Court Opinion

ID: 9580687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:07:36.837861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:26.902423
License: Public Domain

McInturff, J.
(concurring)—I concur specially only because of the unique facts presented.
Forty-three different dosages of 20 "scheduled and legend" drugs were stolen from a pharmacy. Nearly 20,000 individual items were subject to seizure, and there was probable cause to believe Mr. Salinas was possessed of at least part of them.
But I would not hesitate to reverse a conviction obtained on a warrant seeking "scheduled and legend drugs" where there was less probable cause or where the drugs sought from the defendant's possession were specifically known. Wholesale use of warrants like this in all circumstances cannot be tolerated. They foster a less than constitutional concern over the individual's "security against arbitrary intrusions by official power." Coolidge v. New Hampshire, *462403 U.S. 443, 455, 29 L. Ed. 2d 564, 91 S. Ct. 2022 (1971). As Mr. Justice Bradley said in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 635, 29 L. Ed. 746, 6 S. Ct. 524 (1886):
It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form; but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure. This can only be obviated by adhering to the rule that constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. A close and literal construction deprives them of half their efficacy, and leads to gradual depreciation of the right, as if it consisted more in sound than in substance. It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon.