Court Opinion

ID: 9686629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:59:26.147836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:20.995865
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Even though, as a reviewing court, we must pay great deference to the magistrate’s determination of probable cause, Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 236, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2331, 76 L.Ed.2d 257 (1983), there must still be sufficient, reliable, underlying facts from which the magistrate can make an independent determination of probable cause, not a mere ratification of the conclusions of others. Id. at 238-39, 103 S.Ct. at 2332. “[T]he elements under the [Aguilar-Spinelli 1] test — the informant’s credibility, reliability and basis of knowledge * * * still bear on the issue of whether there is probable cause to believe that evidence is located in a particular place.” State v. Yahnke, 336 N.W.2d 299, 300 (Minn.1983). As to the reliability of the “confidential reliable informant” in the case before us, the magistrate had the mere averment of Lieutenant Tidgwell that the informant “had been used over several years successfully.” A magistrate could only speculate as to what this statement means. There is not even the additional fact provided in United States v. Fleming, 566 F.2d 623, 624 (8th Cir.1977), that the information given by the informant in the past “has always proven correct as to the illegal activity informed on.” Without additional, meaningful corroboration, Tidgwell’s conclusory statement on reliability is insufficient. As in United States v. Schmidt, 662 F.2d 498 (8th Cir. 1981) and in United States v. Skramstad, 649 F.2d 1259, 1262 (8th Cir.1981) there is no indication that the information supplied by the informant in the past nor the corroboration provided by the affiant in the present refers expressly to incriminating or illegal activities. The corroboration here that a woman named Clare lived in the house to be searched and owned the Mercedes car parked in front of that house is innocent and irrelevant information. Nor does the totality of the circumstances set forth in the affidavit adequately establish the reliability of the informant. The magistrate had insufficient information, apart from the conclusory statement of the police officer as to the reliability of the informant, from which to determine independently that probable cause existed to search 1501 Upton Avenue North. The evidence seized in that search should have been suppressed because the search warrant was improperly issued. Minn. Const. Art. 1 § 10; Minn.Stat. § 626.21 (1984).

. Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964); Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969).