Court Opinion

ID: 9633188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:37:18.797102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:30.481545
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ERICKSON
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the trial court’s order which suppressed the evidence.
In my opinion, the affidavit which provides the foundation for the search warrant does not meet the two-pronged test set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964). *87and later in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969). The affidavit fails to satisfy the second prong of the Aguilar test. Nothing appears in the affidavit which would permit the judge who issued the warrant to make an independent judgment as to the informant’s credibility or the reliability of his information. The affidavit merely recites that the confidential informant is credible and that his information has on past occasions proven to be reliable. In construing Aguilar and Spinelli, we have held in a series of cases that more is required to sustain the validity of a search warrant. People v. Ward, 181 Colo. 246, 508 P.2d 1257 (1973); People v. Peschong, 181 Colo. 29, 506 P.2d 1232 (1973); People v. Brethauer, 174 Colo. 29, 482 P.2d 369 (1971); Hernandez v. People, 153 Colo. 316, 385 P.2d 996 (1963).
In People v. Brethauer, supra, we suggested that when an affidavit was insufficient, it was the duty of the judge who was considering the issuance of a warrant to point out the deficiencies in the affidavit to enable law enforcement officers to determine whether they could obtain or present additional facts which would satisfy the requirements of probable cause. The issuance of warrants should not be a mechanical and ministerial act. Moreover, in my view, a judge who is called upon to issue a warrant or to pass upon the sufficiency of an affidavit which supports a warrant, if he doubts that an informant exists or the credibility of an affidavit, can demand that the affiant disclose in camera the name of the informant or can even require that the informant be produced. DeLaCruz v. People, 177 Colo. 46, 492 P.2d 627 (1972).
The disclosure of the identity of an informant, when made in camera, does not, in my view, impede the free flow of information to law enforcement personnel from confidential informants. The confidential identity of the informant is as well preserved in the hands of the court as it would be in the hands of the police.
In casting an impossible burden of proof upon the person who attacks the search warrant or the existence of a *88confidential informant and the information supplied by that informant, the majority opinion goes far beyond the tests laid down in Roviaro v. United States, 353 U.S. 53, 77 S.Ct. 623, 1 L.Ed.2d 639 (1957), and McCray v. Illinois, 386 U.S. 300, 87 S.Ct. 1056, 18 L.Ed.2d 62 (1967). Accord, United States v. Winters, 420 F.2d 523 (3d Cir. 1970); United States v. Jackson, 384 F.2d 825 (3d Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 392 U.S. 933, 88 S.Ct. 2294, 20 L.Ed.2d 1391 (1967); Durham v. United States, 403 F.2d 190 (9th Cir. 1968), vacated on other grounds, 401 U.S. 481, 91 S.Ct. 858, 28 L.Ed.2d 200 (1971). See also United States v. Roth, 391 F.2d 507 (7th Cir. 1967); United States v. Pearce, 275 F.2d 318 (7th Cir. 1960).
In my view, the majority opinion adds a new dimension to already confusing standards on the law of search and seizure. The citadel of privacy created by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in a series of decisions which have tended to frustrate law enforcement personnel and to leave every citizen and lawyer in doubt as to the protection which the Constitution provides. The different perspectives and views of the individual Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States has undergone radical change without having principles of law finalized with precision on search and seizure. Contrast, Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971), with Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973); contrast Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949), with Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961); contrast United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950), with Trupiano v. United States, 334 U.S. 699, 68 S.Ct. 1229, 92 L.Ed. 1663 (1948); and Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1965) [search incident to arrest vs. search pursuant to a warrant]; contrast Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928), with Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 87 S.Ct. 1873, 18 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1967), and *89Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) [wiretapping]. See Wingo, Growing Dissillusion With the Exclusionary Rule, 25 Sw. L.J. 573 (1971); Oaks, Studying the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure, 37 U. Chi. L. Rev. 665 (1970); and Note, The Decline of the Exclusionary Rule: An Alternative to Injustice, 4 Sw. U. L. Rev. 68 (1972).
The majority opinion adds to the confusion which already exists and avoids meeting the Aguilar and Spinelli test head-on by interpreting the second prong of the Aguilar and Spinelli cases in such a way so as to be meaningless.