Court Opinion

ID: 9851772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:19:28.286885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:15.217990
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
dissenting.
I.
This case is a good illustration of why the so-called two-pronged test of Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964) has been abandoned by the United States Supreme Court. There is no reason to doubt that B.V.’s story as related in the affidavit of officer Fitzgerald was true. It was based on the personal *327observations of B.V., the last of which was made only three days before the warrant was issued. It was detailed, rather than conclusory. There was nothing inherently improbable about what B.Y. said; no reason was evident why he might wish to fabricate such a story; it did not reflect favorably on him; and he would know that if the story was false, the falsehood would quickly be discovered and consequences adverse to him could result. For these reasons there can be no doubt that a reasonable person in the position of the magistrate when presented with officer Fitzgerald’s account of B.V.’s story would conclude that evidence of the crime of sale or possession of cocaine was probably present in Jones’ apartment. The majority does not contest any of this squarely. Instead, it is content to say that the so-called “veracity prong” of the Aguilar test has not been satisfied and therefore the warrant must be quashed.
It is well to remember that the framers of the Alaska Constitution only required that probable cause be present before a search warrant could be issued. Article I, § 14 of the Alaska Constitution provides that “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, ...” A test of probable cause to search which is faithful to the text of our constitution would be as follows:
Probable cause to search exists if the man of ordinary caution would be justified in believing that what is sought will be found in the place to be searched ... and that what is sought, if not contraband or fruits or implements of crime, will “aid in a particular apprehension or conviction.”
State v. Doe, 115 N.H. 682, 371 A.2d 167 (1975), quoted with approval in 1 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.1, at 442 n. 21 (1978).
This test, or tests of similar generality, having as a common element the reasonable man or the person of ordinary caution who must conclude from all the facts and circumstances that the thing sought is probably present in the place to be searched, was the generally understood test for probable cause to search when our constitution was adopted in 1956. Dumbra v. United States, 268 U.S. 435, 441, 45 S.Ct. 546, 548, 69 L.Ed. 1032, 1036 (1925); United States v. Doe, 19 F.R.D. 1, 3-4 (E.D.Tenn.1956); United States v. Evans, 97 F.Supp. 95, 96 (E.D.Tenn.1951); Tischler v. State, 206 Md. 386, 111 A.2d 655, 657 (1955). Since the language used by the framers of our constitution was the same as that of the federal constitution, and of many states, there is every reason to suppose that a meaning similar to that prevailing elsewhere was intended.1 To the extent that the Aguilar test may serve as a guide in determining the question of probable cause it can be used. However, when it requires a result at odds with the meaning of probable cause, it is Aguilar and not the meaning of probable cause that should give way.
The premise of the “veracity prong” of the Aguilar test is that all informants are unworthy of belief until proven otherwise. I question whether this premise is warranted by actual experience. Certainly the assumption of our evidence rules is that witnesses may be believed without first proving their credibility, as evidence of a witnesses good character, or a specific instance of his truthfulness, is not even admissible unless the witnesses credibility has first been attacked. Ev.R. 608(a) and (b). Thus, B.V.’s testimony would be admissible at trial and could serve as a basis for convicting Jones. Since the standard of proof required to convict is much stricter than that needed to obtain a warrant, it is an anomaly that his statement has been ruled insufficient as a basis for a warrant.
*328We have often stated that the decision of the judicial officer who issued a warrant is to be given “great deference” and that “the resolution of doubtful or marginal cases” of probable cause “should be largely determined by the preference to be accorded to warrants.” Johnson v. State, 617 P.2d 1117, 1122 (Alaska 1980); Ellsworth v. State, 582 P.2d 686, 638 (Alaska 1978); Keller v. State, 543 P.2d 1211, 1220 (Alaska 1975). The reason for this deference is that “ ‘probable cause’ is a concept which is not capable of precise definition, since it must cover a wide range of factual settings.” Id. Today’s opinion, by narrowly focusing on the “veracity prong” of the Aguilar test rather than the meaning of probable cause runs counter to the spirit of these observations. The dissenters in Aguilar, Justices Clark, Black, and Stewart, said that the majority opinion in that case had “substituted a rigid, academic formula for the unrigid standards of reasonableness and ‘probable cause’ laid down by the Fourth Amendment itself — a substitution of technicality for practicality and ... that the Court’s holding will tend to obstruct the administration of criminal justice throughout the country_” 378 U.S. at 122, 84 S.Ct. at 1518, 12 L.Ed.2d at 733. In my view, that remains an apt description of the now discredited Aguilar test and it is regrettable that today’s majority opinion continues to follow it.
II.
Not only does the majority err by clinging to the Aguilar test, it compounds the error by misapplying it. It is clear that an informant’s veracity for the purposes of Aguilar may be established when he makes statements against his penal interest. United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971). In this case, the majority concludes that B.V.’s statement did not qualify as a statement against penal interest because B.V.’s admission would not subject him to criminal liability unless evidence of the corpus delicti for a specific purchase were present. This restrictive and technical interpretation of “against penal interest” is in conflict with the Harris opinion.
B.V.’s statement is nearly parallel to that of the informant in Harris, who told the affiant that he had bought illicit liquor at the defendant’s residence “for a period of two years and most recently within the past two weeks.” 403 U.S. at 575, 91 S.Ct. at 2078, 29 L.Ed.2d at 729. Like this case, the affidavit in Harris said nothing about whether evidence of the corpus delicti of the informant’s admitted crimes was available. Even so, the Supreme Court had little trouble in finding that the unsupported admissions were sufficient to satisfy the veracity requirement.
Common sense in the important daily affairs of life would induce a prudent and disinterested observer to credit these statements. People do not lightly admit a crime and place critical evidence in the hands of the police in the form of their own admissions. Admissions of crime, like admissions against proprietary interests, carry their own indicia of credibility — sufficient at least to support a finding of probable cause to search. That the informant may be paid or promised a “break” does not eliminate the residual risk and opprobrium of having admitting criminal conduct. Concededly admissions of crime do not always lend credibility to contemporaneous or later accusations of another. But here the informant’s admission that over a long period and currently he had been buying illicit liquor on certain premises itself and without more, implicated that property and furnished probable cause to search.
403 U.S. at 583-84, 91 S.Ct. at 2082, 29 L.Ed.2d at 734.
Since B.V.’s statement cannot be distinguished from that presented in Harris in any principled way, B.V.’s statement should be regarded as sufficiently adverse to his penal interest to satisfy the veracity requirement of the Aguilar test.2 Thus, *329on this ground too I would reverse the decision of the court of appeals and order Jones’s conviction reinstated.

. See State v. Wassillie, 606 P.2d 1279, 1282 (Alaska 1980) where in denying bail to a convict awaiting sentencing we said:
If a result at variance with the historic experience of our sister states were intended, the framers would have found the words to express it. Far from doing so, they chose largely customary phraseology.... It is plain to us that the framers of our constitution intended the same result.
This reasoning is most appropriate in our interpretation of the meaning of probable cause.

. Other authorities have found that an informant’s veracity was sufficiently established for the purposes of Aguilar by a statement against penal interest which does not contain informa*329tion concerning the circumstances under which the statement was made. Armour v. Salisbury, 492 F.2d 1032 (6th Cir.1974) (statement that informant had purchased marijuana from defendant on several occasions sufficient); and State v. Archuleta, 85 N.M. 146, 509 P.2d 1341, 1342 (App.1973), cert. den. 85 N.M. 145, 509 P.2d 1340 (1973), cert. den. 414 U.S. 876, 94 S.Ct. 85, 38 L.Ed.2d 121 (1973) (statement that informant had made approximately ten purchases of heroin at a specified residence sufficient without additional facts).