Title: Ferry v. State

State: indiana

Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court

Document:

255 Ind. 27 (1970)
262 N.E.2d 523
FERRY
v.
STATE OF INDIANA.
No. 869S191.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
Filed October 5, 1970.
Robert R. Riggle, of Jeffersonville, for appellant.
Theodore L. Sendak, Attorney General, David S. Wedding, Deputy Attorney General, for appellee.
No petition for rehearing filed.
HUNTER, C.J.
This is an appeal brought by the appellant, William Bernard Ferry, from a conviction in the Clark Circuit Court of the crimes of possession of narcotic drugs and possession of narcotic drugs with intent to sell. Said offenses are found at Ind. Ann. Stat. § 10-3538 (1969 Cum. Supp.).
*28 Trial was had before a jury and upon a finding of guilty as charged, appellant was sentenced to the Indiana State Prison for not less than two (2) nor more than ten (10) years for possession, and for not less than five (5) nor more than twenty (20) years for possession with intent to sell the drugs in question. A timely motion for new trial was filed by appellant alleging numerous grounds as error in support thereof. Said motion was overruled by the trial court and it is from the overruling of his motion that appellant brings this appeal.
Appellant alleged the following specifications of error in his motion for new trial:
In his brief before this court, appellant is arguing specifications (1)-(3) of his motion for new trial and in doing so has grouped and supported them in one argument. Since the question raised by each specification is substantially the same, this opinion will deal with appellant's argument accordingly. Essentially the issue before us involves the following question: Was there probable cause to support the issuance of the search warrant obtained by the police in this case? The resolution of this question is critical to appellant's appeal since all of the incriminating evidence introduced at trial was discovered pursuant to a contested search warrant. Unless probable cause existed, the search warrant would be invalid and the evidence obtained thereunder should have been excluded as demanded by appellant in his motion to suppress.
The evidence most favorable to the State reveals the following *29 events: on November 1, 1968, six police officers went to #19 Yorkshire Apartments at 725 Eastern Boulevard, in Clarksville, Indiana, to conduct a search of the premises pursuant to a warrant issued for that purpose earlier that day. The apartment was occupied by appellant and his wife. The officers upon their arrival at the address knocked on the door and identified themselves. They heard a voice tell them to wait a minute and they did so for approximately 30 to 40 seconds. The officers then decided to wait no longer and commenced to enter the apartment. They were slowed in their progress by appellant's wife, Mrs. Ferry, who was pushing on the door attempting to keep the officers out.
Two of the officers had positioned themselves at the rear of appellant's apartment during the above-described events. When the other officers knocked on the front door of the apartment and identified themselves, the appellant, according to one of the officers in the rear, threw the window blind back, raised the window, opened the screen and laid a shaving case out on the ground. The officer retrieved the case and entered the apartment where the other officers were conducting their search. At the time the first group of police officers made their entrance into the apartment, they observed appellant running toward the bathroom. They pursued him and immediately placed him under arrest.
Among the items discovered during the search of the appellant's apartment were:
Officer Robert Gutman, a veteran of the Louisville, Kentucky Police Narcotics Squad, testified that the cocaine contents of the shaving case, if all "bagged" for sale would be worth $2-3,000 in the market. He stated that typical "bagging" is done in small amounts of powder in small tin foil squares. He further testified that this was exactly the way the packets were wrapped in appellant's shaving case and that in his experience as a narcotic's officer this was the only way he had ever seen cocaine flakes packaged for sale. It was his opinion that the packets in appellant's case were packaged for sale.
The affidavit for search warrant leading to the above search was signed by Officer Ronald M. Kemp of the Clarksville Police Department in accordance with the then applicable terms of Ind. Ann. Stat. § 9-602 (1956 Repl.). It reads as follows:
Although Officer Kemp appeared before the justice of the peace and gave oral testimony, the record indicates that no information was offered in testimony beyond that already contained in the affidavit. Probable cause therefore was established on the basis of this information and it is appellant's contention that it was based wholly on hearsay. That being so, according to appellant, under Indiana law in existence at that time the affidavit is legally insfficient to support the issuance of the search warrant here challenged.
The leading case in Indiana with regard to the requirements of probable cause for a search warrant in Rohlfing v. State (1949), 227 Ind. 619, 88 N.E.2d 148. This court there held that:
The holding in Rohlfing has been recently reaffirmed in a unanimous decision by this court in McCurry v. State (1967), 249 Ind. 191, 231 N.E.2d 227 as follows:
The position of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding hearsay as a basis for a finding of probable cause is best summarized by Mr. Justice Goldberg in the case of Aguilar v. State of Texas (1964), 378 U.S. 108, 12 L.Ed.2d 723:
It is apparent from a comparison of the holdings in Rohlfing, and Aguilar that at the time in question Indiana had a stricter probable cause requirement with respect to the affidavit upon which the issuance of a search warrant is based. The U.S. Supreme Court has authorized the use of hearsay information in the affidavit provided that the magistrate is informed of some of the underlying circumstances supporting its credibility and reliability. In Indiana the use of hearsay was not authorized.
*33 The rule in this regard was recently changed however, by the Indiana General Assembly. Ind. Ann. Stat. § 9-602, supra, was amended in March of 1969 to include the following language:
Although the search warrant in this case must be tested in accordance with the law as it existed at the time it was issued, we believe that it is defective even if the aforementioned amendment were applicable.
In the case at bar it is clear from both the affidavit and the testimony of the affiant, Officer Kemp, that the information which resulted in a finding of probable cause was wholly based on hearsay. In fact it was based on multiple or "totempole" hearsay. At the trial, Officer Kemp was questioned as follows:
...
...
The record further reveals that no inquiries were ever made to the Clinton, Iowa police authorities by the Clarksville Police Department to verify the information or the accuracy of its source. There was never any verification of the information contained in the affidavit. Neither the facts within the personal knowledge of the credible person [the Clinton, Iowa officer] nor the affiant's knowledge as to his credibility were specified.
Not only does the affidavit fall short of meeting the standards of Rohlfing v. State, supra, but it also fails under the more liberal rule enacted by the legislature. The fact that the information contained in the affidavit proved to be correct upon a search of appellant's apartment cannot cure the invalidity of the search warrant as issued. Probable cause for a warrant properly must be established before the search and not as a result of its fruits.
Although we do so reluctantly we are constrained to hold that the eveidence seized as a result of the search warrant, based as it was wholly on hearsay information, was obtained illegally and should have been excluded upon appellant's motion to suppress the same. The failure to do so is reversible error, and the trial court should have granted the motion for new trial.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court should be reversed.
Judgment reversed.
*35 DeBruler and Jackson, JJ., concur. Givan, J., dissents with opinion in which Arterburn, J., concurs.
GIVAN, J.
I cannot agree with the majority opinion in this case. The search warrant in this case was obtained upon the affidavit of one Ronald L. Kemp, police officer of Clarksville. In his affidavit Officer Kemp stated that he had received information from Robert Gutman, Narcotics Bureau of the Louisville Police Department, that the appellant and another were positively identified in Clinton, Iowa, as a suspect in a drug store burglary. The information recited in the affidavit, which is set out in full in the majority opinion, would be sufficient official police communication which, if received by any officer while on patrol, would be probable cause for him to arrest a suspect without a warrant. See Patterson v. State (1970), 253 Ind. 499, 20 Ind. Dec. 290, 255 N.E.2d 520, Manson et al. v. State (1967), 249 Ind. 53, 11 Ind. Dec. 293, 229 N.E.2d 801.
I see no reason why this type of information when received through official police communication channels should not be sufficient for the issuance of a search warrant.
I think the rule recited in the majority opinion is applicable to situations where the information received is from other than official sources and is of doubtful validity. However, to say that police officers of one city cannot obtain a search warrant based upon official police communications from another city is to create a situation which would require bringing witnesses from a distant city to testify before a magistrate before a search warrant could be issued. This would result in an impossible situation. Rapid communication systems would be totally useless for the apprehension of criminals over long distances if such information cannot be relied upon for the obtaining of a search warrant.
The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that *36 observations of fellow officers engaged in a common investigation are a reliable basis for a warrant applied for by one of their number. U.S. v. Ventresca (1965), 380 U.S. 102, 111, 13 L. Ed. 2d 684, 85 S. Ct. 741.
The Court of Appeals of New York in citing Ventresca observed:
People v. Horowitz (1967), 21 N.Y.2d 55, 233 N.E.2d 453, 455.
The Supreme Court of Illinois in facing this same situation has observed:
People v. Brinn (1965), 32 Ill. 2d 232, 204 N.E.2d 724, 730.
I would, therefore, hold that the search warrant was properly issued and therefore the trial court did not err in overruling the motion to suppress the evidence obtained thereby.
*37 I would affirm the lower court.
Arterburn, J., concurs.
NOTE.  Reported in 262 N.E.2d 523.