OPINION
We granted this case in order to decide whether a new state constitutional rule was announced in State v. Jacumin 1 for determining probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant. If a new rule was created, we then must determine whether it should be applied retroactively.
The trial court dismissed the petition, finding that even if we announced a new rule, it did not fit within the exceptions to the federal standard that new constitutional rules will not be applied retroactively to cases on collateral review. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, but on the separate ground that the petitioner’s claim had been “previously determined,” and therefore did not present a cognizable claim for relief under the Post-Conviction Procedure Act. We conclude that Jacumin did announce a new state constitutional rule, but that the new rule does not meet our newly adopted state standard for retroactivity in claims for post-conviction relief in that it does not materially enhance the integrity and reliability of the fact finding process at trial. As a result, we affirm the lower court’s dismissal of the petition.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The petitioner, Robert H. Meadows, was arrested after the police conducted a search of his living quarters pursuant to a search warrant and discovered various controlled substances. Meadows filed a motion to suppress the evidence discovered during the search on the grounds that the search warrant had been issued without probable cause, which the trial court denied. Meadows was then convicted of four counts of possession of controlled substances with the intent to manufacture, deliver or sell, was fined $222,000.00, and was sentenced to an effective 44-year period of incarceration.
Meadows appealed his convictions to the Court of Criminal Appeals, contending that the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant was insufficient to satisfy the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and' Article I, § 7 of the Tennessee Constitution. The Court of Criminal Appeals found that the affidavit, which was, in part, based upon information obtained from a confidential informant, satisfied the “totality of the circumstances” test of
Illinois v. Gates,
On February 1, 1988, this Court denied Meadows application for permission to appeal without comment.
In 1989, this Court decided State v. Jacu-min, supra, which rejected the Gates test and held that the proper rule under Tennessee law was the Aguilar-Spinelli test. Meadows then filed a petition for post-conviction relief in the trial court, alleging that the Court of Criminal Appeals incorrectly applied the Gates “totality of the circumstances” test to the affidavit used to obtain the 1985 search warrant. Meadows contended that Jacumin announced a new rule of constitutional law that should be applied retroactively to his case and if so applied, no probable cause would have existed to issue the search warrant.
*750
The trial court dismissed Meadows’ petition, finding that even if
Jacumin
had announced a new constitutional rule, the new rule did not fall within the exceptions to the federal standard adopted in
Teague v. Lane,
The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the petition, but on the grounds that the Supreme Court had “previously determined” Meadows’ claim when we denied his application for permission to appeal, and that since post-conviction relief can extend only to grounds that have not been “waived” or “previously determined,” see Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-30-111, the petition should be dismissed. The intermediate court found it unnecessary to determine whether the Jacumin decision was a new rule or should be applied retroactively.
JACUMIN — OLD OR NEW CONSTITUTIONAL RULE?
The first issue to be determined is whether this Court’s opinion in
Jacumin, supra,
announced a new constitutional rule for analyzing probable cause. In
Jacu-min,
we rejected the “totality of the circumstances” test enunciated in
Illinois v. Gates,
In Aguilar v. Texas, in order for a search warrant to be supported by probable cause when the affidavit is based upon information provided by a confidential informant, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that:
[although an affidavit may be based on hearsay information and need not reflect the direct personal observations of the affiant, Jones v. United States,362 U.S. 257 ,80 S.Ct. 725 ,4 L.Ed.2d 697 , the magistrate must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded that the narcotics were where he claimed they were, and some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer concluded that the informant, whose identity need not be disclosed, see Rugendorf v. United States,376 U.S. 528 ,84 S.Ct. 825 [11 L.Ed.2d 887 ] was “credible” or his information “reliable.”
Aguilar,
In
Spinelli v. United States,
the Court granted certiorari to further explicate the principles announced in
Aguilar.
After rejecting a “totality of the circumstances” test and reaffirming the two-pronged “reliability-basis of knowledge” test, the
Spi-nelli
Court indicated that an affidavit could be sufficient “[i]n the absence of a statement detailing the manner in which the information was gathered [if] the tip describe[s] the accused’s criminal activity in sufficient detail that the magistrate may know that he is relying on something more substantial than a casual rumor circulating in the underworld or an accusation based merely on an individual’s general reputation.”
Spinelli,
In
Illinois v. Gates,
however, the Supreme Court abandoned the two-pronged “reliability-basis of knowledge” test of
Aguilar
and
Spinelli
for a “totality of the circumstances” approach to determine whether an informant’s tip establishes probable cause for issuance of a search warrant.
Gates,
Following
Gates
in 1983, and before our opinion in
Jacumin
in 1989, several Court of Criminal Appeals decisions applied the “totality of the circumstances” standard on the basis of language in
Sneed v. State,
Meadows contends that because Jacu-min rejected the “totality of the circumstances” test, which had been followed by the Court of Criminal Appeals after the U.S. Supreme Court decided Illinois v. Gates in 1983, it follows that Jacumin announced a new constitutional rule that must be applied retrospectively to his case. While we agree with the petitioner that Jacumin did announce a new constitutional rule, we disagree with his contention that the rule should be applied retroactively.
“[A] case announces a new rule when it breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation on the States or the Federal Government.”
Teague v. Lane,
Our review of the Tennessee cases decided before
Jacumin
leads us to the conclusion that
Jacumin
did create a new state constitutional rule of criminal procedure. As early as 1925, this Court held that an affidavit in support of a request for issuance of a search warrant cannot be based simply upon the conclusions of an informant, but rather must disclose the basis of the informant’s knowledge.
Jackson v. State,
Following our opinion in Owens, supra, we held that:
[sjince guarantees of the Fourth Amendment of the Federal Constitution against unreasonable searches and seizures now apply to states through the due process clause, (Mapp v. Ohio, (1961),81 S.Ct. 1684 ,367 U.S. 643 ,6 L.Ed.2d 1081 , ...) and this is the supervening law of the land, federal cases on search and seizure *752 must be abided by. And as our own constitutional provision, Article I, § 7, is identical in intent and purpose with the Fourth Amendment, it is reasonable that we should not limit it more stringently than federal cases limit the Fourth Amendment, and so should regard such cases as particularly persuasive.
Sneed v. State,
After
Sneed,
although this Court did diverge from federal precedent with respect to the “open fields” doctrine of search and seizure law,
see State v. Lakin,
Our review demonstrates that nine Court of Criminal Appeals decisions applied the “totality of the circumstances” test to affidavits used to obtain search warrants between the time
Gates
and
Jacumin
were decided. Of these nine cases, five were not appealed to the Supreme Court and there was no Supreme Court review.
See State v. Taylor,
We have discussed in the past the effect of our denial of an application for appeal. Most recently we said: “This Court is not committed to all the views expressed in an opinion of the intermediate appellate courts when we deny discretionary review.”
Swift v. Kirby,
However, the published opinions of the intermediate appellate courts are opinions which have precedential value and may be relied upon by the bench and bar of this state as representing the present state of the law with the same confidence and reliability as the published opinions of this Court, so long as either are not overruled or modified by subsequent decisions. To the extent that
Spalding v. Davis,
In one of those cases in which we denied the application for permission to appeal, State v. Meadows, supra, the current petitioner’s case, the Court of Criminal Appeals held
that the affidavit in question passes Fourth Amendment muster, under Gates.
The next question is whether our Tennessee Constitution, Article I, Section 7, and the statute law of Tennessee, require a different result. We think not. This court has previously followed a “totality of the circumstances” approach in determining the validity of the issuance of a *753 search warrant. State v. Hunt,665 S.W.2d 751 , 754 (Tenn.Crim.App.1984).
Meadows,
In addition to the intermediate court decision in
Meadows, supra,
this Court in
State v. Bryan,
... task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common sense decision, where given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him including the “veracity” and “basis of knowledge” of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.
State v. Bryan,
However, six months after our opinion in
State v. Bryan, supra,
we decided
State v. Jacumin,
where we held that “the principles developed under
Aguilar v. Texas, supra,
and
Spinelli v. United States, supra,
if not applied hypertechnically, provide a more appropriate structure for probable cause inquiries incident to the issuance of a search warrant than does
Gates.” Jacumin,
Accordingly, given that the courts of this state had consistently followed the federal standards as a matter of state and federal constitutional law until
Jacumin
was decided, we hold that
State v. Jacumin,
RETROACTIVE APPLICATION OF NEW CONSTITUTIONAL RULES
Prior to 1965, all new constitutional rules of criminal procedure were applied retroactively. Comment,
Griffith v. Kentucky: Partial Adoption of Justice Harlan’s Retroactivity Standard,
10 Crim. JustJ. 153, 155 (1987). It was in
Linkletter v. Walker,
Although states are bound by federal retroactivity analysis when a new federal rule is involved
2
, it is well established that state courts are free to determine what retroactive effect will be accorded pronouncements of state law.
Great Northern Ry. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co.,
We think the Federal Constitution has no voice upon the subject. A state in defining the limits of adherence to precedent may make a choice for itself between the principle of forward operation and that of relation backward.
Id.; See also American Trucking Associations, Inc. v. Smith,
Irrespective of the freedom of choice available, a number of state courts have nevertheless chosen to align with the federal courts and have assimilated the
Teague
standard into state jurisprudence.
See State v. Slemmer,
Undoubtedly, Tennessee retroactivity jurisprudence has been influenced by federal precedents. This Court, however, has never adopted the tripartite analysis that originated in the
Linkletter
decision. Instead, we have stated that newly announced state constitutional rules will be given retroactive application to cases which are still in the trial or appellate process at the time such rules are announced, unless some compelling reason exists for not so doing.
State v. Robbins,
Applying that standard to this case, we conclude that the rule announced in Jacu-min should not be applied retroactively because it does not materially enhance the integrity and reliability of the fact-finding process at trial. Although the new rule may enhance the probable-cause finding function of the magistrate, the old rule did not substantially impair the trial court’s fact-finding function or raise serious questions about the accuracy of guilty verdicts. As stated by the California Supreme Court:
In search and seizure cases, the tripartite test leads generally to the conclusion that a decision should not be given retroactive effect_ [I]n such a case “[exclusion is not necessary to ensure the reliability of the fact-finding process at trial.”
People v. Carrera,
supra,
We, therefore, conclude that the new rule announced in Jacumin should not be accorded retroactive application under the state standard of retroactivity. While it is not necessary to address the issue of whether the petitioner’s claim has been previously determined, we point out that the claim was not previously determined by our denial of permission to appeal because it is not a determination on the merits. It was previously determined, if at all, by the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s dismissal of the petition for post-conviction relief. The costs of this appeal are taxed to the petitioner.
Notes
.
.
This Court applied the federal standard when deciding whether retroactively to apply
Caldwell v. Mississippi,
. We determined in
Hellard
that the standard for attorney competence announced in
Baxter v. Rose,
