Court Opinion

ID: 9884740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 03:10:18.676052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:40.501096
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schaefer, dissenting: The fourth amendment to the constitution of the United States provides that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation.” Section 6 of article II of the constitution of Illinois contains a similar prohibition. The basic question in these cases is whether those constitutional provisions can be interpreted to mean that the existence of the facts relied upon to establish probable cause cannot be controverted once the warrant has issued. If there can be no subsequent inquiry into the truth of those facts, the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” is protected only by an unreviewable ex parte determination of the lowest officer in the judicial hierarchy. And that determination may be based upon a hearsay report of the statements of an anonymous informer, which would be inadmissible in any judicial proceeding. I cannot bring myself to believe that this is the “probable cause, supported by Oath” required by the fourth amendment. One of the difficulties in dealing with this area of the law is that most of the cases with which the courts are concerned involve illegal possession of gambling equipment or narcotics, and the result of the search makes guilt unmistakable. The courts have no way of knowing how many unproductive searches are made upon the basis of false affidavits because those cases do not come before the courts. The constitutional requirement of an oath would seem to imply a remedy, either by civil action or by perjury prosecution, for the victim of a search based upon a false affidavit, but the conclusion of the majority in McCray v. Illinois (1967), 386 U.S. 300, 18 L. Ed. 2d 62, 87 S. Ct. 1056, seems to have eliminated any remedy. In an atmosphere in which there is widespread concern about narcotics problems it is difficult for a court to enforce constitutional guarantees at the instance of one who is unquestionably guilty. But the constitutional provisions are directed at potential abuses by a tyrannical government and those provisions should not, in my opinion, be so diluted in order to secure convictions in narcotics and gambling cases ■that they can no longer afford protection against the operations of a Hitler type government. It may be that the constitutional protection is phrased in terms that are considered too sweeping to meet the needs of society today. If so, they should be amended. But it is the responsibility of a court to interpret and apply the constitutional provisions as they exist. The constitutional question involved in these cases was deliberately left open by the Supreme Court of the United States in Rugendorf v. United States (1964), 376 U.S. 528, 11 L. Ed. 2d 887, 84 S. Ct. 825. The consideration that weighs most heavily in support of the conclusion reached by the majority in these cases is the desire to expedite the disposition of criminal cases. But it is a common characteristic of many constitutional guarantees that they impede the prompt disposition of criminal cases. Indeed, the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination goes further, and interferes with the ascertainment of the truth. The judicial system is resourceful enough to devise procedures which will prevent abuse of the right to challenge the existence of the facts that were relied upon by the issuing officer to establish probable cause. See People v. Alfinito (1965), 16 N.Y.2d 181, 211 N.E.2d 644; see also A.L.I. Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure, Tent. Draft No. 3, sec. SS 802, and Reporters’.Note. Apart from constitutional considerations, it seems to me that section 114 — 12 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1969, ch. 38, par. 114 — 12) clearly provides for a hearing at which the existence of the facts that were relied upon by the issuing officer to establish probable cause may be challenged. The statute states: “(a) A defendant aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure may move the court for the return of property and to suppress as evidence anything so obtained on the ground that: * * * (2) The search and seizure with a warrant was illegal because the warrant is insufficient on its face; the evidence seized is not that described in the warrant; there was not probable cause ■ for the issuance of the warrant; or, the warrant was illegally executed. (b) The motion shall be in writing and state facts showing wherein the search and seizure was unlawful. The judge shall receive evidence on any issue of fact necessary to determine the motion and the burden of proving that the search and seizure were unlawful shall be on the defendant.” (Emphasis supplied.) This statute plainly says that evidence is to be received on the question whether there was probable cause for the issuance of the warrant. Since probable cause initially depended on the facts stated in the affidavit upon which the warrant was issued, the statute must mean that upon a motion to suppress, evidence"'disputing those facts is to be received. But even if the statute can somehow be construed to mean that evidence may not be received to show the absence of probable cause, I am of the opinion that the guilt of the defendant, Barbara Mitchell, was not established beyond a reasonable doubt. This case was tried upon a stipulation that guilt or innocence should be determined upon the evidence submitted on the motion to suppress. In my opinion that evidence bars a finding of guilty. Thirty affidavits that had been used to procure warrants in previous cases were presented to the court. These affidavits were all similar to those used in this case. The officers upon whose affidavits the warrants in the present cases were issued testified that they had prepared a hundred similar affidavits, but that in none of those cases did the informant identify the recipient of the bet. The officers who made the affidavits testified that they did not in any of these cases inquire of the informer where he paid his losses or collected his winnings. This testimony shows a massive indifference on the part of the officers to their duty to suppress gambling; it seems to suggest a conscious effort to avoid implicating any higher-ups in organized gambling. It is not necessary that we attempt to arrive at a precise rationalization of these inherently incredible circumstances; their existence, in connection with the wholesale use of “boilerplate” affidavits is enough, in my opinion, to show an absence of probable cause. The doubts generated by the extraordinary testimony of the officers are reinforced by the fact that while records of other bets were found when the warrant was executed, there was no record of the bet supposed to have been made by the informer. The defendant, Barbara Mitchell, testified that she had never accepted a bet on a horse race. In my opinion her guilt was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.