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336 S.C. 140

519 S.E.2d 347

State v. Bellamy

Supreme Court of South Carolina

Decided June 28, 1999

Supreme Court of South Carolina · decided 1999-06-28

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“If, for example, a particular informant is known for the unusual reliability of his predictions of certain types of criminal activities in a locality, his failure, in a particular case, to thoroughly set forth the basis of his knowledge surely should not serve as an absolute bar to a finding of probable cause based on his tip. Likewise, if an unquestionably honest citizen comes forward with a report of criminal activity — which if fabricated would subject him to criminal liability — we have found rigorous scrutiny of the basis of his knowledge unnecessary. Conversely, even if we entertain some doubt as to an informant’s motives, his explicit and detailed description of alleged wrongdoing, along with a statement that the event was observed firsthand, entitles his tip to greater weight than might otherwise be the case.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including State v. Dupree

Relies on Illinois v. Gates

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1999-06-28

How this case has been cited

Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently May 2017 · most notably State v. Baccus (2006), State v. King (2002)

33 state decisions

190199920002010decided

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 →

FINNEY, Chief Justice:

¶1I respectfully dissent. In my opinion, the affidavit fails to establish probable cause because there is no information supporting the informant’s reliability. While I agree that this deficiency may be compensated for by an “explicit and detailed description of alleged wrongdoing, along with a statement that the event was observed firsthand”, Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), we have no such corroboration in this case. The “firsthand wrongdoing” detailed here consists of firing a gun in the city limits, *146and a vague reference to drugs on the premises-there is no firsthand observation of the relevant crime, the theft of the guns. While there is an assertion that the persons in the apartment possessed three weapons which were of the same caliber and/or make as three of the twenty guns stolen from the police department, there is simply nothing to link these common guns or the individuals to that crime.

¶2The specificity in the affidavit is illusory, and the majority’s assertion that “the weapons described by the informant matched those that had been stolen ... just days earlier” is an exaggeration. The reliability of this informant is critical, since he gave the statement only after his own arrest on drug charges, inferentially in an attempt to mitigate his own situation. I would find the affidavit insufficient, and reverse and remand for a new trial.

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