Court Opinion

ID: 9541595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:27:00.400963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:03:52.855996
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
Arterburn, J.
I feel the majority opinion will place an insurmountable barrier to any workable search warrant procedure in Indiana. I feel the obstacles presented by this opinion and the requirements to make an affidavit good will enmesh us to an extent that we are trapped in our own technicalities.
For example, the opinion holds that the police officer should have alleged his personal knowledge of the burglary or named the persons from whom he received the knowledge and supported their credibility by other witnesses on that point. In other words, credibility is supported by hearsay on hearsay, and where do we end on such a requirement other than by simple statement that the affiant believes the person credible?
Secondly, where do we end with the requirement that all is unacceptable hearsay except that supported by credible testimony in turn supported by evidence that the person is credible? This officer was a detective. Undoubtedly he went to the burglarized premises, which he could easily state in the affidavit. Yet, how is he going to say that the Decatur Farm Bureau Association is the owner of the property burglarized? Is he going to have to go to the Secretary of State’s office for an inspection of the record of incorporation or rely on hearsay? How does he know in any case that the corporation is the owner of the property except on general hearsay from a person he believes credible? How does he know that any property is missing except upon the statement of the one he assumes is the owner or one he assumes is an employee, or a clerk in charge of inventory, all of whom may be relying upon hearsay themselves as to the missing items? To me an affi*232davit for a search warrant does not need the certainty of proof for proving the crime at trial. To me this is just one of innumerable little isolated technical problems we get into in attempting to use the standards set forth in this opinion for a good search warrant. I might add, how does he know, except by hearsay, that the defendant occupied or held the premises when he got the search warrant? Does he need credibly supported testimony set out in a separate affidavit on this point — maybe a certified copy of the deed recorded or a copy of the rental agreement? Must all these little detailed items be included in an affidavit for a search warrant so that we have an affidavit that is hearsay proof with facts beyond all uncertainty, or is it still merely just probable cause for belief ?
I would think if I were a police officer that I would have a right to believe, in going to the Decatur Farm Bureau Association, the word of the manager for a burglary although he might not have personal knowledge and might have to rely upon other hearsay as to the items missing and so forth. I think the officer ought to have the right to assume the correct name and the ownership of the Farm Bureau upon hearsay even if that is built on hearsay. I think he would have a right to assume that merely from a sign on the door, even though that is probably hearsay, and the person who put up the sign did it based on hearsay.
In my opinion, too many things in this life of ours are based on hearsay to negate credible hearsay in the fashion that this opinion does. The fact that Gerald Ford is President of the United States is based on hearsay as far as I am concerned. I have never seen him, nor seen his commission of election or confirmation.
I believe that an affidavit which states, as the affidavit in this case does, that the sources of the information in the affidavit are credible in the affiant’s oivn opinion and that the mother of the defendant said he had given the lawnmower *233that was stolen to her husband, his father, is credible and that the average man on the street (which is our standard for probable cause) would laugh at us for not accepting this at face value in the investigation of a burglary.
For the reasons stated I must dissent from this opinion.
Givan, C.J., concurs.
Note. — Reported at 328 N.E.2d 727.