by petitioner, but were not *362established in the record of the trial court proceedings. (Italics mine.)
I do not believe that the permissible scope of judicial inquiry in habeas corpus allows the consideration of an ex parte affidavit that has not been invited by an allegation of the petitioner that can be said to have “opened the door.” If the door has been opened by allegations of petitioner which are dehors the record, an answering statement under oath indicates to us the evidence that would be produced upon a factual hearing. If the “door has not been opened” by allegations of petitioner, the affidavit becomes nothing more than an attempt of the state to bolster an otherwise weak case which has been attacked by habeas corpus.
As I read In re Somday v. Rhay, 67 Wn.2d 180, 406 P.2d 931 (1965), it is not to the contrary and cannot be said to stand for the broad proposition for which the majority cites it. Two affidavits were involved in Somday. There was no objection to one which fixed the location of a highway on patented land; the other was proper since it was made in response to an allegation made by petitioner regarding facts outside the record. In the instant case, the affidavit is an attempt to supplement the trial record.
The dangers inherent in the consideration of such an affidavit are well-illustrated by the instant affidavit, which was submitted 5% years after the trial. Memories tend to become weaker rather than stronger with the passage of time.
The majority opinion states that:
Petitioner objects to our consideration of this affidavit, arguing that to do so would violate petitioner’s right of confrontation and cross-examination, which right is essential to due process of law as required by the Sixth Amendment and made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
To my mind, to point out that habeas corpus is a civil proceeding is no answer to petitioner’s contention that the affidavit invades his constitutional rights.
The availability of a procedure to regain liberty lost through criminal process cannot be made contingent upon *363a choice of labels. Smith v. Bennett, 365 U.S. 708, 6 L. Ed. 2d 39, 81 Sup. Ct. 895 (1961).
Although the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution may be limited to criminal proceedings, the concept of due process is not.
I do not believe that consideration of the affidavit signed by Detectives Sprinkle and Waitt was consistent with due process of law. Accordingly, I feel that the majority’s expansion of the scope of habeas corpus review is not only fundamentally unfair but will create unnecessarily complicated problems in future habeas corpus proceedings.
Probable Cause
Even assuming arguendo that consideration of the affidavit here involved was proper, I nevertheless cannot conclude that the six factors discussed in the majority opinion establish “probable cause” that a felony had been, was being, or was about to be committed.
Although petitioner may have been a “suspect” he cannot be arrested simply because he is a known narcotics user. Just as a person cannot be made subject to criminal prosecution on the sole basis of his “status” as a narcotics addict,1 he cannot be made subject to arrest, the probable cause for which is his “status.” Yet a careful reading of the record discloses that is what happened in this case. The conclusion of probable cause for arrest without warrant cannot be derived from the six factors relied upon by the majority.
Factors (1) and (5) are truisms, and as related to the conclusion of probable cause are nqn sequiturs. Factor (2) only establishes petitioner’s “status,” which cannot be the basis of “probable cause” for his arrest without warrant. Further, the information provided by the informers was not new to the officers. The insignificance of factors (3) and (4) is apparent from a reading of the record. Petitioner was observed, and became the subject of pursuit, a distance in excess of one mile away from the site at which he was *364allegedly picking up heroin. There was no evidence that petitioner was coming from Jackson Street. The significance of factor (6) is destroyed by factor (1). Petitioner’s admission that he was “loaded on goofers” does not furnish the missing link. Detective Sprinkle in his affidavit designated the capsule he saw on petitioner’s tongue as “nem-butal,” which he admitted at the trial was a nonnarcotic barbiturate form of sleeping pill. The fact that petitioner was “loaded on goofers” explains why he was staggering at the time of the arrest. Possession of something recognized as a nonnarcotic does not furnish probable cause to arrest someone for the crime of unlawful possession of narcotics.
Rosellini, C. J., concurs with Weaver, J.
July 13, 1966. Petition for rehearing denied.

Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 8 L. Ed. 2d 758, 82 Sup. Ct. 1417 (1962).