Com. v. Abdelnour

• Decision Date: 05 March 1981
• Citation: Com. v. Abdelnour, 417 N.E.2d 463, 11 Mass.App.Ct. 531 (Mass. App. 1981)
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Richard A. ABDELNOUR.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 463

417 N.E.2d 463

11 Mass.App.Ct. 531

COMMONWEALTH v. Richard A. ABDELNOUR.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

Argued Oct. 16, 1980.

Decided March 5, 1981.

Daniel F. Toomey, Asst. Dist. Atty. (Paul F. Bolton, Asst. Dist. Atty., with him), for the Commonwealth.

Harry Zarrow, Worcester, for defendant.

Before GREANEY, ROSE and PERRETTA, JJ.

GREANEY, Justice.

We are concerned in this case with the propriety of an order by a Superior Court judge dismissing indictments which charged the defendant with being found in a place with gaming apparatus (G.L. c. 271, § 17), and with using a telephone for registering bets (G.L. c. 271, § 17A). The dismissal occurred after the Commonwealth refused to comply with the judge's order to disclose the identity of a confidential informant who had supplied information in an affidavit used by the State police to obtain a search warrant for the defendant's premises. The appeal was transferred to this court by the Supreme Judicial Court. See G.L. c. 278, § 28E, as appearing in St.1979, c. 344, § 45; Mass.R.Crim.P. 15(b)(1), 378 Mass. (1979); G.L. c. 211, § 4A. We conclude that the order was erroneous and must be reversed.

The pertinent facts are these. On December 17, 1979, a State police officer applied to a District Court clerk for a warrant to search the defendant's premises at 70 Miscoe Road in Worcester. The affidavit accompanying the warrant application recited that, as a result of electronic surveillance in November, 1977, a search warrant had been obtained and later executed upon the defendant's property, that gaming apparatus had been discovered therein, that subsequent investigation led to indictments against thirteen persons, and that the defendant had been immunized from prosecution in exchange for his testimony in the matter. The affidavit next stated that a confidential informant, whose reliability had been established through past cooperation with the State Police, ¹ had reported to a State trooper on November 12, 1979, that the defendant was again "booking" at a designated telephone number from the Miscoe Road address and that the informant had, as recently as two days before, placed bets with the defendant. In order to corroborate the tip, the trooper arranged a telephone call in the informant's presence on the same day to the designated number. After receiving an answer on the first ring, the trooper "handed the telephone to (the informant) who placed a bet with a person he referred to as 'Dickie' on an athletic contest being played that night." The affidavit also described the results of a four week investigation which included: verification of the telephone number as the defendant's unpublished listing, observation of the defendant's automobile at the Miscoe Road address at various times on several days when college and professional football games were being played, and busy signals at the defendant's telephone number during the starting times of those games.

The affidavit recited two other pieces of information. The first was a report by the informant that, as of December 1, 1979, he was still placing bets with the defendant at his unlisted number and that the latest bets had been registered over the previous weekend. The second concerned the contents of a telephone conversation between the trooper and a male who answered a call made to the defendant's number at approximately 1:45 P. M. on Sunday, December 9, 1979. ²

Based on the foregoing, and the affiant's experienced opinion that the actions described in the affidavit were consistent with conduct expected of someone engaged in illegal gaming, a search warrant issued which, when executed on December 17, 1979, produced the items ³ used as the basis for the indictments. ⁴

Thereafter, counsel for the defendant moved to suppress the items seized under the warrant and separately moved for discovery of the informant's name and address. The motion seeking disclosure alleged that the November 12 telephone call described in the affidavit involved actual participation by the informant in the commission of the crimes. At the motion hearing, defense counsel argued with respect to that particular telephone call that, because the trooper had not listened to the voice on the other end of the line, the truth of what the trooper had overheard from the informant was "put in issue" and, as a result, that "right(s) of confrontation and ... cross-examination of (the informant) were essential to a fair trial." Nothing else of substance was advanced in support of the motion. The judge ordered disclosure over the Commonwealth's objection and he dismissed the indictments at a subsequent hearing when the Commonwealth refused to reveal the informant's identity.

1. We turn first to the contention that disclosure was necessary so that the defendant could test the informant's veracity with respect to the affidavit.

The right to challenge the truthfulness of statements contained in a search warrant affidavit is limited to cases where the defendant can make a substantial preliminary showing that "a false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth (has been) included by the affiant in the ... affidavit ...." Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 155-156, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 2676-77, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978). Commonwealth v. Reynolds, 374 Mass. 142, 147, 149, 370 N.E.2d 1375 (1977). See also Commonwealth v. Perez, 357 Mass. 290, 301-302, 258 N.E.2d 1 (1970); Commonwealth v. Murray, 359 Mass. 541, 548, 269 N.E.2d 641 (1971). Additionally, the claimed misstatement must be shown by the defendant to be crucial to the existence of probable cause and not merely of peripheral relevance. Franks v. Delaware, supra at 156, 98 S.Ct. at 2676. Rugendorf v. United States, 376 U.S. 528, 532, 84 S.Ct. 825, 827, 11 L.Ed.2d 887 (1964). See Commonwealth v. Reynolds, supra, 374 Mass. at 147, 370 N.E.2d 1375, and cases cited. The Franks decision confined its holding to baseless statements made by the affiant and reserved judgment on allegedly false statements in an affidavit attributed to a "nongovernmental informant." Franks at 171, 98 S.Ct. at 2684. See Commonwealth v. Reynolds, supra, 374 Mass. at 145-146, 370 N.E.2d 1375. In McCray v. Illinois, 386 U.S. 300, 87 S.Ct. 1056, 18 L.Ed.2d 62 (1967), the United States Supreme Court rejected a contention that the accused has a constitutional right to the disclosure of an informant who has supplied information bearing solely on the question of probable cause. "(Disclosure of the inform(ant)'s identity ... (is not required) in ... (a) preliminary hearing where it appears that the officers made the ... search in reliance on facts supplied by an inform(ant) they had reason to trust." Id. at 312, 87 S.Ct. at 1062. However, rather than setting down a hard and fast rule prohibiting disclosure in all warrant affidavit cases no matter what the circumstances (see United States v. Freund, 525 F.2d 873, 877 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 923, 96 S.Ct. 2631, 49 L.Ed.2d 377 (1976); see also discussion in 2 Louisell and Mueller, Federal Evidence § 236 at 820-823 (1978); 1 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 3.3 at 574-575 (1978)), these cases leave disclosure to the sound discretion of the judge handling the motion. As stated by the court in McCray: "(I)t should rest entirely with the judge who hears the motion to suppress to decide whether he needs such disclosure as to the informant in order to decide whether the officer is a believable witness." McCray v. Illinois, supra, 386 U.S. at 308, 87 S.Ct. at 1061, quoting from State v. Burnett, 42 N.J. 377, 388, 201 A.2d 39 (1964).

McCray and the other cases just discussed make clear as well that requests for disclosure in warrant affidavit cases should be denied without a hearing unless the defendant makes an adequate threshold demonstration either (1) that the police have fabricated the informant's existence or counterfeited the corroboration for his tip, or (2) that the police have relied upon and used information that they knew was patently unreliable. ⁵ Such a showing should be made by an affidavit or other suitable offer of proof accompanying the disclosure motion and supporting the particular grounds raised. Where the claim is advanced that the police could not have properly relied upon the informant, the defendant's preliminary showing must, at a minimum, satisfy the judge that the information sought to be attacked was false or incredible when made, that the police could not have had reasonable grounds for believing it, and that the police had the means available to establish its veracity without such delay as would defeat a legitimate law enforcement purpose. In this context, a suppression rule cannot be expected to prevent human error but it can and should be employed "to strike down perjury and to promote careful police work." United States v. Luna, 525 F.2d 4, 8-9 (6th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 965, 96 S.Ct. 1459, 47 L.Ed.2d 732 (1976). See also United States v. Belculfine, 508 F.2d 58, 62-63 (1st Cir. 1974); United States v. Cruz, 594 F.2d 268, 271-273 (1st Cir. 1979). Note, The Outwardly Sufficient Search Warrant Affidavit: What If It's False?, 19 U.C.L.A. L.Rev. 96, 133-139 (1971).

Viewed under these standards, the motion in this case was inadequate to require an evidentiary hearing as to disclosure, much less to warrant the order that was made. No assertion has been made that the State police fabricated the informant's existence, and the defendant appears to concede that the informant's past experience as reported in the affidavit (note 1, supra) qualified him as a trustworthy source. See Commonwealth v. Stevens, 362 Mass. 24, 26-27, 283 N.E.2d 673 (1972); Commonwealth v. Norris, 6 Mass.App. ---, --- - --- ^a, 383 N.E.2d 534 (1978). The unsupported allegation that the informant may have falsified the bookie's end of the November 12 telephone conversation is conjectural. Nothing else is shown in the...