Court Opinion

ID: 9529926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:55:32.248066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:57.418980
License: Public Domain

FELDMAN, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I fully concur in Justice Zlaket’s dissent and write separately only to argue for adoption of a prophylactic rule to ensure compliance with constitutional requirements.
Once a defendant has raised a substantial question of compliance with constitutional requirements for issuance of a warrant, then, as Justice Zlaket suggests, the government must demonstrate that there was a valid basis for the warrant. In the present ease, the documents filed to support issuance of the warrant establish nothing because they contain no facts — nothing more than the ultimate conclusion that the affiant believes Defendant was the perpetrator.
In my view, when the papers the government files to procure issuance of a warrant are facially insufficient to establish probable cause, the burden should be on the government to provide evidence of what occurred before the magistrate. Although we should not make the issuance of warrants more difficult than necessary, surely a government that has the obligation of observing constitutional checks on its actions ought to be required to assume the burden of providing a record showing compliance, which in this case means probable cause. That record could be a sworn complaint, affidavits, a court reporter’s transcript or tape recording of the proceedings before the magistrate, or credible testimony from the officer or officers who appeared before the magistrate.
If, as in this case, the state is totally unable, by any means, to provide a record that it complied with Ariz. Const, art. II, § 8, we should simply hold that there was no probable cause. Anything else imposes an impossible burden on the defendant, allows post hoc rubber stamping of government action, and encourages slipshod, or worse, police work. That, in my view, is the result of the position taken in the majority opinion. I respectfully dissent.