Court Opinion

ID: 9765941
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:25:59.010392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:17.019679
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge
(dissenting).
Since I do not think the search warrant for Frye’s residence was issued upon a sufficient showing of probable cause, I would affirm the orders of the lower court.
The information set forth in the application for a search warrant must be sufficient “to enable the magistrate independently to judge of the validity of the informant’s conclusion that the narcotics were where he said they were.” Spinelli v. United States, 398 U.S. 410, 413, 89 S.Ct. 584, 587, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969). Here the informant never said the contraband was located at appellant’s residence, nor did he allege that appellant told the buyer that it was stored there. The police and the issuing authority drew that conclusion on their own.
The majority says that conclusion was justified by Frye’s statement that the buyer could call him at home. That statement alone, however, did not amount to prob*151able cause that the marijuana was at appellant’s home. At most it raised a suspicion that it might be there. Suspicion does not provide a sufficient basis for issuing a search warrant. Commonwealth v. Jackson, 461 Pa. 632, 337 A.2d 582, cert. denied, 423 U.S. 999, 96 S.Ct. 432, 46 L.Ed.2d 376 (1975). Nor does probable cause to believe that a man has committed a crime on the street necessarily give rise to probable cause to search his home. Commonwealth v. Kline, 234 Pa.Super. 12, 335 A.2d 361 (1975).