Court Opinion

ID: 9593276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:21:14.148874+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:19.748339
License: Public Domain

WARREN, J.,
specially concurring.
I agree with the result the majority reaches: The search warrant affidavit does establish probable cause that defendant had marijuana on his property. However, the majority chooses to continue down the tangled trail initiated by State v. Young, 108 Or App 196, 816 P2d 612 (1991). Therefore, I write separately in an effort to bring this court back on the main road —so to speak — with a plain reading of ORS 133.545(4).
ORS 133.545(4) provides, in part:
“If an affidavit is based in whole or in part on hearsay, the affiant shall set forth facts bearing on any unnamed informant’s reliability and shall disclose, as far as possible, the means by which the information was obtained.”
The Supreme Court has held that an affidavit based on facts supplied by an unnamed informant must show
“(1) whether the affidavit sets forth informant’s ‘basis of knowledge’ and (2) whether the affidavit sets forth facts showing the informant’s ‘veracity’ by indicating either that the informant is credible or that his information is reliable.” State v. Carlile, 290 Or 161, 164, 619 P2d 1280 (1980). (Emphasis supplied.)
The veracity of an unnamed informant is satisfied in one of two ways: Either (1) by facts showing the informant to be credible; or (2) by facts showing the information from the informant is reliable.1 If the unidentified informant’s credibility has been established, it is unnecessary to have additional facts supporting the reliability of his information. *177Conversely, if the specific information provided by an unidentified informant is reliable, any facts showing that he is credible are also unnecessary. Here, defendant concedes that the unidentified informant has a basis of knowledge and is credible. Accordingly, the affidavit satisfies ORS 133.545(4).
Nevertheless, the majority bogs down over the question of whether the person who acted as the go-between for the unidentified person and defendant is an “informant” and is therefore covered by ORS 133.545(4). In State v. Villagran, 294 Or 404, 657 P2d 1223 (1983), the Supreme Court said that everyone who gives information to the police is an “informant” in the classic dictionary sense. 294 Or at 409. The majority errs in assuming that anyone who speaks to an informant automatically turns into an informant himself. The “unwitting citizen” in this case had no intention of communicating to the police his desire to return to rob defendant. He cannot be considered an “informant.” He is merely a source of some of the informant’s information.
The majority has chosen to compound the confusion created by State v. Young, supra. In that case, we examined an affidavit in which the unidentified informant reported his conversation with a named person. 2 We said:
*178“All that the veracity of the CRI establishes is that the magistrate can believe that he was truthful when he told the affiant that [the named person] had given him the information.” State v. Young, supra, 108 Or App at 202.
That is true and, again, that is all the law requires: The CRTs basis of knowledge is communicated to the magistrate, and the CRTs credibility is established. In my view, no further showing need be made. I believe that State v. Young’s holding requiring more is wrong.3
State v. Carlile, supra, State v. Villigran, supra, and State v. Alvarez, supra, are not to the contrary. Carlile and Villigran both involved direct challenges to the informant’s credibility or reliability. Here, defendant makes no such attack. Moreover, Carlile stands for the simple proposition that criminal involvement places a named informant’s honesty and integrity under suspicion. Although the Supreme Court used the Aguilar/Spinelli standard to examine an affidavit based on statements from a criminally involved informant, we pointed out in State v. Evans, 110 Or App 46, 822 P2d 1198 (1991), that Carlile does not require that the search warrant affidavit satisfy that standard.
State v. Alvarez, supra, involves facts similar to the present case: A CRI purchased cocaine from an unwitting citizen who purchased it from the defendant. Although the Supreme Court appeared to apply ORS 133.545(4) to the unwitting citizen’s statements, that case did not require that information passed on to a CRI by another person must comply with ORS 133.545(4).4 We should also decline to make that holding in this case.

 “Credible” is defined as
“an informant’s inherent and ongoing character as aperson — his reputation as a truth-speaker or his demonstrated history of truth-speaking.” State v. Alvarez, *177308 Or 143, 147, 776 P2d 1283 (1989).
“Reliability” is defined as
“[the! circumstances assuring that the particular information is indeed trustworthy on a specific occasion.” 308 Or at 147.

 The distinction between “named” and “unnamed” informants in this context is specious at best. In State v. Carlile, supra, and State v. Montigue, 288 Or 359, 605 P2d 656, cert den sub nom 449 US 846 (1980), the Supreme Court held that naming an informant was an additional factor in determining the sufficiency of an affidavit because, by exposing her identity, the informant exposed herself to a civil action for malicious prosecution or a charge of perjury. State v. Carlile, supra, 290 Or at 165. That rationale disappears in the case of a CRI, because the state knows the informant’s identity and could still prosecute her for false swearing, malicious prosecution or peijury. In fact, the state, the police and the magistrate are all privy to the identity of the CRI or the go-between; only the defendant and the defense attorney do not know who the people are. There is no reason why the magistrate cannot perform an independent review of a CRI’s credibility or reliability simply because the defendant does not know the CRI’s name.
State v. Farrar, 309 Or 132, 144, 786 P2d 161 (1990), only compounds the problem by holding that ORS 133.545 applies only to unnamed informants. The question remains: “Unnamed” to whom?

 In Young, we held that, when an informant passed on information from a second party, we would apply the common law test to determine if, under the totality of the circumstances, the information is sufficiently reliable to support issuance of a search warrant. 108 Or at 202 (relying on Illinois v. Gates, 462 US 213, 103 S Ct 2317, 76 L Ed 2d 527 (1983)1.

 The court found that the unwitting citizen’s declarations against penal interest (he or she purchased cocaine and took an active role in the transactions) gave the unwitting citizen’s statements a sufficient degree of reliability.