Court Opinion

ID: 9569221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:11:37.51059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:20.168090
License: Public Domain

Banke, Presiding Judge.
Ryals appeals the denial of his motion for new trial following his conviction of burglary.
On the evening of the night the offense occurred, Ryals had visited the victim’s home in the company of his wife and two young daughters, ostensibly to look for a wristwatch which he had lost on the premises while doing yard work for the victim earlier that day. With the victim’s permission, and in his presence, the appellant and his family looked around the house but were unable to find the watch and subsequently left. The victim testified that before retiring that night, he locked the outside door of his home and latched the adjacent screen door. When he awoke in the morning, he discovered that his billfold containing $62 was missing from his trousers, which he had left hanging from a chair next to his bed. He also discovered that the screen door had been slit in the area of the latch.
The victim immediately reported the theft to the police; and, based on his assertion that no visitors other than the Ryals family had been present at his house the previous evening, the police obtained a warrant to search the family’s mobile home. While the officers were en route to the home to execute the warrant, they observed Ryals and his wife walking alongside the road and placed both of them in the back seat of the patrol car. They then proceeded to the mobile home to execute the search warrant. Although the ensuing 45-minute search uncovered no evidence connecting Ryals to the burglary, both Ryals and his wife were nevertheless taken to the police station, where, at 11:55 a.m., the appellant signed a written waiver of his Miranda rights. A lengthy interrogation session followed, terminating at approximately 5:00 p.m. with the appellant’s placement of his signature on the following written statement: “I went at 2:00 to Mr. Harrisons (sic) house and went in and took a billfold with $62 and left there and went home. I unlatched the screen door and opened the wood door. It wasn’t locked.” Following a Jackson v. Denno hearing, the trial court admitted this statement over Ryals’ objection that it had not been voluntarily made. See generally OCGA § 24-3-50. Held:
*4581. The appellant contends that “[t]he trial (sic) committed reversible error by finding that [his] alleged confession was freely and voluntarily given.” While this enumeration of error is couched solely in Fifth Amendment terms, the appellant additionally argues in his brief that the police violated his “State and Federal Constitutional Rights” by holding him in custody and making it clear to him “that [he] was not going to be allowed to leave the police station until such time as they received a confession from him as to his guilt in this case.” We hold that this argument is sufficient to raise the contention that the confession was extracted in violation of the appellant’s due process rights under the Fourth as well as the Fifth Amendment.
Pursuant to the Appellate Practice Act of 1965, which comprehensively and exhaustively revised and modernized appellate procedure in Georgia, enumerations of error are to be reviewed in such a manner “as to bring about a decision on the merits of every case appealed and to avoid dismissal of any [appeal] or refusal to consider any points raised therein, except as may be specifically [authorized by the Act.]” OCGA § 5-6-30. (Emphasis supplied.) “Where it is apparent from the notice of appeal, the record, the enumeration of errors, or any combination of the foregoing, what judgment or judgments were appealed from or what errors are sought to be asserted upon appeal, the appeal shall be considered in accordance therewith notwithstanding that the notice of appeal fails to specify definitely the judgment appealed from or that the enumeration of errors fails to enumerate clearly the errors sought to be reviewed.” OCGA § 5-6-48 (f).
In conformance with the letter and spirit of the Appellate Practice Act, we conclude that the appellant’s constitutional challenge to the admissibility of his custodial statement is properly before us, notwithstanding his lack of precision in specifying the precise source of the constitutional right which he contends has been violated.
2. It is apparent that the appellant’s statement was obtained as the product of an arrest made without probable cause. In a case with remarkably similar facts, the United State Supreme Court, in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 (99 SC 2248, 60 LE2d 824) (1979), held that a defendant’s due process rights were violated by just such an in-custody interrogation conducted pursuant to an unlawful arrest, notwithstanding the defendant’s purported voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights following the arrest. Accord State v. Harris, 256 Ga. 24 (343 SE2d 483) (1986). In the present case, as in Dunaway, supra, there was clearly no probable cause for the appellant’s arrest, and “[n]o intervening events broke the connection between [his] illegal detention and his confession. To admit [appellant’s] confession in such a case would allow ‘law enforcement officers to violate the Fourth Amendment with impunity, safe in the knowledge that they *459could wash their hands in the “procedural safeguards” of the Fifth.’ ” Dunaway, supra, 442 U. S. at 219, citing Comment, 25 Emory LJ. 227, 238 (1976). The fact that a confession may be voluntary for purposes of the Fifth Amendment is merely a threshold requirement for Fourth Amendment analysis. Dunaway, supra, 442 U. S. at 217. Accordingly, even assuming arguendo that the evidence would otherwise support a conclusion that the appellant’s confession was voluntary, we conclude that it should have been excluded from evidence as the fruit of an unlawful arrest.
3. Without the appellant’s in-custody statement, there was insufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. It follows that the appellant’s motion for a directed verdict of acquittal should have been granted.

Judgment reversed.

Sognier and Benham, JJ., concur. Birdsong, C. J., concurs specially. Pope, J., concurs and also concurs specially. Beasley, J., concurs in part and dissents in part. Deen, P. J., and Carley, J., dissent. McMurray, P. J., dissents as to the judgment of reversal.