Court Opinion

ID: 9625759
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:50:38.458319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:23.208825
License: Public Domain

Eberhardt, Presiding Judge.
The use of the present tense in an affidavit to support a search warrant ("affiant has received information from a reliable informant that subject is selling drugs at the house located” etc.), in the light of other recited circumstances, is sufficient to show that the facts recited are current and not stale. Johnston v. State, 227 Ga. 387, 390 (181 SE2d 42); Fowler v. State, 121 Ga. App. 22, 23 (172 SE2d 447); Lewis v. State, 126 Ga. App. 123 (2b) (190 SE2d 123); Butler v. State, 127 Ga. App. 539 (1) (194 SE2d 261). It appears here that a surveillance had been on defendant’s house "during the past week,” pursuant to the information received, and that numerous automobiles had been stopping there, and numbers of people were entering and leaving the premises.
The affidavit also asserts that "information from this informant has in the past month resulted in four arrests, all on drug charges.” There is enough in the affidavit to demonstrate that the information is not stale. As was asserted in Johnston v. State, 227 Ga. 387, 390, supra (and see Fowler v. State, 121 Ga. App. 22, 23, supra), "it was not necessary that the precise date of the occurrence be given, but it should appear from the facts that the occurrence should be so near in point of time to the making of the affidavit and the execution of the search warrant as to create a reasonable belief that the same conditions described in the affidavit still prevailed at the time of the issuance of the warrant. In determining the probability that the defendants still possessed the illicit drugs when the warrant was issued, the judicial officer could consider the facts . ..” (Emphasis supplied.) *151And the assertion "that the magistrate is obligated to render a judgment based upon a common-sense reading of the entire affidavit,” from United States v. Ventresca, 380 U. S. 102, 108 (85 SC 741, 13 LE2d 684) was also cited.
Submitted April 10, 1973
Decided May 11, 1973
Rehearing denied May 29, 1973.
Glenn Zell, for appellants.
Richard Bell, District Attorney, George N. Guest, for appellee.
The construction of the affidavit urged in the dissent "is the very sort of hypertechnicality — the 'elaborate specificity once exacted under common law,’ — condemned by this court in Ventresca [380 U.S. 102, supra]. A policeman’s affidavit 'should not be judged as an entry in an essay contest,’ Spinelli, supra [393 U.S. 410], at 438 (Fortas, J., dissenting), but, rather, must be judged by the facts it contains.” United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 579 (91 SC 2075, 29 LE2d 723).
Reliability of the informant is shown in the affidavit by the assertion that he was well known to affiant and to other members of the DeKalb Narcotics Squad, and that within the past month information supplied by the informant had resulted in four arrests, all on drug charges.
Accordingly the contention that the motion to suppress should have been sustained because the information is presumed stale is without merit, assuming arguendo that this question has been properly raised.

Judgment affirmed.

Bell, C. J, Hall, P. J, Deen, Quillian, Evans and Clark, JJ., concur. Pannell and Stolz, JJ., dissent.