Gary Lee Quigg v. W. J. Estelle, Jr., Warden, Montana State Prison, and the State of Montana

Appellant was convicted of first degree murder in a Montana State Court on March 31, 1969; the Montana Supreme Court affirmed. State v. Quigg, 155 Mont. 119 , 467 P.2d 692 (1970). Appellant then petitioned the United States District Court for the District of Montana for a writ of habeas corpus. In support of his petition, appellant argued that: (1) The affidavits in support of the search warrants used to procure evidence used against him in his trial did not establish probable cause for issuance of those warrants, and (2) The warrants in question violatéd the Fourth Amendment because they were “general warrants” and did not describe the items to be seized with the required par ticularity. The District Court found both of these contentions to be without merit and denied the petition. We affirm.

The question presented by petitioner centers around the use of an unidentified informant’s hearsay statements that the defendant was known to have guns similar to the one used in the murder and that the informant believed such guns were kept in petitioner’s home or automobile. The portion of the affidavit in question reads as follows:

Petitioner questions the absence of any showing before…