Court Opinion

ID: 9785713
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:16:39.247118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:31.825688
License: Public Domain

ARMSTRONG, J.,
dissenting.
The majority takes a disorganized and conclusory affidavit and discovers in it facts and inferences that, the majority believes, are sufficient to show that there was probable cause for the magistrate to issue the search warrant. The majority’s apparent success in panning a few nuggets of gold out of vast beds of gravel, however, depends on two fundamental errors: the majority fails to evaluate the evidence from named informants with the care that our case law requires, and it relies on an essential inference that the state, which is the appellant, expressly repudiated on appeal. When we instead analyze the affidavit according to our existing case law and consider only the arguments that the state did not foreclose on appeal, we must affirm the trial court’s decision to invalidate the warrant and suppress the evidence that the police seized under its authority. Because I would follow our usual practices in those respects, I dissent from the majority’s decision.
With a few exceptions, the information in the affidavit did not come from the officer’s observations, in which case there would be no hearsay issue, or from other police sources or public records, where the hearsay issues would not usually be significant. Rather, essential evidence comes from *614individuals whom the police interviewed at various times and under various circumstances and thus consists of hearsay. Oregon cases provide clear rules for evaluating such hearsay, rules that the majority does not fully follow. Those rules differ depending on whether the affidavit identifies the hearsay informant by name. So far as unnamed informants are concerned, the affidavit must comply with ORS 133.545(4), which requires the affiant to “set forth facts bearing on any unnamed informant’s reliability and [to] disclose, as far as possible, the means by which the information was obtained.” That statute codifies the rule of Aguilar v. Texas, 378 US 108, 84 S Ct 1509, 12 L Ed 2d 723 (1964), and Spinelli v. United States, 393 US 410, 89 S Ct 584, 21 L Ed 2d 637 (1969).1
ORS 133.545(4) and the Aguilar /Spinelli rule do not directly apply to named informants. Instead, as the majority correctly notes, we look to the totality of the circumstances to determine whether their information is sufficiently reliable. State v. Farrar, 309 Or 132, 144-45, 786 P2d 161, cert den 498 US 879 (1990). What the majority ignores is that Oregon cases treat the Aguilar / Spinelli rule as the primary framework for evaluating the totality of the circumstances concerning the reliability of information from named informants. See State v. Milks/Sales, 127 Or App 397, 400-01, 872 P2d 988 (1994) (“The Aguilar / Spinelli test, although not directly applicable to named informants, provides a framework for evaluating the ‘totality of the circumstances’ confronting the magistrate.” (emphasis in original)); State v. Wilson, 120 Or App 382, 387, 852 P2d 910, rev den 317 Or 584 (1993) (information from named informant “is subject to essentially the same analysis [as information from an unnamed informant] to determine whether a reasonable magistrate could conclude, under the totality of the circumstances, that there was probable cause to support the issuance of the warrant”). In Farrar itself the Supreme Court analyzed evidence from named informants according to the Aguilar / Spinelli criteria. *615Farrar, 309 Or at 145-46. That does not mean, as the majority seems to think, that I am saying that the test for named and unnamed informants is the same. Rather, the cases require that, in evaluating information from a named informant, we look for indicia both of the informant’s basis of knowledge and of the credibility and the reliability of his or her information. The fact that an affidavit names an informant makes it more likely that it will satisfy those concerns and thus affects how we evaluate the various factors.2 That an informant is named, however, does not by itself permit us to assume that the named informant had a basis for knowing what he or she told the police. There must still be something beyond the informant’s bald statement to allow the magistrate to conclude that the informant had a reason to know what he or she said.
I agree that the affidavit contains probable cause to believe that Gonzales Cruz was living at defendants’ residence, and it may also include probable cause to believe that he was selling drugs from that location. However, in order to justify the warrant that the magistrate issued, and the search that the police conducted, the affidavit must also contain probable cause to believe that a search would disclose evidence of an illegal sexual relationship between Gonzales Cruz and defendants’ 13-year-old daughter. If there is not probable cause to support the warrant in its entirety, the entire search is unauthorized. See State v. Beagles/White, 143 Or App 129, 135, 923 P2d 1244, rev den 324 Or 487 (1996) (warrant is overbroad if it permits seizure of things for which no probable cause exists); see also State v. Reid, 319 Or 65, 71, 872 P2d 416 (1994) (although affidavit contained probable cause to support a warrant to search the defendant, the search was improper because the warrant also permitted the search of persons for whom there was no probable cause).
The majority relies primarily on statements from a number of named informants that an illegal relationship existed. Those informants were either underage girls who *616were sexually involved with adult men other than Gonzales Cruz or, in one case, the mother of such a girl. Nothing in the affidavit provides any indication of how those informants, other than Brandy Huff-Olvera,3 knew what they said. The majority suggests several ways of avoiding that problem, but none of its suggestions works. First, the majority points out that all of the girls said the same thing. That, it argues, was the kind of corroboration that made their statements more reliable. That argument, however, ignores the fact that the affidavit provides no information about how the girls knew what they said. Without some indication of the basis of their knowledge, telling the same story simply means that they repeated the same rumor.
The majority next argues that this case is similar to State v. Villagran, 294 Or 404, 657 P2d 1223 (1983), in which the Supreme Court held that it was possible to infer the basis for a named informant’s information from the information itself. In Villagran the informant, a disinterested citizen who had no apparent involvement in any criminal activity, had built a barn for the defendant’s associate. He told the police that the person for whom he had built the barn was building an underground house in a different location. The Supreme Court concluded that it was reasonable to believe that the informant had learned the information about the house in the course of working on the barn for or with the defendant’s associate. That was the kind of information on which people routinely rely, and it was sufficient to establish the truth of the informant’s statements.
Although the Supreme Court did not expressly say so, Villagran is in large part an application of Spinelli, in which the United States Supreme Court held that information can be sufficiently detailed to permit the magistrate to infer that the informant had a basis for knowing what he or she said. The Court referred to an earlier case in which the informant stated that a drug courier had left Denver by train on a certain date, would return by train on one of two specified days with three ounces of heroin, and would be wearing
*617clothes that the informant described with minute particularity. Spinelli, 393 US at 416-17. When the police in that earlier case went to the train station on the appropriate morning, they saw the defendant dressed precisely as the informant had described. That confirmation of the informant’s information was the final step that established probable cause for the arrest. Id. at 417-18. Villagran did not require that level of detail because the informant was a named disinterested citizen, but it nevertheless required that the information be sufficiently detailed to permit an inference that the informant had a basis of knowledge.
In this case, in contrast, there is nothing to indicate any connection between the named girls, on the one hand, and defendants or their daughters on the other, beside the fact that they live in the same section of town.4 The girls do not claim to be friends of the family or the daughter, nor do they claim ever to have been inside defendants’ residence. The details that they give of the alleged relationship between Gonzales Cruz and the 13-year-old daughter do not come close to the details in Villagran. Thus, there is no basis to infer that they gained their knowledge of that relationship in the course of other contacts with either of them.5 The only relevance of Villagran to this case is to emphasize again that an affidavit must provide some basis for a named informant’s knowledge.6
The state’s argument on this point is different from the majority’s. According to the state:
*618“[The informants] must have known that Gonzales-Cruz and [the 13-year-old daughter] were sleeping together, based on their observation of behavior permitting that inference, on an admission by one of the two, or on community knowledge. That is apparent from the affidavit, which shows that [C.G.] and [M.R.] were both victims of sexual abuse; that [C.G.] had a sexual relationship with Santos, and that Santos was friends with either defendants or Gonzales-Cruz; and by [C.G.’s] apparent volunteering of the information to police on the night that Santos was arrested for abusing her.”
(Emphasis added.) As the use of “must have known” indicates, that argument is pure speculation. Nothing in the affidavit shows that the named informants had observed behavior permitting the inference that the state describes or that either the 13-year-old daughter or Gonzales Cruz had admitted anything. The state’s speculation about their possible bases of knowledge is not a substitute for evidence on that point. Finally, it is difficult to determine what the state means by “community knowledge” other than rumor or hearsay; in any case, nothing in the affidavit refers to such knowledge as a basis for the informants’ statements.
Apparently recognizing that the affidavit provides no basis for the informants’ knowledge, the state also suggests that we should ignore their basis of knowledge in determining the reliability of their statements. That, however, is inconsistent with our previous cases, under which the Aguilar / Spinelli criteria remain important considerations in evaluating statements from named informants. Under that analysis, an informant’s basis of knowledge is one requirement for showing probable cause, while the other requirement is to show either that the informant is credible or that his or her information is reliable. The affidavit must satisfy both requirements for unnamed informants. See 2 Walter R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.3(a), at 90-94 (1996). For named informants, the ability to satisfy both requirements, while not as absolutely controlling as with unnamed informants, remains an important aspect of determining whether the totality of the circumstances supports a finding of probable cause. Indeed, in Farrar the court expressly pointed out *619that the affidavit described the named informants’ basis of knowledge. Farrar, 309 Or at 145.
Ignoring a named informant’s basis of knowledge is also inconsistent with the requirement of probable cause, because without some basis for an informant’s knowledge of a hearsay statement there would be no reason for the issuing magistrate to believe that the statement is sufficiently reliable to justify the warrant. The total lack of information in the affidavit concerning the factual foundation for the informants’ statements so undercuts the reliability of those statements that, under the totality of these circumstances, the statements are of no value in finding probable cause.
If there is probable cause for this affidavit, it must come from the two other sources on which the majority relies: first, its inference that the named girls were the same people as the friends who, according to the affidavit, had visited the 13-year-old daughter at her home, and, second, the testimony of Huff-Olvera. I will deal first with the inference that the named girls were also the unnamed friends.7 The majority states that, “[although the affidavit is ambiguous about who the ‘friends’ are who ‘visit’ the residence,” it is reasonable to infer that they are the named underage girls. Based on that essential inference, the majority attributes all of the information from the “friends” to those named girls, thereby providing a basis for them to know about a relationship between Gonzales Cruz and the 13-year-old daughter.
The fundamental problem with the majority’s position is that the state expressly treated the two groups as separate. Thus, the majority is basing its reversal of the trial court’s order on an argument that the appellant expressly failed to make to this court. The relevant statements appear in two paragraphs in the affidavit. In the first paragraph, the officer described evidence that indicated that Gonzales Cruz lived at defendants’ residence. Part of that evidence was the statement that:
*620“According to interviews with those girls who are friends of [the 13-year-old daughter] and visit the residence, Mr. Gonzales Cruz does housework for the Boyers, watches the girls when the parents are away, runs errands using his and the parents’ vehicles, and sleeps in both the living room or [the daughter’s] room. He also pays the Boyers rent for his housing arrangement.”
The paragraph then ends with a reference to an automobile that Gonzales Cruz owned and that was routinely parked in the area used by those living at defendants’ residence. The next paragraph begins:
“Mr. Jose Juan Gonzalez Cruz is identified by [C.G.], [A.G.], [J.M.], [M.R.], [J.McP.], and Ms. Brandy Huff-Olvéra as the adult male presently having a sexual relationship with [the 13-year-old daughter], DOB 11-05-84.”
Especially in light of the generally poor organization of the affidavit, there is no necessary connection between these references in separate paragraphs to the named girls and to the unnamed friends. Thus the affidavit does not compel the inference that the two groups are the same. The state, however, goes further and reads the affidavit as excluding the inference. In its brief, the state says, in arguing that the affidavit provides probable cause that a search would produce evidence of sex crimes, that it “relies primarily on the statements of Huff-Olvera, [C.G.], [A.M.], [J.M.], and [M.H.], and several unnamed friends of [the 13-year-old daughter].” (Emphasis added.) Later in its brief, the state asserts that numerous individuals substantiated Huff-Olvera’s claim that Gonzales Cruz and the daughter were sleeping together. According to the state, those individuals “included [M.H.], and [C.G.], both victims of sexual abuse by adult males; several unnamed neighbors who told police that they were friends of [the daughter’s], that they had been inside defendants’ residence, and that they knew that [the daughter] and Gonzales Cruz shared a bedroom; and by [J.M.] and [A.M.]” The only way to read the state’s argument is that it asserts that the named girls are not the same as the unnamed friends.8
*621The state did not take this position by accident. As the majority shows, it may have suggested to the trial court that the unnamed friends and the named girls were the same. Thereafter, in its letter opinion the trial court stated, concerning the girls,
“there are no facts establishing the credibility of these informants or setting forth their bases of knowledge. They are named informants, but it does not appear that they initiated the reports and they were not making statements against their penal interests. It’s possible they are the same girls mentioned in paragraph 26 who are friends of [the 13-year-old daughter] and visit her residence, but that’s not clear.”
That statement, in conjunction with the state’s argument below, gave it a perfect opportunity to attack the trial court’s decision on appeal by arguing that the magistrate could infer that the named girls and the unnamed friends were the same people. Instead, the state rejected that position and treated the two groups as separate.9 I would not take a position that the appellant declined to take but, rather, would hold the state to its choice.
When I evaluate the evidence from the named girls and the unnamed friends separately, neither has significant value. The evidence of the named girls is inadequate under the totality of the circumstances test because nothing in the affidavit shows that they had any basis for knowing the information that they gave. This is not a case of a weak basis of knowledge that other factors can rectify; there is no basis of knowledge. The evidence of the unnamed friends fails the *622Aguilar/Spinelli test codified in ORS 135.545(4) because nothing shows that they were truthful or that their information was reliable.
That leaves Huff-Olvera’s evidence as the only possible foundation for the decision to issue the warrant. Her statements must provide the necessary evidence without significant assistance from any other source. Because she is a named informant I evaluate her statements under the totality of the circumstances test. Huff-Olvera is in a different category from the other minor girls. At the time of the affidavit she was 17 years old and married, while the other girls were ■ 13 or 14 and single. Her husband had recently been deported; since his deportation she had lived with at least two other men. The affidavit describes Huff-Olvera’s involvement in a way that makes her a perpetrator rather than a victim. According to three of the minor girls, in return for compensation Huff-Olvera provided underage girls to adult men for sexual purposes. As an apparent result of those or similar accusations, at the time of the affidavit she was under arrest on a charge of compelling prostitution. In addition, HuffOlvera stated that, two weeks before the date of the affidavit, she had purchased cocaine from Gonzales Cruz at defendants’ residence.
Huff-Olvera is the only named informant who claimed any direct contact with either Gonzales Cruz or defendants’ residence. Some of her information could contribute to a finding of probable cause. Her contact with Gonzales Cruz might give her a basis for knowing the relationship between him and the 13-year-old daughter. It clearly gave her a basis for knowing that Gonzales Cruz lived with defendants and that he sold drugs from their residence. Her statements also subjected her to possible criminal liability for making a false police report and for possession of cocaine; at least the statement concerning purchasing drugs was thus against her penal interest. Those factors tend to support the warrant.
Even recognizing those things, Huff-Olvera’s statements do not in themselves provide probable cause for the affidavit that the magistrate issued. First, the crucial statements are general rather than specific. She gives none of the *623details concerning Gonzales Cruz’s role in the household or his relationship to the 13-year-old daughter that the unnamed informants gave. She did not explain how she knew of the relationship. She did not say that one of the participants told her, that she learned it from others with knowledge, that she observed actions that led her to that conclusion, or that, as her arrest for promoting prostitution might suggest, she actually arranged it. Although, as Villagran indicates, we should not reject her evidence solely for this reason, the limited information on her basis of knowledge weakens the force of her conclusory statements. Second, aside from giving her name, the affidavit does not provide a basis for finding Huff-Olvera to be truthful. Rather, it raises questions about her veracity. Her admitted criminal involvement weighs against her credibility.10 See Milks/Sales, 127 Or App at 401. The corroboration of a relatively innocent fact — that Gonzales Cruz lived with defendants despite their denial — is not sufficient to make her information reliable without regard to her credibility.
I agree that Huff-Olvera’s statements could contribute several tesserae toward creating a mosaic of probable cause. When those statements are all that there is, however, the design is only begun. By themselves, they are not sufficient to support a search for evidence of an improper sexual relationship between Gonzales Cruz and the 13-year-old daughter, and the rest of the affidavit does not make up for that insufficiency. I would therefore affirm the trial court’s order and dissent from the majority’s contrary conclusion.

 The United States Supreme Court subsequently overruled Aguilar and Spinelli in Illinois v. Gates, 462 US 213, 103 S Ct 2317, 76 L Ed 2d 527(1983), but that action does not affect the continuing applicability of those cases under Oregon law.

 Naming an informant may well assist in showing that the informant is credible and the information is reliable. It is less likely to show that the informant had a basis for knowing what he or she said. That requires an opportunity to observe, not simply a general character for truthfulness.

 discuss Huff-Olvera’s testimony later in this opinion.

1 Most of the majority’s discussion of the reliability and basis of knowledge of the named girls depends on inferring that they were the same people as the unnamed friends who visited defendants’ home. I discuss below why the state’s argument forecloses us from drawing that inference.

 In this regard, the majority’s discussion of the girls’ testimony is based on the assumption that, because of what they said, they must have had some unexpressed basis for knowing it, although they did not claim any direct contact with either Gonzales Cruz or the daughter. That approach would destroy the requirement that the magistrate be able to evaluate the informant’s basis of knowledge as part of deciding whether the totality of the circumstances supports issuing a warrant.

 The majority also appears to suggest that there is some special significance to the statement in the affidavit that the girls “identified” Gonzales Cruz as the person having a sexual relationship with the daughter. Nothing in that word indicates the basis for the identification.

 The majority argues at length that it would be proper to infer that the unnamed friends and the named girls are the same people. Contrary to its assumption, I do not argue against that inference, nor do I argue for it. Because the state declines to draw that inference, I do not consider it.

 The affidavit describes only one set of unnamed people who had been inside defendants’ residence. Thus, the state’s references to “unnamed friends” in one *621paragraph of its brief and to “unnamed neighbors who told the police that they were friends” of the daughter in another must have been to the same people. Although paragraph 10 of the affidavit refers to a police investigation that involved talking with neighbors, the affidavit does not attribute any specific information to those neighbors. The only persons who, according to the affidavit, provided information of the kind that the majority describes were the unnamed friends. They must, therefore, be the unnamed neighbors whom the state described in its brief. Paragraph 20 of the affidavit refers to Huff-Olveras’s neighbors, not defendants’.

 In responding to this argument, the majority quotes a portion of the state’s brief in which it describes the trial court’s actions; the only argument in that portion of the brief says nothing about whether the named informants were also the named friends. Unlike the majority, I am not aware that it is our practice to reverse trial court decisions based on arguments that the appellant may have made to the trial court but that it expressly declined to raise on appeal.

 Any statements that Huff-Olvera made against her penal interest do not involve the relationship between Gonzales Cruz and the 13-year-old daughter.