Opinion ID: 2470108
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unreasonable Conduct and Probable Cause to Arrest

Text: Brown alleges that he was arrested for a traffic offense, then held so an investigation into the murder could occur. He relies on another court's conclusion that police cannot delay the probable-cause inquiry in order to investigate the suspect's participation in crimes other than those forming the basis for arrest. See United States v. Davis, 174 F.3d 941, 945 (8th Cir.1999). There is scant evidence, though, that Brown was arrested for driving without proper license plates and then held while being investigated for murder. The arrest report itself, dated Saturday at 2:00 p.m., stated Brown was arrested for the murder. There was a substantial basis by that point to arrest him: (i) Brown's recent history of violence toward Moore; (ii) the Mc-Donald's manager's report that Brown and Moore had argued repeatedly that Friday and had plans to travel together that evening; (iii) information from Moore's mother that the pregnant victim failed to return home Friday, as well as representations from a neighbor that Brown was neither home when the neighbor retired to bed at 2:00 a.m., nor on Saturday morning; and (iv) the victim's friend's corroboration that Moore had weekend plans with Brown. These facts, all known to Officer Sudduth before Brown's arrest, satisfied the threshold for probable cause of guilt of the crimes, namely, a fair probability that Brown was responsible for Moore's murder and the death of her unborn child. United States v. Garcia, 179 F.3d 265, 269 (5th Cir.1999); see Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-19(a) (1999) (outlawing the killing of a human being ... [w]hen done with deliberate design); id. § 97-3-37 (criminalizing the willful killing of an unborn quick child as manslaughter). Probable cause exists when the facts available at the time of the arrest would support a reasonable person's belief that an offense has been . . . committed and that the individual arrested is the guilty party. United States v. Hearn, 563 F.3d 95, 103 (5th Cir.2009) (quotation marks and citation omitted). The delay was not for any reason previously recognized as impermissible. Instead, delay was for the purpose of discovering whether Brown committed his crimes within the officers' jurisdiction. We are not concluding that the indefinite holding of a prisoner while jurisdictional doubt is resolved can be justified, only that the few hours beyond 48 that passed here before seeking a magistrate's ruling could be found by jurors not to violate the Fourth Amendment. We are also not concluding that any jurisdictional dilemma will excuse a delay. As summarized for the jury during closing argument: [Police] knew a murder had taken place all right. They had a young woman dead. There was no question about the crime. It was just a question about where . . . . And that caused a jurisdictional issue. Which police department? Which law enforcement agency handles it? . . . In all [Sudduth's] years working for the Pontotoc Police Department, there's [sic] been two murders, and this was one of them. And he had never had anything like this. Police were diligent once jurisdiction was determined, and then confronted the practical reality of having to wait overnight for a magistrate. On these facts, jurors were not prohibited from finding delay was justified as an emergency or extraordinary circumstance due to law enforcement's late discovery of facts to support that the crime occurred within the relevant jurisdiction. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. at 57, 111 S.Ct. 1661.