Opinion ID: 1101456
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the state met the burden of proof

Text: The several objections made at the trial to the introduction of the gun were grounded on the illegality of the search because the officer did not have a search warrant. The district attorney then asked the officer if there was a warrant for the arrest of appellant. He testified that he received a broadcast shortly before the arrest that there was a warrant at police headquarters for the arrest of appellant on a charge of assault and battery. Later, at the close of all the evidence, appellant moved for a directed verdict on the grounds that the gun was obtained illegally without a search warrant, and the arrest was illegal because the officer had no warrant, and no crime had been committed in his presence. All the State had to do to meet the burden of proof as far as the arrest and search was concerned was to show that the officer had probable cause for the arrest, which it did by showing that he received the official broadcast that there was a warrant for appellant's arrest on a charge of assault and battery. There was no need to produce the warrant itself. The existence of the warrant constituted probable cause for the arrest. This proof met the burden cast upon the State to show the legality of the arrest and incidental search. The appellant never suggested that the warrant did not exist and there was never any reason for the State to introduce it in evidence. It is true that the State had the burden of proof to show that the arrest was lawful. If the State had offered no proof of probable cause for justifying the arrest and incidental search, it would have failed to meet the burden and the evidence seized by the officer would have been inadmissible. But the State proved that the arresting officer had received the official police radio broadcast that a warrant for appellant's arrest for assault and battery was on file at headquarters. This was proof of probable cause. It met the State's burden. There was no contention, nor even any intimation, that the radio broadcast was not in fact received or that the warrant was not a sufficient basis to constitute probable cause. Consequently, it was not necessary for the State to offer any other proof on the question of probable cause. At the moment Officer Owen began the arrest of appellant, he either had probable cause and therefore acted reasonably and lawfully, or he did not have probable cause and therefore acted unreasonably and unlawfully. And the test as to probable cause must be made as of the time of arrest. Any fact which comes to the knowledge of the officer after the arrest and search neither legalizes nor vitiates the arrest and search. This bears on the question of burden of proof because that burden only required proof of the facts and circumstances known by Officer Owen at the time of arrest, and of which he had reasonably trustworthy information. All this the State proved. It need not have shown more. It is a judicial question whether under all the facts and circumstances there was probable cause, but absent some showing of bad faith on the part of the officer, the judicial inquiry involves only the facts and circumstances existing immediately before and at the time of the arrest of which Officer Owen had knowledge, and of which he had reasonable trustworthy information. There are scores of recent cases, state and federal, establishing this principle or rule. See Modern Federal Practice Digest, Vol. 3, Arrest, (1960); and Seventh Decennial Digest, Vol. 3, Arrest, (1967).