Court Opinion

ID: 9456609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:57:57.617683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:02.685559
License: Public Domain

ADAMS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
While the facts in this case present a close question regarding the propriety of the search warrant issued here, I concur in the result reached by the majority that the judgment should be affirmed.
Such conclusion is compelled by the reasoning in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969), the last Supreme Court case to examine the issue of what constitutes “probable cause” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. In Spinelli, the Court reaffirmed the technique employed by a federal agent in Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959) by which the agent verified “every facet of the information given him” by the informant, except the conclusion of the informant that criminal activity was then in progress. The Court found that with “every other bit” of the information personally verified, the agent had “reasonable grounds” to believe the conclusion was likewise true. Thus, in the absence of a revelation of the underlying circumstances upon which the informant based his conclusion here, that particular premises were being used for the preparation of heroin for sale, the magistrate was enabled to test the conclusion by looking to whether other — albeit innocuous — detail supplied by the informant has been corroborated by the affiant. See Spinelli, supra, 393 U.S. at 415-416, 89 S.Ct. 584; compare The Supreme Court, 1968 Term, 83 Harv. L.Rev. 7, 177-181 (1969).
The present affidavit surely approaches the outer limits where probable cause may be found. The sole detail supplied by the informant to support his assertion that narcotics were being prepared at a certain address was that Robert Singleton would enter the premises at 8:00 a. m. and after 5:00 p. m. daily. This activity was verified by the police. Although — contrary to what the majority opinion states — the affidavit does not attribute to the informant any information about an automobile used by Singleton, even without this extra data the Draper test appears satisfied.
Regarding the trustworthiness of the informant, there is substantial authority that a recitation such as the informant “has furnished reliable information to the affiant in the past several years leading to and resulting in the arrest and convictions of numerous dealers in • and users of narcotics in the County of Allegheny” is sufficient. See United States v. Mendoza, 433 F.2d 891 (5th Cir. 1970) (Wisdom, J.). In addition, the corroboration by the affiant of the details of Singleton’s movements adds weight to the informant’s credibility. Spinelli, supra, 393 U.S. at 417-418, 89 S.Ct. 584.
One matter not discussed by the majority opinion — and indeed not raised by the appellant — raises another hurdle to a finding of probable cause here. The Supreme Court has often stated that affidavits are to be “tested and interpreted -x- -:<■ * jn a commonsense and realistic fashion.” Ventresca v. United States, 380 U.S. 102, 108, 85 S.Ct. 741, 746, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965). However, a limit*388ing concept of the “commonsense” approach is the requirement of specificity. An aspect of specificity relating to time is illustrated in Rosencranz v. United States, 356 F.2d 310 (1st Cir. 1966). There, federal agents obtained a warrant to search a barn outside of which an anonymous informant said he had smelled the strong odor of mash. The affiant did not specify when the informant detected the odor. The court found the use of the present tense in the language of the affidavit insufficient to indicate when the suspected activities were occurring:
“The present tense is suspended in the air, it has no point of reference. It speaks, after all, of the time when an anonymous informant conveyed information to the officer, which could have been a day, a week, or months before the date of the affidavit. To make a double inference, that the undated information speaks as of a date close to that of the affidavit and that therefore the undated observation made on the strength of such information must speak as of an even more recent date would be to open the door to the unsupervised issuance of search warrants on the basis of aging information.” 356 F.2d at 316.
Contrary to the implication in the majority opinion here, the affidavit in the present case also fails to specify when the informant gave his information to the officer. However, the affiant does state that he observed Singleton on four occasions in “September and October of this year” enter the premises at the time of day indicated by the informant. Since the affidavit was dated October 2nd, only a single, rather than a double inference is required to establish the time about which the data supplied by the informant related. That inference is that the information given by the informant sometime in the past remains current because it has been very recently corroborated. While the date the information was given to the police, as well as the time of their confirmation of it, should preferably appear in the affidavit, I believe that the specification here was adequate to permit a magistrate to find that probable cause existed to issue a search warrant.
Under the circumstances related in the majority’s opinion, which in turn reflects the stipulation of facts in this case, I do not believe the breaking of the door by the officers was improper.