Opinion ID: 1173371
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Was there probable cause to arrest

Text: The defendant claims his 1979 arrest was illegal because it was not based on probable cause, and therefore all evidence subsequently seized or acquired was the fruit of that illegality. He insists his arrest was based on no more than a hunch or mere suspicion. He claims at the time of his arrest the police knew other people had threatened the victims' lives, that there was no evidence connecting him to the crimes, that there was at the time no evidence connecting him with any money, that there was no evidence of exactly where Durr was killed, and that there was no reason to suspect that he committed the murders or the robbery. We do not agree. Probable cause has been defined as follows: [P]robable cause for an arrest without a warrant, is reasonable ground of probability supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in themselves to warrant a cautious man in believing the accused guilty. `Probable cause' or `reason to believe,' therefore, is like a third quarter percentile: it is more information than would justify the officer in saying, `From all the circumstances I suspect this man'; but it need not be such information as would justify the officer in saying, `From all the circumstances, I know this is the man'. Monroe v. Pape, 221 F. Supp. 635, 642-43 (N.D.Illinois 1963). The two bludgeoned bodies, of course, indicated that a public offense had been committed. The question is whether the police had probable cause to believe the defendant had committed the crimes. In answering this question, we consider only the facts the police knew at the time of the arrest. The victims had been in the Silver Dollar Bar the previous evening, and their bodies were found at the rear of the bar near the back door. The defendant was the bartender at the bar. Between 10:30 and 11:30 p.m. the defendant had been observed mopping the area inside the back door of the bar. The police found fresh blood inside the bar, on the two by four the defendant used to prop the back door of the bar open, on the two by six the defendant used to close the back door, and on the inside of the door frame. As Officer Harry Jennings of the Phoenix Police Department testified: It appeared, like I said, that there was blood spattering inside the door frame and on one end of a two-by-four which was used to keep the door open, and after I talked to him and he stated that he was the last one in the bar and that the victims were the last customers in the bar, and due to the fact it appeared that the one victim had been bludgeoned at the back door with the back door open, it was assumable that he would have been the suspect. The physical evidence, together with defendant's incriminating statements to the police, raised a reasonable inference that it was the defendant who had murdered the two victims. We find the police had probable cause to arrest the defendant at the time they arrested him. We find no error.