Opinion ID: 1217596
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: other pretrial issues

Text: The defendant has raised three remaining issues concerning the pretrial stage of the prosecution: (1) was the arrest warrant pursuant to which the defendant was apprehended supported by an adequate probable cause statement? (2) did the State fail to give adequate notice to the defendant in the information that it intended to prosecute him under the firearms enhancement statute? and (3) was the certification hearing in juvenile court held in the defendant's absence constitutional? A. Probable cause statement in the arrest warrant. The defendant challenges the adequacy of the probable cause statement presented in support of the arrest warrant in this case on the ground that it fails to reveal either the source of the information contained therein or any basis upon which the credibility and reliability of the sources of the information could be judged. Because we are persuaded that any defects in the probable cause statement would not warrant a reversal of the defendant's conviction, we will, for the purposes of this discussion, assume that the probable cause statement was defective. The defendant's argument is that, without a valid arrest warrant, the trial court never acquired jurisdiction over him and that his conviction is therefore void. He relies on State v. Licari, 153 Conn. 127, 214 A.2d 900 (1965), in which the court characterized the defendant's appeal as an attack on the court's personal jurisdiction over the defendant as opposed to jurisdiction over the subject matter. That case did not involve the adequacy of probable cause statements, since the Connecticut procedure challenged was the issuance of bench warrants unsupported by any oath or affirmation. There are some cases from other jurisdictions that have also sustained attacks on the court's jurisdiction because of invalid arrest warrants or illegal arrests. These cases, however, represent a minority position. A majority of courts have followed the established rule that illegal arrest or detention does not void a subsequent conviction. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 119, 95 S.Ct. 854, 865, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975) (citing Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952), and Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 7 S.Ct. 225, 30 L.Ed. 421 (1886)). This Court followed that line of cases in State v. Beck, Utah, 584 P.2d 870 (1978). That opinion states: The `probable cause' required for a warrant of arrest, if lacking, may prevent the introduction of illegally seized evidence at the trial, but it does not prevent the trial and conviction of the defendant. Id. at 872. Our examination of the cases that follow Licari reveals no persuasive basis for abandoning the majority rule previously followed by this Court. Those cases do not appear to be well reasoned. For example, in a recent Connecticut decision following Licari, the court takes a position that appears to be internally inconsistent. The defendant in State v. Gallegher, 191 Conn. 433, 465 A.2d 323 (1983), claimed that his arrest was invalid because, among other things, a warrant was not obtained despite the opportunity to do so. The court stated: We do not reach the merits of these claims. Even if we were to consider them and resolve them in defendant's favor, such a determination would not invalidate the convictions. An illegal arrest, without more, has never been viewed as a bar to a subsequent prosecution, nor as a defense to a valid conviction. The remedy for an unlawful arrest is the suppression of evidence obtained thereby. 191 Conn. at 438, 465 A.2d at 326 (quoting United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463, 474, 100 S.Ct. 1244, 1251, 63 L.Ed.2d 537 (1980) (other citations omitted)). In the next paragraph, however, the court went on to say that under certain circumstances an unlawful arrest entitles a defendant to dismissal of the charges against him. The court identified those certain circumstances as the existence of fourth amendment defects in the arrest warrant. Yet the Crews opinion, quoted in Gallegher, was in fact predicated on a fourth amendment defect, namely, the detention of the defendant without probable cause. Similar inconsistencies are apparent in the other cases relied upon by the defendant wherein the courts attempt to reconcile the general rule that an illegal arrest does not void a conviction with the theory that a valid arrest warrant constitutes a jurisdictional requirement. See State v. Korotki, Del. Super. Ct., 418 A.2d 1008, 1012 (1980); Walberg v. State, 73 Wis.2d 448, 455-64, 243 N.W.2d 190, 194-98 (1976). In Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), the United States Supreme Court examined the requirements of the fourth amendment in the context of arrest and detention without a judicial determination of probable cause. The Court observed that the probable cause standard represents a necessary accommodation between the individual's right to liberty and the State's duty to control crime. Id. at 112, 95 S.Ct. at 862. The Court further stated: The Fourth Amendment probable cause determination is addressed only to pretrial custody, id. at 123, 95 S.Ct. at 867, and [w]hatever procedure a State may adopt, it must provide a fair and reliable determination of probable cause as a condition for any significant pretrial restraint of liberty, and this determination must be made by a judicial officer either before or promptly after arrest. Id. at 124-25, 95 S.Ct. at 868 (footnotes omitted). In a related footnote, the Court pointed out that the Fourth Amendment probable cause determination is in fact only the first stage of an elaborate system, unique in jurisprudence, designed to safeguard the rights of those accused of criminal conduct. Id. at 125 n. 27, 95 S.Ct. at 869 n. 27 (emphasis in original). The Court was explicit, however, that an illegal arrest or detention does not void a subsequent conviction. Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519 [72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541] (1952); Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436 [7 S.Ct. 225, 30 L.Ed. 421] (1886). Thus, ... although a suspect who is presently detained may challenge the probable cause for that confinement, a conviction will not be vacated on the ground that a defendant was detained pending trial without a determination of probable cause. Id. at 119, 95 S.Ct. at 865 (other citations omitted). In Gerstein, the Court viewed the probable cause requirement for arrest warrants as a protection against illegal detention. Therefore, once the risk of illegal detention has dissipated, i.e., by the time a trial has been held, the protection is no longer relevant or necessary because other constitutional safeguards have come into play. Under this analysis, the probable cause requirement for an arrest warrant becomes moot by the time a defendant has been convicted because the much more stringent requirements of proof at trial have been employed to protect the defendant. We are convinced that the protection analysis employed by the Supreme Court in Gerstein is valid, and we reject the position that the probable cause requirement for arrest warrants is jurisdictional. We note that the only prejudice to the defendant resulting from what may have been an invalid arrest was that period of detention he experienced prior to preliminary examination and judicial determination of probable cause for trial. In light of his subsequent conviction, that temporary period of possibly wrongful detention is of minimal significance and does not warrant reversal of an otherwise valid conviction. B. Failure to notify defendant of reliance on the firearms enhancement provision. The defendant claims that the State's amended information failed to notify him adequately of its intention to rely on the firearms enhancement provision of U.C.A., 1953, § 76-3-203(1). He points out that the charging portion of the information contains no allegations regarding the use of a firearm and does not cite or refer to the statute. The probable cause statement, however, was made a part of the amended information, a one-page document, and is found immediately below the portion of the information which contains the statutory charge of first degree murder. The first sentence of that statement reads: The victim, Franklin Bradshaw, was shot in the back and in the head by a weapon, determined to be a .357 magnum. We note that section 77-35-4(b) of the Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure states that an information may contain or be accompanied by a statement of facts sufficient to make out probable cause to sustain the offense charged where appropriate. (Emphasis added.) It is clear from our examination that the one-page amended information filed in this case in fact contains the probable cause statement and that the contents of that statement are therefore part of the information. The defendant relies upon State v. Angus, Utah, 581 P.2d 992 (1978), and we agree that Angus is controlling. We reject, however, the defendant's contention that Angus requires the relief he seeks. In Angus, the defendant argued that the information should have recited the statutory enhancement of penalty if the State intended to seek it. This Court said: We have no disagreement with the proposition that fairness and due process of law require that the information against him be sufficient to clearly state the charge and bring him within he operation of the statutory penalty therefor. But his argument that the information must specifically set forth that the enhancement of penalty would be imposed if he was convicted is without merit. The punishment for a crime is not and has never been considered a part of the pleading charging a crime. The information is sufficient if it alleges either: (1) that the defendant is being charged under the enhancement statute, or (2) that a firearm was used in the commission of the offense charged in the information. Id. at 995 (footnotes omitted; emphasis added). The defendant urges us to construe Angus to require that an allegation that a firearm was used appear in what he terms the charging portion of the information. By charging portion, he presumably refers to the section of the information which contains a description of the statutory charge. While such a technical requirement might be appropriate with respect to the elements of a crime of which the State seeks to convict a defendant, we see no purpose to be served in applying it to an element of punishment. The requirements of Angus and constitutional due process are satisfied so long as a defendant is given written notice on the face of an information that the State intends to show a crime was committed with the use of a firearm. C. Constitutionality of certification hearing. The question of whether the defendant's right to due process was violated by the juvenile court in conducting a certification hearing while the defendant was voluntarily absent from the jurisdiction was decided by this Court in In Re Schreuder, Utah, 649 P.2d 19 (1982). That issue is therefore res judicata, and we will not consider it in this appeal.