Opinion ID: 246095
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Illegal Search and Arrest

Text: 46 Appellant was arrested after officers had arranged to purchase heroin from Edward Burton and had given Burton $300 in bills powdered with fluorescent powder and from which the serial numbers had been taken. Edward Buton was observed going to appellant's home with the money, taking a trip in her car and returning to her home. Burton then delivered heroin to officer Harrington. Burton told the officers this heroin (established as such by a field test) had been purchased with the bills herein above described. Some of the bills were found on the person of Burton when he was arrested. The officers then arrested the appellant on the lawn of her home. She invited the officers in. More bills showing the written serial numbers were found when Mrs. Hamer, the appellant, opened her purse at the agents' request in her home and displayed its contents. Some $30 of the money from defendant's purse showed fluorescent under the 'black-light' lamp used in Mrs. Hamer's house. The finger tips of Mrs. Hamer's right hand also fluoresced under the lamp. 47 Thereafter Mrs. Hamer's home was searched. In an unlocked 4'X 4' laundry room, in the rear yard, a white powder (later found to be heroin), an eye dropper, a needle and a spoon were found. Two white bindles containing heroin were found in the towel rack on the back porch. 48 Appellant urges that the arrest of defendant without a warrant was without probable cause and hence that the subsequent search of her home was unlawful. 49 'Probable cause exists where '   'the facts and circumstances within their (the officers') knowledge and of which they had reasonable trustworthy information (are) sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that' an offense has been or is being committed.' Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175-176, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 1311, 93 L.Ed. 1879, quoting Carroll v. United States, supra, 267 U.S. (132) at page 162, 45 S.Ct. (280) at page 288 (69 L.Ed. 543).' Blackford v. United States, 9 Cir., 1957, 247 F.2d 745, 749. 50 We hold that under such facts hereinabove recited the officers in arresting the appellant had more than a mere suspicion to support that arrest-- and did have probable cause. The present 'reliability' of the alleged 'unreliable' informer Burton had on September 24, 1956, been established by the fact that he had actually supplied heroin when previously asked to do so on September 11, 1956, when his actions and contacts were followed by the officers. Upon again supplying the narcotic to the officers on September 24, 1956, it would be reasonably probable that one of those persons Burton had contacted between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. on September 11, 1956, and between 2:30 and 5:00 p.m. on September 24, 1956, would have supplied the heroin to Burton he on each occasion had obtained. 51 In our opinion the eye-witness testimony of officers Landry and Harrington, plus the heroin, the marked money taken from Burton, and what was said by him to the officers would have fully justified any magistrate in issuing a warrant for the arrest of defendant, or the issuance of a warrant for the search of her premises.