Opinion ID: 1762542
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence Illegally Seized

Text: The first ground urged (Bill of Exception No. 1) is that the trial court erred in denying a motion to suppress certain evidence (heroin) as illegally seized. The defendant Smith was convicted of possession of such heroin. The basis of the motion to suppress is the alleged lack of probable cause for the initial arrest or detention of Smith and his wife by the police officers, following which the incriminating heroin was seized. [4] A police officer testified that the wife, Audrey, had thrown it down immediately after she and the defendant Smith were detained by the police officers. The defendant relies upon the principle that, when a suspect abandons property consequent to an illegal arrest, the property thrown away is considered inadmissible as the fruit of an illegal action. State v. Lawson, 256 La. 471, 236 So.2d 804 (1970). Thus, the heroin in question may be inadmissible if there was no probable cause for the preceding arrest. Davis, Federal Searches and Seizures, Section 1.511 (1964). We find no merit to the bill. From the facts and circumstances within the officers' knowledge, they had probable cause to arrest at least the wife, Audrey. Two police officers observed her obtaining several glassine envelopes, in front of premises under surveillance for narcotics transactions. A few minutes before the Audrey Smith incident, the officers had observed a transaction whereby cash was exchanged for glassine envelopes from these premises. Because heroin is commonly transported in glassine envelopes, the officers believed they were witnessing narcotics transactions. Audrey was observed obtaining glassine envelopes from a man who had first entered the suspect premises and then emerged with them. She went into a bar, came out of it with her husband, and both drove away. By radio contact, the observing officers alerted their teammates, who were in an unmarked police car. The latter followed the Smiths and arrested them as they parked near their home several blocks away. The team of police officers had Mrs. Smith under almost continuous observation immediately before, during and after the reasonably-presumed narcotics transaction, and up until she was informed she was under arrest at the time the car she was in was parked. The arresting officers had probable cause to believe that at least Mrs. Smith had unlawfully obtained possession of narcotics. See La.C.Cr.P. Art. 213; State v. Johnson, 249 La. 950, 192 So.2d 135 (1966) (test of probable cause or reasonable belief). Consequently, the arrest of Mrs. Audrey Smith was lawful. The trial court properly received in evidence the heroin she threw to the ground following it. We must note, however, that, in determining the arresting officers had probable cause, we have considered evidence properly admitted at the trial for other purposes, in addition to the evidence at the hearing on the motion to suppress. We have done so under authority of State v. Andrus, 250 La. 765, 199 So.2d 867 (1967), in the absence of a showing of prejudice to the accused or of the prosecution's ill-practice through its failing to produce such evidence for the hearing on the motion to suppress. [5]