State v. Cole

• Decision Date: 25 March 1981
• Docket Number: WW-326 and WW-327,Nos. WW-325,s. WW-325
• Citation: 395 So.2d 628
• Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Richard Herbert COLE, Jr., Carol Maier and Kevin Neil Maier, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 628

395 So.2d 628

STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Richard Herbert COLE, Jr., Carol Maier and Kevin Neil Maier, Appellees.

Nos. WW-325, WW-326 and WW-327.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

March 25, 1981.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., David P. Gauldin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellant.

William J. Sheppard, of Sheppard & Carithers, P. A., Jacksonville, for appellees.

SHIVERS, Judge.

The State appeals from an order granting defendants' motion to suppress. The State contends the trial court erred in granting the motion to suppress because, contrary to the finding by the trial court, the affidavit in support of the search warrant was sufficient to indicate probable cause that marijuana would be found on the premises occupied by the defendants. We agree and reverse.

Defendants, Carol Maier, Kevin Maier, and Richard Cole, were charged by information on June 27, 1980, with possession of more than twenty (20) grams of cannabis. Subsequently, appellees filed a motion to suppress, alleging the affidavit supporting the search warrant executed on June 16, 1980, was insufficient because it did not show the quantity of cannabis reportedly seen on the premises and the affiant failed to allege the cannabis was still present at the time the affidavit was executed.

The contested affidavit stated the affiant received information from a reliable confidential informant that the informant personally observed a quantity of cannabis on defendants' premises "within the last fourteen days."

In granting defendants' motion to suppress, the trial court determined that the observation of an unspecified quantity of marijuana inside a private residence and a fourteen day time period between that observation and the issuance of a search warrant failed to indicate probable cause sufficient to believe that a violation of a drug abuse law was taking place at the time of the execution of the warrant. We disagree.

The affidavit here, like the one in Chadwick v. State, 358 So.2d 901 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), when read in the "commonsense manner" dictated in United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 109, 85 S.Ct. 741, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965), sufficiently indicates: (1) the information is reliable, and (2) the affiant has reason to believe in the truthfulness of that information. This court determined, in Chadwick, that no more is necessary to satisfy the two-pronged test of Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964). In the instant...