Court Opinion

ID: 9586450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:11:16.81296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:24.004224
License: Public Domain

Jordan, Judge,
dissenting. The opinion in this case is predicated on the theory that the defendants were illegally arrested and therefore any evidence obtained from them as an incident *362of such arrest was inadmissible in the trial of the case, citing as authority the ruling of the Mapp case, 367 U.S. 643 (81 SC 1684, 6 LE2d 1081). The opinion deals with the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States leading up to the decision in the Mapp case, properly concluding that both this court and the Supreme Court of Georgia are now bound by the general rule laid down in the Mapp case to the effect that evidence obtained by a search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is inadmissible in a State court as it is in a Federal court.
There have been numerous cases in this court since the Mapp decision (1961) in which appellants have sought application of its principles. General interest in the Mapp case would seem to justify an examination of its effect on criminal procedure in this State. Having stated the general rule which it laid down, let us now see what was not decided in the Mapp case.
The Supreme Court has set this forth very clearly in the later decision of Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 31 (83 SC 1623, 10 LE2d 726), in which it held that the arrests made in that case without warrants were sufficiently grounded on probable cause, thus making the arrests legal and the evidence obtained incident thereto admissible. Both the Mapp opinion and the Ker opinion were written for the majority by Mr. Justice Clark, who in a discussion of the Mapp case said in the Ker case, “First, it must be recognized that the ‘principles governing the admissibility of evidence in federal criminal trials have not been restricted ... to those derived solely from the Constitution. In the exercise of its supervisory authority over the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts . . . this court has . . . formulated rules of evidence to be applied in federal criminal prosecutions.’ [citing cases]. Mapp, however, established no assumption by this Court of supervisory authority over state courts, . . . and, consequently, it implied no total obliteration of state laws relating to arrests and searches in favor of federal law . . . Second, Mapp did not attempt the impossible task of laying down a ‘fixed formula’ for the application in specific cases of the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures; it recognized that we would *363be ‘met with “recurring questions of the reasonableness of searches” ’ and that ‘at any rate, “reasonableness is in the first instance for the [trial court] to determine,” ’ . . . thus indicating that the usual weight be given to the findings of trial courts.” Justice Clark’s opinion went on to say, “This Court’s long-established recognition that standards of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment are not susceptible of Procrustean application is carried forward when that Amendment’s proscriptions are enforced against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. And, although the standard of reasonableness is the same under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, the demands of our federal system compel us to distinguish between evidence held admissible because of our supervisory powers over federal courts and that held inadmissible because prohibited by the United States Constitution. We reiterate that the resonableness of a search is in the first instance a substantive determination to be made by the trial court from the facts and circumstances of the case and in the light of the ‘fundamental criteria’ laid down by the Fourth Amendment and in opinions of this Court applying that Amendment. Findings of reasonableness, of course, are respected only insofar as consistent with federal constitutional guarantees. As we have stated above and in other cases involving federal constitutional rights, findings of state courts are by no means insulated against examination here [citing cases]. While this Court does not sit as in nisi prius to appraise contradictory factual questions, it will, where necessary to the determination of constitutional rights, make an independent examination of the facts, the findings, and the record so that it can determine for itself whether in the decision as to reasonableness the fundamental,—-i.e., constitutional—criteria established by this Court have been respected. The States are not thereby precluded from developing workable rules governing arrests, searches and seizures to meet ‘the practical demands of effective criminal investigation and law enforcement’ in the States, provided that those rules do not violate the constitutional proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures and the concomitant command that evidence so seized is inadmissible against one who has standing to complain.”
*364It is clear then that by the Mapp decision the Supreme Court did not pre-empt the rule-making power of the States in regard to arrests, searches and seizures, and it did not attempt (nor could it have) to lay down a fixed formula by which standards of reasonableness could be measured, leaving that question to be determined in the first instance by the trial court from the facts and circumstances in each particular case.
In this case the trial court, by its rulings made during the progress of the trial and the subsequent denial of the motion for new trial, has determined that the actions of the officers in this case did not violate the rights of the defendants relative to illegal arrest, search and seizure and that the evidence obtained from them incident to the arrest was therefore admissible against them. In order for this court to examine this finding by the trial court, we must set forth fully the facts leading up to and immediately following the arrest as brought out on the trial of the case.
At some time during the night of Saturday, November 18, 1961, a store in a shopping center in Newnan was burglarized, the safe looted of some $3,000 which was later found in a trash can covered with a pile of leaves approximately 225 feet south of the shopping center. Subsequent investigation showed forcible entry through the rear door, a hole blown in the safe and elaborate equipment found on the premises, including acetylene torches, an oxygen tank, a drill, a piece of canvas, two walkie talkie radios, and other burglary tools. That such burglary had taken place was not known by the officers at the time the defendants were arrested. On Sunday, November 19th, at approximately 6:45 a.m. a witness for the State observed “an automobile which I did not recognize” containing three occupants at a red light near his home about two blocks from the shopping center. This witness later identified one of the defendants as the driver of this car. Upon his return to his home about 9 a.m. this witness noticed this car parked on the street in front of his house with no one in it. He called the city police and the car was removed.
At approximately 8:30 a.m. police officer Morris while cruising the area near the shopping center observed a man (later *365identified as a co-defendant named Smith) on the west side of Greenville Street directly across from the shopping center. Checking this area some ten to fifteen minutes later he noticed this man had moved across the street to a spot approximately ten or fifteen feet from the corner of the shopping center near a large boxwood tree. At approximately 10:25 a.m. Officer Morris with Officer Allen spotted two men then unknown to them, later identified as the two defendants herein, on Turner Street at a railroad crossing approximately 400-500 yards south of the shopping center. The defendant Raif was wearing greenish coveralls and brown shoes. The defendant Luck had on a blue sport coat, gray pants and black shoes. They were walking toward the shopping center. The officers observed that their shoes were wet and that the clothing on the left arm of each man was wet almost to the shoulder. (Evidence at the trial showed the hole in the safe to be large enough for a man’s arm to enter and that the safe had been filled with water to prevent burning of the money by the blow torch operation.) The men were then placed in custody and taken to the police station where they were questioned by the police chief.
Keeping in mind that up to this point the police did not know of the burglary which had been committed and for which the defendants were subsequently convicted, did the officers have authority to take the defendants into custody under the provisions of Code § 27-207? If so, the arrest without a warrant being based on probable cause was legal and the evidence voluntarily obtained from them as an incident to their arrest was admissible on the trial of the case.
Code § 27-207 provides that, “An arrest for a crime may be made by an officer, either under a warrant, or without a warrant if the offense is committed in his presence, or the offender is endeavoring to escape, or for other cause there is likely to be a failure of justice for want of an officer to issue a warrant.” Code § 27-211 provides that, “A private person may arrest an offender, if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge; and if the offense is a felony, and the offender is escaping, or attempting to escape, a private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion.”
*366In construing these Code sections this court has said, “We think that the words, ‘in his presence,’ as used in The Penal Code (1910) § 917 [Code § 27-207] and the words ‘within his immediate knowledge’ as used in § 921 [Code § 27-211] are synonymous. To justify the arrest without warrant, the officer need not see the act which constitutes the crime take place, if by any of his senses he has personal knowledge of its commission.” Piedmont Hotel Co. v. Henderson, 9 Ga. App. 672, 681 (72 SE 51). “A crime is committed in the presence of an officer, if he sees it committed, or by the exercise of any of his senses he has knowledge, together with what he sees, that a crime is being committed by the person sought to be arrested.” Howell v. State, 162 Ga. 14 (6c) (134 SE 59); Phelps v. State, 106 Ga. App. 132 (126 SE2d 429).
The officers making the arrest in this case had observed a series of events in the neighborhood of a shopping center area which they were patrolling that could and should lead them to the reasonable conclusion that a crime was being perpetrated, committed or concluded in their presence and within their knowledge. Beginning at 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning they had observed a stranger standing on one side of a street across from the shopping center and who some fifteen minutes later had moved across the street nearer the shopping center to a spot covered by a large boxwood plant. (A walkie talkie radio with its switch “On” was found later in the day concealed in this plant.) Around 9:00 a.m. a report was made to police headquarters of a strange abandoned car just two blocks from the shopping center, which car was pulled in for cheeking. Some hour and a half later the arresting officers observed two other strangers (the defendants) at a railroad crossing just south of the shopping center, and observing the nature of their clothing and the fact that both left arms were wet almost to their shoulders, brought them to their chief for questioning. As a matter of human experience we know that strangers seen in a small city are viewed with a higher degree of curiosity and suspicion than they might be in a large metropolitan area, especially so in view of their continued presence near the railroad tracks and a shopping center on a Sunday morning. Based on their obser*367vations and knowledge and the exercise of their senses one could almost conclude that the officers would have been derelict in their duty to have failed to take the action which they did.
That the officers had probable cause for taking this action is borne out by the fact that within an hour or two after the defendants’ arrest, a burglary was discovered at this shopping center. Further bearing out the officers’ conclusion of the suspicious nature of the events and circumstances surrounding these defendants are the statements of the defendants themselves. In these statements the defendants, while denying knowledge of the burglary, admitted they were engaged in a crime at the time of their arrest in that they had helped a man run some whiskey that night and that they got their clothes wet from dew on the shrubbery while packing the whiskey and that they were then waiting by the railroad tracks for the man to come back to show them where to put the whiskey. So even under the defendants’ explanation of the circumstances surrounding their presence at this location, the officers would have been justified in reaching the conclusion that a crime was being committed at that very time in their presence. Can they now claim their arrest to be illegal simply because the officers did not know the exact nature of the crime then being committed? Such being the facts surrounding the apprehension of these defendants, it is my conclusion that the arrest was legal and not an illegal one as set forth in the majority opinion.
Assuming then that the arrest was legal, was the subsequent action of the officers which produced evidence used against the defendants on the trial lawful as incident to those arrests? During the interrogation at police headquarters just after their detention, the defendant Luck gave his name as John Rogers, then admitted this to be incorrect. The defendant Raif, questioned separately, stated that he did not know Luck and had just met him on the railroad tracks. When asked if he had any identification he replied affirmatively and reached and got his wallet from his pocket. The police chief looked inside and found a new Reese key number 802 in the billfold with a driver’s license. This key was later identified as being the type that would unlock a lock found on the back door of the Woolworth *368store which had been burglarized. A deputy sheriff testified that later in the day (and after the burglary was discovered) he requested the two defendants to remove their clothing so it could be checked. He testified that they did not object to this and that "if they hadn’t taken them off, I would had left them on.” He said he gave them coveralls to wear after they had removed their clothing. There was testimony that this clothing contained burned metal and slag balls resulting from a torch burning operation, small pieces of glitter, and particles of safe insulation. The clothing and testimony relating thereto were admitted in evidence over the defendants’ objections.
This question has been answered by our Supreme Court. “This court has repeatedly held that, where the accused after arrest does an act, without objection, which tends to incriminate himself, it is not error to allow testimony respecting the act, nor is evidence of the act violative of any constitutional right of the accused.” Thomas v. State, 213 Ga. 237 (2) (98 SE2d 548), citing Franklin v. State, 69 Ga. 36 (3) (47 AR 748), and other cases. See also Whippler v. State, 218 Ga. 198 (126 SE2d 744).
Considering all the facts and circumstances of this case, it is my conclusion that the broad principles laid down in the Mapp case have not been violated, this case on its facts being-closer to the situation in the Ker case where the Supreme Court held that the arrests without warrants were based on reasonable and probable cause, making the evidence obtained in the resulting search admissible in the trial of the defendants.
While the safeguards under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Paragraphs 6 and 16 of our own Constitution are the very essence of constitutional liberty, we cannot be unaware of the “practical demands of effective criminal investigation and law enforcement.”
I think the trial court did not err in finding the arrests to be legal and the evidence to be admissible.
I am authorized to say that Presiding Judge Bell joins in this dissent.