Court Opinion

ID: 9591597
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:05:45.651183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:02:39.363623
License: Public Domain

Judge Braswell
dissenting.
It is not necessary to determine in this case if the affidavit complies with the “two-pronged test” derived from Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed. 2d 637 (1969), and Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed. 2d 723 (1964), and adopted in North Carolina in State v. Campbell, 282 *221N.C. 125, 191 S.E. 2d 752 (1972). The United States Supreme Court in the recently decided case of Illinois v. Gates, — U.S. —, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed. 2d 527, rehearing denied, — U.S. —, 104 S.Ct. 33, 77 L.Ed. 2d 1453 (1983), has set forth a different standard for determining probable cause for issuance of a search warrant based on information from informants. In Gates, the Supreme Court abandoned the two-pronged test established in Aguilar and Spinelli and in its place reaffirmed “the totality of the circumstances analysis that traditionally has informed probable cause determinations.” Id. at —, 103 S.Ct. at 2332, 76 L.Ed. 2d at 548.
The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the “veracity” and “basis of knowledge” of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a “substantial basis for . . . concluding]” that probable cause existed.
Id. Finding that the two-pronged test “has encouraged an excessively technical dissection of informants’ tips,” and has “directed] analysis into two largely independent channels —the informants’ ‘veracity’ or ‘reliability’ and his ‘basis of knowledge,’ ” the Supreme Court specifically said:
There are persuasive arguments against according these two elements such independent status. Instead, they are better understood as relevant considerations in the totality of circumstances analysis that traditionally has guided probable cause determinations: a deficiency in one may be compensated for, in determining the overall reliability of a tip, by a strong showing as to the other, or by some other indicia of reliability.
Id. at ---, 103 S.Ct. at 2329-30, 76 L.Ed. 2d at 545.
Turning now to the facts of this case, and using the Gates analysis, I find the first informant’s statement that he had purchased marijuana from the defendant to be highly relevant to the magistrate’s common sense determination of probable cause. *222Likewise, the second informant’s statements that people known to him to be drug users frequented defendant’s house within the last 24 hours prior to the issuance of the search warrant, clearly corroborates the first informant’s statements and compensates for any deficiency with regard to staleness in determining the overall reliability of the tip.
Significantly, no one questions the reliability of either of the informants. As said in Gates, “If, for example, a particular informant is known for the unusual reliability of his predictions of certain types of criminal activities in a locality, his failure, in a particular case, to thoroughly set forth the basis of his knowledge surely should not serve as an absolute bar to a finding of probable cause based on his tip.” Id. at —, 103 S.Ct. at 2329, 76 L.Ed. 2d at 545.
Considering the totality of the circumstances analysis adopted in Gates, I would hold that the trial court erred in suppressing the evidence seized in a search conducted pursuant to the search warrant.