Opinion ID: 1186828
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Arrest Probable Cause.

Text: The City contends that Ailak was not in fact arrested, but was subjected only to reasonable detention as part of an investigation of a reported crime. It is the City's position that the trial court erred in not instructing the jury that police officers, under certain circumstances, have the right to stop citizens, short of making an actual arrest, in order to investigate reported crimes. AS 12.25.050 provides: An arrest is made by the actual restraint of a person or by his submission to the custody of the person making the arrest. Conflicting testimony was presented as to whether Ailak was arrested. Ailak testified that he considered himself to be under arrest, but the police officers testified that he was not. Whether Ailak was in fact arrested is to be determined by an objective standard. [12] The facts are that Ailak was placed by the police in the back of a police vehicle which had no handles on the inside of the back doors in order to prevent escape by occupants in the rear seat. The verdict indicates that the jury concluded that Ailak did not enter the vehicle voluntarily. We conclude that there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could have properly found that Ailak was put under actual restraint within the meaning of AS 12.25.050 and that he was in fact arrested. The next question is whether the arrest was lawful. The permissible grounds for arresting a person without a warrant appear in AS 12.25.030, which provides: Grounds for arrest by private person or peace officer without warrant. A private person or a peace officer without a warrant may arrest a person (1) for a crime committed or attempted in his presence; (2) when the person has committed a felony, although not in his presence; (3) when a felony in fact has been committed and he has reasonable cause for believing the person to have committed it. In McCoy v. State, 491 P.2d 127, 130 (Alaska 1971), we stated that AS 12.25.030(3), which is the subsection applicable to this case, must be given a reasonable construction. We held that under that subsection, a peace officer, without a warrant, may arrest a person for a felony when the officer has probable cause to believe that a felony has been committed and probable cause to believe that the person committed it. [13] The City contends that the trial judge erroneously instructed the jury as to what would have constituted probable cause to arrest Ailak. It asserts that Instruction 36 [14] told the jury that if it found that Ailak had not voluntarily entered the police vehicle, it would have to find for the Ailaks. The City argues that if the officers had probable cause to arrest Ailak, the jury should have found for the City even if Ailak did not voluntarily enter the police vehicle. While the latter is a true statement of the law, Jury Instruction 36 did not omit this concept. Instruction 36 told the jury that if it believed the Ailaks' testimony, there would be no probable cause for Ailak's detention, and if the jury further found that Ailak did not voluntarily enter the police vehicle, then the jury would have to find for the Ailaks. The instruction clearly required the jury to find both an involuntary entry and an absence of probable cause before a finding for the Ailaks would be mandated. The instruction did not direct the jury to find for the Ailaks solely on the basis of a finding of involuntary entry into the police vehicle. The instruction did, however, mistakenly direct the jury that if it believed the testimony of the Ailaks, there was no probable cause for Ailak's detention. The only facts in dispute in this case were the length of time Ailak was detained, whether the door to the Ailak residence was open or closed at the time of the officers' entry, whether Ailak voluntarily entered the police vehicle, and the extent of the incident's impact on Ailak. None of these matters is relevant to a determination of whether the officers had probable cause to arrest Ailak. Since there were no disputes of fact relevant to the determination of whether the officers had probable cause to arrest, the trial court should have made that determination as a legal matter, applying the standard announced by this court in McCoy v. State, 491 P.2d 127, 130 (Alaska 1971). However, since the verdict makes clear that the jury concluded that the officers did not have probable cause to arrest Ailak and since we conclude that McCoy dictates the same conclusion, the error did not prejudice appellants. Further, in Erickson v. State, 507 P.2d 508 (Alaska 1973), we affirmed the holding we had made in McCoy, supra . In Erickson, we stated: A police officer is usually authorized to arrest without a warrant if he has probable cause to believe a felony has been committed and a reasonable belief that the person to be arrested is the one who committed it. [15] In addition, we stated that probable cause cannot be established solely on the basis of a good faith belief on the part of the officer that there is probable cause to arrest. In order to establish probable cause, there must exist facts and circumstances known to the officer which would warrant a prudent person in believing that an offense has been or is being committed. [16] Probable cause may rest on reasonably trustworthy information from an informant. If the informant is a cooperative citizen rather than an informant from the criminal milieu, his or her reliability need not be established before the arrest. However, some of the details of the information given by the informant must be verified before the arrest. [17] The officers in this case obtained all of their pre-detention information from Encelewski, a citizen informant. However, Encelewski indicated to the officers that the information he provided was hearsay obtained from Armstrong, whose only contact with the officers at that point had been to run away from them. While it is true that the officers' independent observations included seeing a woman's parka near Ailak, the alleged rapist, and seeing a distraught woman, the officers also observed that the woman, not Ailak, ran from them, and that Ailak waited patiently for his encounter with the police. The officers did not, before detaining Ailak, verify the details of the information given by the informant. Therefore, as a matter of law, the officers were without probable cause to arrest Ailak, and the erroneous jury instruction, which led the jury to conclude that the officers were without probable cause, did not prejudice appellants.