WA: Granting deference to the warrant, the affidavit was sufficient as to showing time

The affidavit used the phrase “within the last 48 hours,” and it wasn’t clear whether that meant when the CI reported it or saw it. The trial court read it narrowly, but that was not faithful to the “canons of construction” that affidavits for search warrants get a common sense reading with a purpose of deferring to search warrants to encourage officers to get search warrants. State v. Lyons, 160 Wn. App. 100, 247 P.3d 797 (2011):

¶13 This analysis would be appropriate and helpful if the court were analyzing a contract, where the language was the product of negotiation by business people and their lawyers. … But this is not a contract between business people and their lawyers. Mr. Lyons and the police did not sit down with lawyers and draft the language of this affidavit. Indeed, the affidavits are prepared by police officers, not lawyers, on short notice, and sometimes without any input by lawyers at all. State v. Patterson, 83 Wn.2d 49, 57-58, 515 P.2d 496 (1973). So both the superior court and this court, sitting in an appellate capacity, must give great weight to a magistrate’s determination that probable cause exists, and doubts are to be resolved in favor of the warrant. O’Connor, 39 Wn. App. at 123.

¶14 This affidavit certainly could be read as Mr. Lyons and, ultimately, the superior court judge read it. But the standard of review (abuse of discretion) and canons of construction (nontechnical reading, commonsense reading, with great deference to the magistrate, with doubts resolved in favor of the warrant) would require a reading in favor of the warrant. When so viewed, we conclude the language can be read to support both the observation and the reporting of that observation within 48 hours and therefore we conclude this warrant passes constitutional muster.