Court Opinion

ID: 9699886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:54:51.830129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:59.453569
License: Public Domain

PAPADAKOS, Justice,
dissenting.
To deny the existence of an independent source in this case is effectively to define the rule out of existence in our law. I refuse to agree to that and, therefore, I dissent.
Somehow the majority’s argument got lost in the thickets of privacy arguments surrounding an entry into a private home. We all agree that the home is almost totally immune to warrantless intrusions. The rule, however, is not absolute, for there are times and circumstances when even the castle wall can be breached without prior judicial approval.
As the majority states correctly (slip opinion, p. 11), the issue here is whether there was a reasonable explanation for forcible entry before the warrant was issued and not whether a right of privacy was present. I conclude from the facts that here the circumstances necessary for a warrantless intrusion did exist, and that the police acted reasonably at the time.
The facts are that an undercover officer and an unsuspecting prospective drug buyer went to an apartment to purchase drugs while observed by another officer.. The buyer went inside and emerged with drugs. Then he was arrested. The purchaser told the police that cocaine was being sold inside. *575Although a police officer was sent for a warrant, another officer decided to batter down the door without waiting for the arrival of the warrant. Drugs were found inside and arrests took place.
The next step, and the crucial one, was taken when the police crashed inside without awaiting the arrival of the warrant. Here, the fact remains that the officer was supplied with credible independent information that crimes were being committed at that time inside the apartment.
The majority admits that the officer feared that contraband “might have been sold,” and that is precisely the point: the police rightly concluded from an independent source, giving rise to probable cause to arrest, that a felony crime was afoot at that very moment. It is the probable cause, based on the independent source, that crime was ongoing which justified the police action.
The majority needlessly confuses warrantless search law with probable cause to arrest law when crimes are in the process of being committed as the facts indicate herein. The logical extension of this confusion would paralyze the authorities from acting upon probable cause to effectuate arrests while criminals are plying their illegal trade at that very moment. That would carry our law to unacceptable and frightening consequences.