Court Opinion

ID: 9624559
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:08:33.772206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:37.236661
License: Public Domain

Fromme, J.,
dissenting. The shock of the foregoing opinion will reverberate throughout this state. Its impact will be felt in every courtroom, including our own. This court for almost one hundred years has advised prosecuting attorneys of the state that a verified complaint charging an offense -substantially in the language of a statute proscribing certain acts is sufficient. See State v. Brooks, 33 Kan. 708, 711, 7 Pac. 591 (1885). It has been the practice in many counties, on the filing of such a complaint, for the magistrate to orally examine the complainant or other person appearing before him. If probable cause was found to credit the allegations in the complaint the magistrate issued the arrest warrant. Hereafter there is no presumption of probable cause attending the judicial determination of probable cause on which an arrest warrant is issued.
Now this court mandates before a warrant is issued that an additional affidavit be filed or a statement be included in the complaint to set forth the facts in detail and list the names of witnesses who will testify to those facts even though the complainant unequivocally swears on oath that the facts constituting the crime are true.
In the present case the complainant William Allan McAndy did not equivocate by swearing to the complaint on information and belief. He set out the facts constituting the crime along with a copy of the check and swore on oath that Robert H. Wilbanks committed the crime by issuing said check without funds, feloniously, and with intent to defraud the payee. It was sworn to before the magistrate. The prosecuting attorney of Ada County, Idaho, was David H. Leroy. The complainant, William Allan McAndy, is not one of the officers in the Ada County Sheriff’s Office nominated as an agent of the State of Idaho to receive the fugitive. Therefore, there is no reason to hold that the complaint is insufficient for the issuance of a warrant on probable cause. The facts were sworn to from personal knowledge.
If I interpret the decision of the majority correctly no magistrate can safely make a judicial determination of probable cause without having a sufficient probable cause basis sworn to in writing. This must either be set forth in the complaint itself, in a *83separate affidavit, or in the form of a transcribed statement of oral evidence taken before the magistrate.
The federal cases cited in the majority opinion are not authority for questioning probable cause in issuing the Idaho warrant in the present case. In Giordenello v. United States, 357 U.S. 480, 2 L.Ed.2d 1503, 78 S.Ct. 1245 (1958), a federal narcotics agent signed a one-sentence complaint. In Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 28 L.Ed.2d 306, 91 S.Ct. 1031 (1971), a sheriff signed a one-sentence complaint. In Kirkland v. Preston, 385 F.2d 670 (D. C. Cir. 1967), a police officer signed the initial complaint against Kirkland. In Ierardi v. Gunter, 528 F.2d 929 (1st Cir. 1976), the information was executed by a Florida prosecutor and supported by an affidavit of a police officer. None of these officials had personal knowledge of the facts constituting the crime charged.
In order to understand the reasoning in the Kirkland and lerardi cases it should be noted that the original complaints signed by state officials were executed under the Florida law as it existed prior to Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 43 L.Ed.2d 54, 95 S.Ct. 854 (1975). Prior to Gerstein under Florida law an information alone was considered the equivalent of an indictment and sufficient in itself to establish probable cause. Therefore in Kirkland and lerardi there was no judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to interstate requisition. Gerstein changed the Florida law in this respect holding the Fourth Amendment requires a timely judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to detention. I do not quarrel with that holding. There was a judicial determination in the present case.
The present practice of the United States District Attorneys of including two or three pages of information listing witnesses and what the investigators say the witnesses will testify to should not be adopted in the state courts. Such recitations are made from hearsay and, in my opinion, lend little if any credence to the judicial determination by the magistrate of probable cause. The witnesses listed are seldom if ever called before the federal magistrate. Our statute, K.S.A. 22-2302, provides:
“If the magistrate finds from the complaint, or from an affidavit or affidavits filed with the complaint or from other evidence, that there is probable cause to believe both that a crime has been committed and that the defendant has committed it, a warrant for the arrest of the defendant shall issue. . .
The practice in Kansas and in Idaho of requiring the com*84plaining witness to sign a complaint under oath of his or her own personal knowledge should be sufficient to obtain a judicial determination of probable cause on which a warrant is issued. If the allegations in the complaint are questionable the magistrate may require some further showing, but once the magistrate issues the warrant based upon a sworn complaint charging an offense substantially in the language of the statute proscribing certain acts, then the requirements of our statute and of the constitutions have been met.
In McCullough v. Darr, 219 Kan. 477, 548 P.2d 1245 (1976), this court in unanimous accord held:
“The Constitution does not require, as an indispensable prerequisite to interstate extradition, that there should be a good indictment, or even an indictment of any kind. It requires nothing more than a charge of crime.” (Syl. ¶ 2.)
“Where an accused challenges extradition in a habeas corpus proceeding brought under the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, the Governor’s warrant issued in the extradition proceedings is presumed valid and regular in all respects, thus casting the burden of proof upon the petitioner to overcome the prima facie case made by the Governor’s warrant.” (Syl. ¶ 3.)
“So long as the charge made against one whose extradition is sought legally constitutes a crime, technical defects in the extradition papers cannot prevent extradition.” (Syl. ¶ 4.)
The majority here attempt to distinguish McCullough upon the facts. They disregard the basis for the decision, i.e., the presumption of validity which attends a warrant issued by a magistrate after a judicial determination, and say the documents supporting the Governor’s warrant do not “substantially charge” the defendant with a crime in the present case. There is little doubt a crime was charged in McCullough and a crime was charged in the present case. In McCullough the presumption of validity was recognized by this court. In the present case it is not. The present case has the effect of overruling McCullough by holding that there is no presumption of validity which attends a Governor’s warrant in extradition proceedings, and that full faith and credit will not be extended to a judicial determination made by a magistrate in another state.
In conclusion I wish to note from the record of proceedings in this habeas corpus case the petitioner Wilbanks appeared and offered no evidence to overcome the presumption which attends the judicial determination of probable cause entered by the magistrate in Idaho. The attorney for petitioner raised the question of *85identity. The petitioner was identified by pictures and fingerprints furnished by the Idaho authorities. The Idaho fingerprints were compared with fingerprints of the petitioner by an expert witness, and the judge hearing the matter had ample opportunity to observe and compare the pictures with the appearance of the petitioner who was in the courtroom.
The district court properly dissolved the writ of habeas corpus after granting the petitioner a full hearing. I would affirm that action.,
McFarland, J., joins the foregoing dissenting opinion.