Court Opinion

ID: 9635580
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:54:55.275787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:50:33.170504
License: Public Domain

HOFFMAN, Judge,
dissenting:
The majority finds the affidavit on which the search warrant was issued sufficient to establish probable cause. Because I believe that the affidavit established only the suspicion of illegal activity, I must dissent.
*118My disagreement stems from the majority’s interpretation of paragraph 11 of the affidavit, which avers:
11. At approximately 0030 hours a vehicle was observed leaving the residence at RD # 6 Stroudsburg, Pa. [the Roth residence]. This vehicle was surveilled and stopped a short time later. At this time approximately two ounces of suspected marijuana was observed in the back seat of the vehicle, which the affiant believes to be a sample of marijuana, and part of a shipment of marijuana which arrived in the previously mentioned Ryder truck. As a result of this seizure of marijuana the operator, Hannu JOENSUU, 310 North West First Ave., Boyton Beach Florida was arrested for violation of the Controlled Substance Drug Device and Cosmetic Act, Act 64.
(Emphasis added). The majority interprets the above-emphasized portion to mean “that what the affiant meant to say, and should be understood as saying, is that he saw a shipment of marijuana being unloaded from the Ryder truck into the Roth residence.” (Majority Opinion at 16) (emphasis added). In reaching this conclusion, the majority refers to paragraph 10 of the affidavit, where it is averred that the Ryder truck was unloaded and the contents taken inside the Roth residence, and to paragraph 9, where the affiant identifies himself as one of a group of officers who conducted a continuous surveillance of the Roth residence and the Ryder truck. In paragraphs 9 and 10, however, the affiant never identifies the contents of the Ryder truck as a shipment of marijuana. The majority characterizes the affiant’s failure to expressly say that he saw a shipment of marijuana being unloaded as “a puzzle” but explains such failure to be the result of “self-consciousness in writing what the affiant regarded as a legal document”. (Majority Opinion at 16).
I do not find the affiant’s failure to identify the contents of the Ryder truck puzzling. The affiant did not identify the contents of the Ryder truck in paragraph 10 because he could not. Had he seen a shipment of marijuana being *119unloaded from the truck, he could have easily — and probably would have — said so in the affidavit. With regard to the above-emphasized portion of paragraph 11, I think it is clear that the affiant was merely making a personal speculation or guess as to the source of the suspected marijuana found in the vehicle. Hence, I cannot accept the majority’s strained interpretation of paragraph 11, which I deem to be an unsupported assumption.
The majority concedes that the other averments in the affidavit establish only a suspicion of illegal activity occurring at the Roth residence. See Commonwealth v. Davis, 225 Pa.Super. 242, 246-47, 310 A.2d 334, 337-38 (1973) (“A suspicion, no matter how strong, does not amount to probable cause[.]”). Accordingly, because I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that paragraph 11 raises this suspicion to the level of probable cause, I would affirm the suppression order.
I dissent.