Court Opinion

ID: 9569444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:49.295884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:58:18.521761
License: Public Domain

FINNEY, Chief Justice:
I respectfully dissent. In my opinion, the affidavit fails to establish probable cause because there is no information supporting the informant’s reliability. While I agree that this deficiency may be compensated for by an “explicit and detailed description of alleged wrongdoing, along with a statement that the event was observed firsthand”, Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), we have no such corroboration in this case. The “firsthand wrongdoing” detailed here consists of firing a gun in the city limits, *146and a vague reference to drugs on the premises-there is no firsthand observation of the relevant crime, the theft of the guns. While there is an assertion that the persons in the apartment possessed three weapons which were of the same caliber and/or make as three of the twenty guns stolen from the police department, there is simply nothing to link these common guns or the individuals to that crime.
The specificity in the affidavit is illusory, and the majority’s assertion that “the weapons described by the informant matched those that had been stolen ... just days earlier” is an exaggeration. The reliability of this informant is critical, since he gave the statement only after his own arrest on drug charges, inferentially in an attempt to mitigate his own situation. I would find the affidavit insufficient, and reverse and remand for a new trial.