State v. Clay

501 P.2d 603, 7 Wash. App. 631, 1972 Wash. App. LEXIS 1019
CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedOctober 2, 1972
Docket1255-1
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 501 P.2d 603 (State v. Clay) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Clay, 501 P.2d 603, 7 Wash. App. 631, 1972 Wash. App. LEXIS 1019 (Wash. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

Callow, J.

The defendant was tried and convicted of possession of a narcotic drug, count 1, under RCW *632 69.33.410, and possession of a dangerous drug, count 2, under RCW 69.40.061. '

On December 30, 1970, officers of the Skagit County Sheriff’s Department arrived at a residence at 7:30 a.m. to execute an arrest warrant for a person by the name of Latimer and a search warrant for the premises. When the officers arrived, the house was dark, and the shades' were drawn. They were unaware that anyone was home. An officer knocked, announced his identity and purpose and entered the residence when he did not hear a response. Inside the house, they found the defendant and others asleep. A deputy sheriff testified that he awakened defendant and allowed him to put some clothes on. The defendant picked up a pair of pants, and the deputy searched them finding a packet of white powder and a wallet. The deputy testified he knew there was a wallet in the pants when he checked them, and he was watching the defendant closely and did not think the defendant could have put the wallet in the pants before he put them on. The bedroom was searched and other items found. A witness testified the defendant had said that he rented the house. A real estate salesman stated he had been contacted by the defendant and Latimer on November 27, 1970, regarding the residence, that he showed the place to them, that most of the conversation was with Clay, that they agreed to rent it, that no rental agreement was signed, and that the receipt was made out in Latimer’s name. The salesman further testified he understood he was renting the house to Clay who planned on working nearby and going to school part time.

The defendant Clay assigns as error the denial of the motion to suppress, the denial of the challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, the denial of the motion for mistrial, the denial of challenges for cause to two jurors, and the jury instruction relating to and defining actual' and constructive possession. The defendant claims also that the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the *633 United States Constitution was violated by his being sentenced to the Department of Institutions.

Defendant claims that the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States regarding unreasonable searches and seizures has been violated. His position is that the affidavits in support of the warrant do not reflect that a violation of law was occurring at the time of the issuance of the warrant. The converse of this argument is that probable cause may not be based on stale information.

The dual requirements of Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 12 L. Ed. 2d 723, 84 S. Ct. 1509 (1964), are reaffirmed with approval in Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 412, 21 L. Ed. 2d 637, 89 S. Ct. 584 (1969), wherein it was said:

In Aguilar, a search warrant had issued upon an affidavit of police officers who swore only that they had “received reliable information from a credible person and do believe” that narcotics were being illegally stored on the described premises. While recognizing that the constitutional requirement of probable cause can be satisfied by hearsay information, this Court held the affidavit inadequate for two reasons. First, the application failed to set forth any of the “underlying circumstances” necessary to enable the magistrate independently to judge of the validity of the informant’s conclusion that the narcotics were where he said they were. Second, the affiant-officers did not attempt to support their claim that their informant was “ ‘credible’ or his information ‘reliable.’ ”

Spinelli further recapped the standards for the testing of affidavits in support of a search warrant as follows at page 419:

The affidavit, then, falls short of the standards set forth in Aguilar, Draper [Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307 (1959)], and our other decisions that give content to the notion of probable cause. In holding as we have done, we do not retreat from the established propositions that only the probability, and not a prima facie showing, of criminal activity is the standard of probable cause, Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 96 (1964); that affidavits of probable cause are tested by much less rigorous standards than those governing the admissibility of evidence at trial, McCray v. Illinois, 386 U. S. 300, 311 (1967); that in *634 judging probable cause issuing magistrates are not to be confined by niggardly limitations or by restrictions on the use of their common sense, United States v. Ventresca, 380 U. S. 102, 108 (1965); and that their determination of probable cause should be paid great deference by reviewing courts, Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257, 270-271 (1960). But we cannot sustain this warrant without diluting important safeguards that assure that the judgment of a disinterested judicial officer will interpose itself between the police and the citizenry.

(Footnotes omitted.)

United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 29 L. Ed. 2d 723, 91 S. Ct. 2075 (1971), quoted with approval United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 13 L. Ed. 2d 684, 85 S. Ct. 741 (1965), as follows:

“[T]he Fourth Amendment’s commands, like all constitutional requirements, are practical and not abstract. If the teachings of the Court’s cases are to be followed and the constitutional policy served, affidavits for search warrants, such as the one involved here, must be tested and interpreted by magistrates and courts in a commonsense and realistic fashion. They are normally drafted by nonlawyers in the midst and haste of a criminal investigation. Technical requirements of elaborate specificity once exacted under common law pleadings have no proper place in this area.

Again in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 449, 29 L. Ed. 2d 564, 91 S. Ct. 2022 (1971), we find the United States Supreme Court reaching back with approval to a prior case setting standards in this area as follows:

The classic statement of the policy underlying the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment is that of Mr. Justice Jackson, writing for the Court in Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 13-14:

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Bluebook (online)
501 P.2d 603, 7 Wash. App. 631, 1972 Wash. App. LEXIS 1019, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-clay-washctapp-1972.