Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

264 Ark. 376

Akins v. State

Supreme Court of Arkansas

Decided October 16, 1978

Supreme Court of Arkansas · decided 1978-10-16

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“If an affidavit or testimony is based in whole or part on hearsay, the affiant or witness shall set forth particular facts bearing on the informant's reliability and shall disclose, as far as practicable, the means by which the information was obtained. An affidavit or testimony is sufficient if it describes circumstances establishing reasonable cause to believe that things subject to seizure will be found in a particular place.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 89 Ark. App. 146 - Winters v. State

“I know my informant is reliable, because he has been reliable in the past.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 89 Ark. App. 146 - Winters v. State

Relies on Rowland v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1978-10-16

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently January 2005

6 state decisions

201978198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

George Rose Smith, Justice,

¶1In this prosecution for possession of marihuana with intent to deliver, the State was allowed to introduce evidence obtained pursuant to a search warrant. The officer’s affidavit for the search warrant contained only this statement about the reliability of his informant: “An informant proved reliable in the past to affiant told affiant that he had personally viewed the Marijuana upon the property above described.”

¶2The statement is fatally defective. Our controlling Rule, which is based upon many decisions, provides: “If an affidavit or testimony is based in whole or in part on hearsay, the affiant or witness shall set forth particular facts bearing on the informant’s reliability ...” Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 13.1 (b) (1976). The affiant must state more than a mere conclusion and disclose enough information to show that the informant is worthy of belief. Rowland v. State, 262 Ark. 783, 561 S.W. 2d 304 (1978). Here the affiant in substance said: “I know my informant is reliable, because he has been reliable in the past.” That statement is a mere conclusion, providing the magistrate with no facts bearing upon the reliability of the unnamed informant. Thus the magistrate was at best depending upon the reliability of the affiant, not upon that of the informant. Where hearsay is an essential basis for the magistrate’s conclusion, that short cut is not permissible.

¶3The court correctly instructed the jury that the quantity of marihuana possessed was evidence to be considered along with all the other facts and circumstances in the cases in determining the intent with which the marihuana was possessed. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-110 (5) (b) and Commentary (Repl. 1977).

¶4Reversed and remanded.

¶5We agree.

Fogleman, Holt, and Howard, JJ.
/264/ark/376 · .json · Public domain