Court Opinion

ID: 9704409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:34:39.85992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:02.219221
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion.
Arterburn, J.
The majority opinion in this case evades the real issues and only confuses the law in the field concerned. I considered this case on affidavits filed which are uncontradicted, yet the majority refuses to recognize these facts so proved in order to maintain their previous position.
The facts in this case are very clear that the relator, Richard Allen French, had escaped from legal detention in the Indiana Boys’ School at the time he was taken into custody and arrested for having stolen an automobile. The owner of the automobile saw the defendant “take my 1955 Mercury automobile from my driveway. I chased and caught him, recovering the car, but he got away. He was later caught by the Indiana State Police and identified as Richard Allen French.” The facts further show by affidavit of the arresting officer that he was immediately informed of the theft of the car and arrested French for car theft shortly after the theft in the vicinity where the car was found. The policeman who arrested him acted upon information furnished him by the owner of the car, who saw French take his car. That is sufficient to show probable cause under old common law principles for the arresting officer to arrest French.
There is no misstatement of facts in this case as claimed by Judge Hunter. I rely upon the uncontradicted affidavits filed and recorded in this case, which the majority blindly refuses to consider in order to maintain their previous position. One affidavit is by the owner of the car who saw French attempt to steal his car. The other affidavit is by the arresting officer, which reads as follows:
*229“Larry J. Harshman, being first duly sworn upon his oath says:
“1. I am an Indiana State Trooper assigned to District 9, Marion County, Indiana.
“2. That on January 12, 1969, while on patrol at High School Road and Minnesota Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, I received a radio dispatch that a subject had stolen a car; that the owner had chased him to High School Road and U. S. 40, Indianapolis, Indiana, that the subject had jumped from the car and ran.
“3. I, and other State Troopers, and Marion County Deputy Sheriffs with police dogs started searching the area.
“4. The police dogs flushed the subject, Richard Allen French, from behind a house on West Morris Street.
“5. The subject, Richard Allen French, was handcuffed and placed in a police car and I took him to Stout Field, District 9 State Police Post. Detective Frank Love returned the subject to Plainfield, Indiana.
“6. The reason I took Richard Allen French into custody was because of the stolen car report and description. I don’t recall receiving any information relative to French being a Boys School escapee until after he was handcuffed and in the patrol car.”
It is true the attorney for French in this case stated (not under oath, however) that it was impossible to agree upon the facts and that French, the relator, had no actual knowledge of what the policeman “had in his mind” at the time he arrested French. However, that statement does not prevent this Court from considering the affidavits which are uncontradicted that do reveal the true facts. It is our duty to accept the facts in order to reach a just decision and not evade the same. This is the first time I have ever known this Court to refuse to consider uncontradicted affidavits filed in an original action in order to determine the facts and reach a correct result.
As stated previously, these uncontradicted facts without question show probable cause at common law for the arresting officer to arrest French. I do not see how there could be any question about such an old common law principle.-
*230Thereafter the affidavit charging the relator with the crime was signed and sworn to by the owner of the car who saw French take the car. This affidavit was approved and filed by the prosecuting attorney, and as a result an arrest warrant was issued thereon. If there ever was a case made out in an affidavit for probable cause, it certainly existed in this case, where the owner who saw him steal the ear makes the affidavit charging the offense which he plainly saw occur. I cannot understand what stronger facts are necessary to show probable cause when the one who saw the crime committed swears to it in unequivocal words. To have this Court then hold there is no probable cause in this case for the issuance of a warrant and that no warrant for arrest can issue in this case to me appears to be a travesty on justice.
The mere fact that the prosecuting attorney filed an additional affidavit for probable cause in order to support the issuance of a warrant appears to me to be an irrelevant and needless step in the proceedings, and we need give it no consideration whatever. No doubt the prosecuting attorney, because of the confusion caused in the case of Kinnaird v. State (1968), 251 Ind. 506, 242 N. E. 2d 500 thought it best to file such an affidavit of probable cause in addition, although there existed from the facts in the case more than sufficient probable cause for the arrest. The mere added precaution of the prosecuting attorney should not prejudice the State, nor deter this Court from the controlling principle with reference to the facts showing probable cause for the arrest.
The regrettable feature, as I originally pointed out in my dissenting opinion in Kinnaird v. State, supra, is that case should not have been decided upon the principles stated in the majority opinion, since there was no clerk’s record before us in the transcript and no judgment in the record. The case could have been dismissed on that basis. This I called to the attention of the majority members of the Court, but it was disregarded, and they unnecessarily saw fit to decide the ease *231on principles which are now causing so much confusion and uncertainty.
Now here again we have a case before us that should be decided on the simple legal principle that the police officer made an arrest upon reliable information of the commission of a felony (car stealing), with the defendant in flight. We need not go out on various tangents to decide this case, reaching out into unknown, untried fields. In the Kinnaird decision it was stated: “It is not our intention to limit the authority of law enforcement officers to make lawful arrests without warrants in those instances where warrants are required”, yet this case before us now contradicts that very statement.
Let me first point out that the constitutional amendment referred to, namely, “no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized”, refers merely to search warrants used to seize things which are or persons who are hidden upon private premises. There is a historical purpose for such a provision in the Constitution. It does not refer whatever to arrest warrants. Again we find the Court going out of its way in drawing unnecessary restrictions in the enforcement of the law. It is a preposterous principle of the law, which I recognize the United States Supreme Court upholds, however, that evidence illegally obtained cannot be used in a trial, no matter how relevant and how guilty the defendant is revealed to be, because the police or law enforcement officer should be punished by not letting the evidence be used in a trial. In other words, the high court feels that it is more important to punish the police than the guilty defendant. There are separate means of punishing police without such methods, if it really does punish them. We shall say no more about such erroneous theory propounded and now in operation.
If we assume the arrest to be illegal, it can only affect the admission of evidence obtained by a search based upon *232the arrest and nothing more. In this ease there was no evidence involved and no search which produced any evidence.
There being no illegal search here and no evidence thus obtained to be offered in any trial of the defendant, the assumed illegal arrest should have no significance in this case other than causing a duplication of efforts in having a second hearing on probable cause and an arrest warrant issued thereafter.
In Layton v. State (1968), 251 Ind. 205, 240 N. E. 2d 489, this Court stated:
“It seems that the appellant further contends that the arrest was illegal, the mere fact in itself, if the appellant is tried, is sufficient grounds for a new trial. The illegality of the arrest affects only the admissibility of the evidence, as in the case of a search warrant. It does not affect the right of the state to try the appellant. The appellant fails to point out what the remedy would be if an appellant could not be tried merely because the arrest was illegal. Must he be set free in event of an illegal arrest? Must the defendant be returned and set free in California or on the steps of the courthouse and immediately rearrested under a valid warrant before he can be tried? We do not believe a court should engage in such futile and idle motions. To do so makes the judicial processes a laughing matter for the public.”
The majority opinion, assuming that an arrest warrant was necessary in this case, leaves unanswered many serious questions and may even create new ones. Apparently the effect of the Kinnaird case was to declare unconstitutional Burns’ § 9-1001, which provides that an arrest warrant shall issue upon the filing of a valid criminal charge by the prosecuting attorney, for the reason that there must be additionally a hearing showing probable cause before a disinterested magistrate. The statute plainly gives the prosecuting attorney the jurisdiction and authority to determine probable cause when he files the affidavit and approves it. The reason given for its unconstitutionality is that the prosecuting attorney is not disinterested, but is a prosecuting official engaged in “fer*233reting out crime”. Johnson v. United States (1948), 333 U. S. 10, 68 S. Ct. 367, 92 L. Ed. 436.
The majority opinion is basically inconsistent in stating that the magistrate who hears the question of probable cause must be neutral and disinterested, and in the Kinnaird case must not be one ferreting out crime, when in the next paragraph in that same opinion it states there is “no need for a hearing to determine probable cause where a grand jury has returned an indictment.” A grand jury is not a neutral or detached magistrate, but is engaged in fact in “ferreting out crime”. It seems to me, under the theory of the majority opinion, there could be no difference between the action of a prosecuting attorney and that of a grand jury in respect to the right of the defendant to have a hearing on probable cause before a charge is filed and an arrest warrant issued. The fact that there are six men on a grand jury ferreting out crime instead of one in the case of a prosecuting attorney, should make no difference.
The majority opinion also leaves unanswered the question of whether or not a law enforcement officer or a police officer, when he sees what he thinks is a law violation or hears what he thinks is credible information that a fleeing suspect has been guilty of a felony, is entitled to immediately make a determination of probable cause and follow in pursuit and make the arrest. Undoubtedly the police officer is making a determination of probable cause, and he is not a neutral individual but is, in fact, under the wording of the opinion, “ferreting out crime”. Must such law enforcement officer, therefore, desist in his pursuit and have a hearing before a disinterested magistrate as to whether or not probable cause exists before he makes the arrest? I submit the principle attempted to be used in the majority opinion is as applicable in the illustration given as in any of the others referred to in the majority opinion, except for the emergency. The law enforcement officer normally has to make an instant and quick *234decision concerning probable cause, but he nevertheless does make a decision on probable cause, and it is not one made by a disinterested magistrate.
Finally, I point out that if this “right” to have a hearing on probable cause is constitutional, then under the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, viz.: Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U. S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 and Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), 378 U. S. 478, 84 S. Ct. 1758, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977, the suspect should be informed of the hearing, be told he is entitled to have an attorney and, it would follow, be entitled to introduce evidence if he so desired, and contest the hearing.
With all due respect to the members of the Court who have enunciated the principles in the majority opinion, I must say that the test of a sound legal principle is that in its extensions and application it reaches rational and sound results. In my opinion the principle reported here does not do that, but reveals its unsoundness and weakness in the irrational results which it reaches. The majority opinion will be reversed or will be so modified that it is substantially reversed by this Court eventually.
Instead of settling the procedures involved, the majority opinion creates even more confusion than the Kinnaird opinion — all because the whole basic assumption as to probable cause and the meaning of the constitutional provision is misinterpreted, is unsound, and is not supportable in its practical operations.
To hold an arrest warrant is illegal accomplishes no purpose unless as a result evidence obtained by such warrant is to be suppressed and not used at the trial. In this case there is no evidence involved with reference to the arrest and the question of the illegality of the issuance of the warrant is a moot question. We have the Court here stating: “we here express no opinion as to the validity” of the arrest made in this case, yet at the same time saying in substance no arrest *235warrant may issue, although an affidavit has been filed by the person who saw the relator commit the crime, which shows more' than probable cause and, in fact, shows a crime has been committed. We thus have the confusion resulting from the Kinnaird case, supra, compounded by the majority opinion.
To me there is much to be said by the public in criticism of cumbersome court procedures that have no real merit to support the same.
I dissent to the reasoning of the majority opinion, although I concur in the result reached that no writ should issue prohibiting the trial court from acting.