State v. Haron

• Decision Date: 12 August 1974
• Docket Number: 11269,Nos. 11258,s. 11258
• Citation: 220 N.W.2d 829,88 S.D. 397
• Parties: STATE of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Charles HARON and Alfonso Boltiador, Defendants and Appellants.
• Court: South Dakota Supreme Court

Page 829

220 N.W.2d 829

88 S.D. 397

STATE of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. Charles HARON and Alfonso Boltiador, Defendants and Appellants.

Nos. 11258, 11269.

Supreme Court of South Dakota.

Aug. 12, 1974.

Kermit Sande, Atty. Gen., Pierre, Marvin Keller, Deputy State's Atty., Sioux Falls, for the State.

Braithwaite & Cadwell, Joe W. Cadwell, Sioux Falls, for appellant Alfonso Boltiador.

Anderson & Quinn, Robert N. Quinn, Sioux Falls, for Charles E. Haron, appellant.

WOLLMAN, Justice.

Defendants were charged with the offense of unlawfully possessing a controlled drug, a quantity of marijuana in excess of one ounce, in violation of SDCL 39--17--95. They appeal from the judgment entered after they were found guilty by a circuit court jury. ¹

At approximately 8 a.m. on August 18, 1972, some 15 law enforcement officers, consisting of members of the Sioux Falls Police Department, the Minnehaha County Sheriff's Department and the Minnehaha County Civil Defense Unit, converged upon a farm located in the northwest corner of Minnehaha County for the purpose of executing a search warrant describing a certain Harley Davidson motorcycle which had allegedly been stolen from its owner by one Ron Nelson, also known as Ronald James Nelson. The officers were accompanied by a civil defense helicopter.

Upon reaching the farmyard, the officers drew their weapons and surrounded the farm house. Two police officers and Sheriff Gene Gruhlke went up on the back porch and knocked on the door. These three officers heard someone running in the house and then heard the sound of flushing water, where upon they knocked again, identified themselves as police officers, announced that they had a search warrant and asked that the inhabitants of the house open the door. As these three officers stood near the door they observed some green leafy substance on a tarpaulin which was lying on the porch.

Upon receiving no response to their second knock, the officers forced open the back door and entered the kitchen, where they saw some green leafy substance lying on the kitchen table. They also observed a trail of this substance leading from the table out through a doorway. One of the officers then looked through the partially opened bathroom door and observed an individual, later identified as defendant Boltiador, sitting on the stool clad only in a pair of pants, which were pulled apart four or five inches down below his waist. The officers ordered Boltiador to stand up and move, whereupon they observed some of the green leafy substance floating in the water in the stool. They recovered this substance, which was later determined to consist of .106 ounces of marijuana.

The officers then started to go upstairs, where they met defendant Haron at the top of the stairway. The officers then went into one of the rooms, where they found Mrs. Haron and a small child in bed. After Mrs. Haron and the child were taken downstairs, the officers searched the upstairs rooms and then looked into the attic through a door on the ceiling of the bedroom in which Mrs. Haron and the child were found. The door to the attic, approximately two feet by two feet in size, was lying slightly ajar at the time the searching officer opened it and looked into the attic. As this officer put his head and shoulders through the attic door and looked about with the aid of a flashlight, he observed a one-gallon can approximately three or four inches away from the door with some green leafy substance heaped up above the top of the can. The officer took the can into his possession; the can was later determined to contain 9.81 ounces of marijuana.

The officers took into possession the green leafy substance which was lying on the kitchen table, later determined to consist of .141 ounces of marijuana, and the green leafy substance which was lying on the tarpaulin on the back porch, which proved to consist of 26 ounces of marijuana. The officers found neither Ron Nelson nor the motorcycle during the search of the house and the other buildings on the premises.

Defendants contend that the affidavit upon which the search warrant was issued was insufficient to establish probable cause for the issuance of the warrant. With the exception of the caption, the affidavit is set forth below. ²

Defendants claim that the affidavit fails to meet the requirements of Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723, and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637. Under the Aguilar-Spinelli test, an affidavit based upon information supplied by an unnamed informant must include facts from which the magistrate can find that the conclusions set forth in the affidavit are warranted. The affidavit must set forth sufficient facts to allow the magistrate to conclude that the information's information is reliable and that the informant is credible.

The Aguilar-Spinelli requirements have been held not to apply to information supplied by identified bystanders or victim- eyewitnesses to a crime. For example, in United States v. Bell, 5 Cir., 457 F.2d 1231, the court stated that:

'It is now a well-settled and familiar concept, as enunciated by Aguilar and Spinelli, that supporting affidavits in an application for a search warrant must attest to the credibility of an informant and the reliability of his information. See also United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971). We have discovered no case that extends this requirement to the identified bystander or victim-eyewitness to a crime, and we now hold that no such requirement need be met. The rationale behind requiring a showing of credibility and reliability is to prevent searches based upon an unknown informant's tip that may not reflect anything more than idle rumor or irresponsible conjecture. Thus, without the establishment of the probability of reliability, a 'neutral and detached magistrate' could not adequately assess the probative value of the tip in exercising his judgment as to the existence of probable cause. Many informants are intimately involved with the persons informed upon and with the illegal conduct at hand, and this circumstance could also affect their credibility. None of these considerations is present in the eyewitness situation such as was present here. Such observers are seldom involved with the miscreants or the crime. Eyewitnesses by definition are not passing along idle rumor, for they either have been the victims of the crime or have otherwise seen some portion of it. A 'neutral and detached magistrate' could adequately assess the probative value of an eyewitness's information because, if it is reasonable and accepted as true, the magistrate must believe that it is based upon firsthand knowledge. Thus we conclude that Aguilar and Spinelli requirements are limited to the informant situation only.' 457 F.2d 1231, 1238.

See also United States v. Roman, 4 Cir., 451 F.2d 579; United States v. Unger, 7 Cir., 469 F.2d 1283; United States v. Rajewich, 8 Cir., 470 F.2d 666.

We agree with the holding in United States v. Bell, supra, that the strict requirements of Aguilar and Spinelli are limited to those cases in which the information in the affidavit has been supplied by an unnamed, unidentified informant and that where, as in the instant case, the information, or at least the greater part of it, has been supplied by the victim of the alleged crime or by identified eyewitnesses, the reliability of the information so supplied and the credibility of the informants are sufficiently established if on the face of the affidavit it appears that the named victim-eyewitness informants were in a position to have observed the matters related to the officer who submits the affidavit to the magistrate.

Defendants contend that the affidavit was based upon stale information and that because of the absence of any information in the affidavit that Ron Nelson resided on the premises there was not probable cause to believe that the motorcycle would be found on the premises described in the affidavit. In support of this contention defendants cite United States v. Bailey, 9 Cir., 458 F.2d 408, in which an affidavit that merely stated that defendant Bailey had been seen at a certain house and that a codefendant had been arrested there did not establish probable cause to search the house for Bailey.

We believe that the majority in the Bailey case read the affidavit there in question in a very technical, restrictive manner. Moreover, we believe that the affidavit in the instant case, when given a fair, commonsense reading, indicates a course of conduct on the part of Ron Nelson that was sufficient to establish probable cause to search the premises in question. We must remember that only the probability, and not a prima facie showing, of criminal activity is the standard of probable cause. See Spinelli v. United States, supra. We believe that the affidavit, read as a whole, indicates that Ron Nelson's association with the premises in question was sufficiently continuing to justify the magistrate's conclusion that a reasonable probability existed that the motorcycle would be found on the premises. See Bastida v. Henderson, 5 Cir., 487 F.2d 860.

Given the reliability of the information supplied to the officer and the credibility of the informants, we conclude that the information contained with the affidavit was sufficient to establish probable cause for a search of the farmyard and farm building in question. Affidavits for search warrants...