Opinion ID: 2368225
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Legality of arrest

Text: As a result of a lawful stop of Rand's vehicle, Officer Marston when approaching the car flashed his light into the interior of the automobile and spotted in plain view similar items such as beer, cigarettes and coins which had been taken in the burglary a short time previously. The operator of a vehicle on a public road is held to have exposed property to public view notwithstanding that artificial illumination, specifically directed, might be required to render the property visible. State v. Chattley, supra, at 476; State v. Stone, Me., 294 A.2d 683, 688 (1972). Where, as here, the officers, in addition to the knowledge they already had regarding the burglary, learned during their Terry -type stop of the vehicle that the car did contain items of a similar nature as those taken in the burglary a short time previously, they may use those added facts, together with the totality of the existing stock of information which they already possessed, to support a finding of probable cause to make the subsequent arrest that they did. The officers then had facts and circumstances sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense had been or was being committed by the operator of the vehicle. See Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 175-76, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 1310-11, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949); Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162, 45 S.Ct. 280, 288, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925). See also United States v. Hilton, 469 F.Supp. 94 (U.S.D.C.Me., 1979); United States v. Thevis, 469 F.Supp. 490 (U.S.D.C.Conn.1979). Given facts supportive of probable cause to arrest, no arrest warrant was required in the instant case, whether the officers believed that Rand had actually participated in the commission of the burglary and was fleeing with the stolen property, a Class C crime (17-A M.R.S.A. § 15(1)(A)(2)), or whether they believed he was committing in their presence the crime of theft of the Class E variety (Id. § 15(1)(B)). See United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 423, 96 S.Ct. 820, 827-28, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976). Also, due to the hour of the night, the shortness of time since the burglary, the unexpected discovery of the suspect vehicle and the fact that only one of the probable burglars was in the car, the police had the right, simultaneously with the arrest of the defendant, to seize and remove the car to police custody as the instrumentality and evidence of the crime of burglary and for the purpose of preventing thereby the potential loss of valuable evidence contained therein to their actual knowledge.