Court Opinion

ID: 9688009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:56:56.17606+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:34.119482
License: Public Domain

*208Williams, J.
(concurring). I agree with the result and reasoning of my Brother Adams’s opinion. However, I believe it would be helpful to illustrate the missing link to sufficiency in probable cause for the search warrant sought.
The activity described in the typed pages attached to the affidavit for a search warrant narrate minutely what could very well be an illegal gambling operation. But it is also possible that it could be innocent activity. To the specialist the illegal character may seem overwhelming, but something further is needed to connect this ambiguous activity to illegality for the search warrant issuing authority.
My Brother Adams refers in his opinion to allegations on the printed page of the affidavit for a search warrant, which could, if supported by proper evidence, serve as such a connector, namely “that certain persons had been identified to the officer either by name or by description as participating in the operation of a mutuels gambling business” assuming such persons were all or some of those described in the succeeding typewritten narrative. But my Brother Adams properly observed “How this information was obtained by the officer or the reliability of the same is not stated.”
Likewise such connector could be the purchase of a “numbers ticket” or any similar evidence of sale or traffic at any of the many stops so minutely described.