Court Opinion

ID: 9540512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:16:58.700625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:55.354587
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, J.
This is an appeal by the State of Oklahoma on relation of the county attorney of Nowata county from an order of the county court of that county sustaining a.motion to suppress the evidence in a forfeiture and confiscation proceeding against one 1940 Mercury 5-passenger coupe, owned and operated by Ted Haun; Ted Haun, individually; and Melburn Leche, intervener.
It is alleged that on or about March 27, 1948, the above described car was being used by Ted Haun in the unlawful transportation of intoxicating liquor from one place to another within Nowata county, Oklahoma, in violation of section 111, Title 37, O. S. 1941; that while the owner and driver, Ted Haun, was engaged in the commission of a misdemeanor in the presence of officers, he was arrested by such officers, who found and discovered liquor in the car, making it subject to forfeiture to the state.
Melburn Leche was permitted to intervene. He pleaded that on March 8, 1948, Ted Haun had executed and delivered to him a mortgage on the car in the sum of $433.24, and claimed a lien for that amount.
Upon hearing evidence on the motion of defendants to suppress the evidence, on the ground that the search and seizure of the car was made against the will of the owner and without a search warrant, and because the search and seizure were unlawful, without warrant or probable cause, and in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution and of the Constitution and laws of the State of Oklahoma, the court ordered that the motion to suppress the evidence be sustained; ordered the automobile released; and dismissed the case.
*429The parties will be referred to as “the State” and “Ted Haun”, as they appeared in the trial court.
There is very little conflict in the testimony. Only three witnesses, Ted Haun, Arthur Turner, sheriff of Nowata county, and Arch Sequichie, deputy sheriff, testified. It is not disputed that the arrest, search and seizure were made without a warrant on Highway 60 about eight miles east of Nowata, between 4 and 5 o’clock a.m., and while it was dark. At the time and place named, the sheriff and his deputy were sitting in their car by the side of the road, headed west, with their lights out and their motor running. The sheriff said that they did not sit there over an hour. The deputy said that they sat there quite a while, and that no cars passed them in either direction while they were there. The sheriff testified that their purpose there was to watch for a car reported to have been stolen at Joplin, Missouri. The deputy testified that he was not informed of that fact. Neither of them knew Ted Haun. Ted Haun passed them going west at 40 or 45 miles per hour. He had ten cases of whisky stacked on the floor of his car, behind the front seat, and covered with an army blanket. The officers started after him when he was a short distance beyond where they were sitting. Their lights were turned on, and they flashed a spotlight on Haun’s car. The deputy says that they turned the spotlight on the tag of Haun’s car and found it to be a foreign license tag. Haun testified that they turned the spotlight on his windshield and other glass, until he could not see to drive. The sheriff testified that as Harm passed them he was moving across the center of the road, driving in such a manner as would have caused them to stop any driver and caution him about his driving. The deputy says Haun was getting over the center of the road, but twice stated that he thought this was due to the defective steering apparatus of the car rather than to Haun’s driving. The deputy had driven the car to town after the arrest. There was no evidence that Haun was drunk or had even had a drink. He testified that due to the blinding spotlight and the thought that highjackers were following him, he stopped his car about a mile from where the pursuit started, and that the officers stopped their car on the pavement some 15 or 20 feet behind him. No other cars were in sight in either direction, and none had met or passed them.
Up to this point, the officers had no evidence whatever to lead them to believe that Haun’s car carried liquor. Even after Haun stopped his car, there was nothing to indicate what he was hauling. It was necessary for the officers to enter the car, lift up the blanket, and use the flashlight to determine what was in the car. No one testified that Haun was committing any offense that would have justified an arrest, other than the transporting of liquor, of which the officers had no information. The search and seizure in this case were illegal because there was no search warrant, and no probable cause was shown to exist that would justify a search. The evidence obtained without a warrant was properly suppressed. See Hoppes v. State, 70 Okla. Cr. 179, 105 P. 2d 433; Lamb v. State, 59 Okla. Cr. 360, 60 P. 2d 219, and Dade v. State, 188 Okla. 677, 112 P. 2d 1102.
Two cases from the Supreme Court of the United States have been cited as sustaining the search here: Carroll et al. v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 69 L. Ed. 543, 39 A. L. R. 790, and Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 93 L. Ed. 1879. These cases are easily distinguishable from the case at bar. In the Carroll case, the defendants had previous to their arrest agreed to sell a case of whisky to the government agents and were driving the same automobile when arrested that they were driving when they previously met the officers. The defendants were seen going back and forth between Detroit, *430a known source of supply of liquor, and Grand Rapids. In the Brinegar case, one of the arresting officers had arrested the driver of the automobile five months before for illegally transporting liquor and had seen him loading liquor into a car on at least two occasions during the preceding six months, and knew the driver to have a reputation for hauling liquor. This significant statement was made by Mr. Chief Justice Taft in that case:
“It would be intolerable and unreasonable if a prohibition agent were authorized to stop every automobile on the chance of finding liquor, and thus subject all persons lawfully using the highways to the inconvenience and indignity of such a search. Travelers may be so stopped in crossing an international boundary because of national self-protection reasonably requiring one entering the country to identify himself as entitled to come in, and his belongings as effects which may be lawfully brought in. But those lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official, authorized to search probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband or illegal merchandise.”
In this case the officers never knew the driver of the car before and had never seen the car. Before they made this arrest they had no reason for suspecting that the automobile contained whisky. They simply took a chance and violated the driver’s. constitutional rights. Such a seizure is clearly illegal.
Judgment affirmed.
ARNOLD, V.C.J:, and GIBSON, LUTTRELL, and JOHNSON, JJ., concur. O’NEAL, J., dissents.