Court Opinion

ID: 9527178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:28:08.691114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:36.709077
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Justice
(dissenting).
The sole question presented on this review is the constitutional validity of the search warrant, which when executed resulted in the discovery of marijuana illegally possessed.
The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the judgment of conviction, holding that the evidence seized was inadmissible because the search warrant was not valid. *144The part of the search warrant quoted in that court’s opinion follows:
“Affiant has received information from two different reliable informants that they have been in the above described residence on several occasions recently and there have been drugs that are above described in the residence of John Thomas Walding. Both informants have made numerous drug buys for affiant in the past two weeks and their reliability has been established. The last buy was made three days ago and was a good buy. Both informants state the above drugs of Marihuana and Mescaline are now in the house which is described above and occupied by John Thomas Walding, alias * * * John Doe, alias, whose name is unknown to the affiant.”
The opinions in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723, and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637, probably represent the strictest constructions and requirements of a search warrant ever reached by the Federal Supreme Court. The writer of this opinion authored State ex rel. Attorney General, 286 Ala. 117, 237 So.2d 640 and, while not agreeing with the result reached in Aguilar or Spinelli, felt it was our duty to follow them and did follow and apply them in that case. But we concluded that opinion with the following quotation from Spinelli:
“ ‘The affidavit, then, falls short of the standards set forth in Aguilar, Draper, [Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327] and our other decisions that give content to the notion of probable cause. In holding as we have done, we do not retreat from the established propositions that only the probability, and not a prima facie showing, of criminal activity is the standard of probable cause, Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 96, 85 S.Ct. 223, 228, 13 L.Ed.2d 142 (1964); that affidavits or probable cause are tested by much less rigorous standards than those governing the admissibility of evidence at trial, McCray v. Illinois, 386 U.S. 300, 311, 87 S.Ct. 1056, 1062, 18 L.Ed.2d 62 (1967); that in judging probable cause issuing magistrates are not to be confined by niggardly limitations or by restrictions on the use of their common sense, United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 108, 85 S.Ct. 741, 745, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1964); and that their determination of probable cause should be paid great deference by reviewing courts, Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 270-271, 80 S.Ct. 725, 735-736, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960). * * *’”
Applying that test to the affidavit supporting the search warrant in the instant case, I think that this warrant does show a probability of criminal activity and that it is not necessary to make a prima facie showing. Also, that this affidavit, when tested by much less rigorous standards that those governing the admissibility of evidence, was adequate. Furthermore, that not confining the statements in the affidavit by niggardly limitations or restrictions or the use of common sense, there was adequate probable cause for the issuance of the warrant.
I think that this affidavit, when read as a whole and using a common-sense interpretation, states that the officers had been informed by two reliable informers that on several recent occasions, they had been in the. Walding residence and the marijuana and mescaline had been there, and that these drugs are now in the Walding residence. It also shows that they are familiar with these drugs, sellers of drugs and where drugs are sold. Of course, the conclusion that they are “now” in the house could not, at that moment, be verified because the informers could not be in two places at one time, but the facts stated would, to a reasonable mind, “lead to the conclusion that the unlawful condition continued to exist on those premises at the time of the application for the warrant.” Waggener v. McCanless, 183 Tenn. 258, 191 S.W.2d 551.
*145The vast majority of magistrates who issue search warrants in Alabama are not attorneys or “trained in the law.” That deficiency will be partly remedied because of the ratification of the new Judicial Article to our Constitution on December 18, 1973, hut it will still require legislative implementation. These magistrates are not familiar with the use of words like “said” and “aforesaid” but they merely follow one sentence with another, and by that method, try to tell a comprehensible and commonsense story. The same is true as to most law enforcement officers who form and compose the wording of the bases for the search warrants.
A reading of the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals demonstrates that it was necessary to apply a microscopic examination of the sentences and proceed to seek definitions of words to reach a conclusion that the affidavit was invalid. That is an excellent thing for an attorney to do when drawing or reading a contract or a deed, but even the Supreme Court of the United States does not require that kind of an examination of an affidavit supporting a search warrant.
I think the search warrant was valid under the cited decisions of the Federal Supreme Court, this court and the Court of Criminal Appeals.
I respectfully dissent.
HARWOOD, MADDOX and McCALL, JJ., concur.