Court Opinion

ID: 9659023
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:27:10.970862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:03.170524
License: Public Domain

DeCARLO, Judge
(dissenting) :
I cannot follow my learned brothers in their reversal of this case.
The incriminating evidence was not found on appellant’s person. It was not the fruit of the immediate search. The heroin was seen by the officer when it fell to the ground. He observed it in daylight in open view. See Hayes v. State, 44 Ala. App. 539, 215 So.2d 604.
The affidavit, the keystone for their action, is said to be deficient. Aside from this determination, it is my judgment that at the time Officer Sullivan approached the appellant, he was armed with an arrest warrant which he had no reason to believe was invalid. This warrant had enough indicia of reliability to justify detention of appellant and the routine search for weapons. It afforded reasonable grounds for a search incident to the arrest. The officer was charged with the duty of executing this process and could not abandon that responsibility unless the process was void on its face. Spear v. State, 120 Ala. 351, 25 So. 46.
Officer Sullivan knew appellant and knew what the warrant was for. , Fropi reading - the warrant he had reasonable cause to believe that appellant had committed a felony, therefore, taking him into custody and conducting a search were justified. Thompson v. State, 47 Ala.App. 28, 249 So.2d 644.
In the final analysis, it is evident the officer arrested appellant in good faith. Although my brothers contend that the arrest warrant was defective, and the officer’s subjective good faith belief could not in itself justify either the arrest or the subsequent search, Justice White stated in Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 91 S.Ct. 1106, 28 L.Ed.2d 484, “ . . . sufficient probability, not certainty, is the touchstone or reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment . . . ” Without considering the validity of the arrest warrant, I feel that the officer’s action was understandable, and the arrest a reasonable response to the situation facing him at the time.
Based on the foregoing, I respectfully dissent.
CATES, P. J., joins in this dissent.
CATES, Presiding Judge:
This on the surface was an arrest in good faith. I don’t think Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 has been imposed on the issuance of an arrest warrant.