Case Name: PEOPLE v. BARBAT; PEOPLE v. UNSWORTH
Court: Michigan Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1973-09-25
Citations: 49 Mich. App. 519
Docket Number: Docket Nos. 12656, 12657
Parties: PEOPLE v BARBAT PEOPLE v UNSWORTH
Judges: Before: V. J. Brennan, P. J., and T. M. Burns and Adams, JJ.
Reporter: Michigan appeals reports; cases decided in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Volume: 49
Pages: 519–531

Head Matter:
PEOPLE v BARBAT PEOPLE v UNSWORTH
Opinion of the Court
1. Searches and Seizures — Reasonableness—Evidence—Admissibility.
Viewing and seizing by the police of a pair of boots worn by a murder suspect was reasonable and admission of them into evidence at the subject’s trial was .proper where the police officers had observed at the scene of the crime footprints which clearly displayed a wavy ripple pattern similar to that made by the sole of a woman’s shoe-boot, the suspect had been observed at the scene on the evening of the crime and at the time had been wearing knee-high shoe-boots, the suspect had voluntarily gone to the police station for interrogation and had consented to showing the officers the sole of her boot, and the officers seized the boots and arrested the suspect when they observed the sole of the boot and recognized the wavy ripple pattern as being similar to the footprints observed at the scene of the crime; the reasonableness of searches and seizures must be considered in the light of the circumstances, and in this case the officers acted reasonably and with the dispatch the occasion warranted.
Concurrence in Part, Dissent in Part by Adams, J.
2. Criminal Law — Evidence—Proofs—Alternate Proofs — Photographs.
The people in a trial of a crime of violence are not required to exhaust alternative methods before offering and having properly admitted into evidence photographs of the victims as they were found; the people are not required to present their case on any theory of alternative proofs.
References for Points in Headnotes
[1, 4] 68 Am Jur 2d, Searches and Seizures §§ 2, 41 et seq.
[2] 29 Am Jur 2d, Evidence § 785 et seq.
[3] 29 Am Jur 2d, Evidence § 775 et seq.
[5] 5 Am Jur 2d, Arrest § 44.
[6] 68 Am Jur 2d, Searches and Seizures §§ 49-53.
[7] 58 Am Jur, Witnesses § 865 et seq.
3. Homicide — Evidence—Gruesome and Inflammatory — Exhibits— Skull Section.
It was not error to admit into evidence in a murder trial a one-inch section of the victim’s skull in which was embedded the tip of a knife where the use of a knife was material to the prosecution’s theory of the case, a knife found at the scene of the crime matched the tip of the embedded blade, the exhibit was prepared in such a way as to be no different from hundreds of exhibits from antiquity or from science to be found in museums, and, when viewed by itself, the exhibit barely connoted the violent death of the victim; even though the issue might perhaps have been better handled by stipulation and the defense offered to stipulate the facts shown, which offer the prosecution refused, the exhibit was not gruesome and inflammatory and its admission into evidence was not error.
4. Searches and Seizures — Incident to Arrest — Appeal and Error —Evidence—Circumstantial Evidence.
A seizure of a suspect’s boots by the police can only be justified as having occurred in connection with a valid arrest where the police had no search warrant for them and the seizure and arrest occurred at the same time in the police station where the suspect had voluntarily appeared; admission of the boots so seized into evidence at a subsequent trial of the suspect was reversible error because the arrest was without probable cause, all the evidence against the defendant was circumstantial, and the boots were a vital link in the chain of evidence.
5. Arrest — Subsequent Release — Probable Cause — Admissions.
The speedy release of a suspect within a few hours of his arrest constitutes an admission by the police that, at that time, they had no probable cause to arrest him.
6. Searches and Seizures — Consent—Third-Party Consent — Constitutional Law — Evidence.
Consent to search a premises was validly given by a third party and evidence seized therein was properly admitted against a defendant where it was shown that the consenting party and the defendant had an equal right to possession or control of the premises; the rule does not require the contemporaneous arrest of the consenting third party to sustain the validity of the search because the Constitutions of both the United States and Michigan forbid only unreasonable searches and it would be unreasonable to require the police to obtain consent from all of the persons having joint access to a given area before a search could be carried out (US Const, Am IV; Const 1963, art 1, § 11).
7. Criminal Law — Witnesses—Defendant—Credibility—Prior Conviction — Instructions to Jury.
Prior convictions may be shown for the purpose of testing the credibility of a defendant who testiñed in his own behalf; where the trial judge instructed the jury to consider testimony of such prior convictions only in assessing the defendant’s credibility there was no error.
Appeal from Wayne, James N. Canham, J.
Submitted Division 1 January 3, 1973, at Detroit.
(Docket Nos. 12656, 12657.)
Decided September 25, 1973.
Leave to appeal applied for.
Michael J. Barbat and Eula G. Unsworth were convicted of first-degree murder. Defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Robert A. Derengoski, Solicitor General, William L. Cahalan, Prosecuting Attorney, Dominick R. Carnovale, Chief, Appellate Department, and Patricia J. Boyle, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
Michael C Moran, Assistant State Appellate Defender, for defendants.
Before: V. J. Brennan, P. J., and T. M. Burns and Adams, JJ.
Former Supreme Court Justice, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment pursuant to Const 1963, art 6, § 23 as amended in 1968.

Opinion:
V. J. Brennan, P. J.
We concur, and adopt Justice Adams' opinion in its entirety except as to the disposition of issue number 2. That issue being whether the trial court erred in admitting defend ant Unsworth's boots and whether the officers had probable cause to seize the boots.
The defendant in her brief relies on People v Trudeau, 385 Mich 276; 187 NW2d 890 (1971), contending that here the viewing and seizing of the boots constituted an illegal search and seizure because it was warrantless. We feel, however, that the viewing of the boots was not a search; and, after examining the record, find that the viewing was reasonable.
We point out that at the time the defendant Unsworth was being interviewed by the detectives at the Dearborn police station, she had voluntarily appeared. The officers also had in their possession a description given by witnesses who were in the bar on the morning oí1 the murders, which description fit the defendant Unsworth. During this interview, one of the officers observed the sole of her boot and recognized that design as being similar to the design of, the boot imprint that was found by the garage in the snow. Upon this observation, he placed the defendant under arrest and asked her for the boots.
Armed with the above information as well as other specific facts, the officers had reasonable cause to take immediate steps to retrieve and examine the boots.
In People v Eddington, 387 Mich 551; 198 NW2d 297 (1972), the Court points out that where a detective had seized and examined the shoes of the defendant at the defendant's apartment they consider the reasonableness of this seizure in the light of all of the circumstances and in that case found that he had to act with dispatch because the occasion warranted it. We point out that had the officers, at the time of their examination of defendant's boots, not done so, the evidence could very well have been lost; the officers here "acted reasonably and with the dispatch the occasion warranted". Moreover, unlike People v Trudeau, supra, where the officer was acting only on the similarity in the modus operandi of the crime for which Trudeau was under arrest, the officers in this case had more than a mere suspicion of defendant's involvement.
We have examined the facts and the record in this matter and find that it was not error to admit defendant Unsworth's boots in evidence.
Conviction affirmed.
T. M. Burns, J., concurred.