Court Opinion

ID: 9741937
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:04:33.082207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:27.327542
License: Public Domain

ROBERT W. HANSEN, J.
(dissenting). In this case federal narcotics agents set out to make a “buy” and to make a “pinch.” The “buy” was to be the purchase of illegal drugs. The “pinch” was to be of the persons making the sale. Purchase made, arrest would follow.
Time, price and place of sale were set in advance. One Richard Hills informed a federal agent that the agent *402could buy 500 pounds of marijuana. Hills set the date for such sale as January 21, 1975. Hills set the place of sale as his farmhouse in Dodge county. On the morning of the 21st, Hills informed a federal informant the marijuana would be moved to his farmhouse between 12 noon and 1:00 p.m. that same afternoon.1 That afternoon Hills gave the informant a sample of the marijuana to be sold and stated that 200 “Thai Sticks”2 could also be purchased. Hills then asked for a meeting with the undercover agents that evening at 5:00 p.m.
At that meeting held in a tavern, Hills informed the agents the 200 “Thai Sticks” would be delivered to his farmhouse at 7:30 p.m. that evening. At 7:45 p.m., in a different tavern, Hills told the agents the “Thai Sticks” had been delivered to the farmhouse and that the supplier was waiting for them there. Hills then told the agents the supplier was anxious to “do the deal,” but “did not want to meet anyone.” Hills and the agents then drove to the farmhouse to make the purchase.
Upon arrival one of the agents showed Hills $9,000 in cash. One agent stayed outside with the money. Hills, two agents and the informant entered the kitchen. From the kitchen both agents observed the defendant sitting in the living room. Hills, the two agents and the informant then went into a side den room. Whereupon Hills “requested” the agents not to go into the living *403room where defendant was sitting, having earlier told the agents that defendant did “not want to meet anyone.”
Hills was asked to get the “Thai Sticks” so that the agents could count the 200 “sticks” to be purchased. Hills went to the living room to get the “sticks.” One agent then went back to the kitchen where he had been before and where he had earlier observed the defendant. Through the open door he observed Hills pick up a bag which he took to the den. Once in the den Hills displayed the contents of the bag to the agents and counted out 200 “sticks.” The agents advised him they would buy the 200 “sticks.” Whereupon one agent left the farmhouse to get the money needed for the purchase from the, agent who stood outside ($4,200 was to be used to purchase the 200 “Thai Sticks” just displayed by Hills and counted by the agents). The agent returned with the money needed.
At this point one federal agent went into the living room, advised defendant he was a law officer and that defendant was under arrest for violation of the narcotics laws. Simultaneously the other federal agent advised Hills he was a federal law officer and placed him under arrest for violation of the narcotics laws.
The sole challenge to defendant’s conviction of the offense of possessing a controlled substance, to wit, marijuana,3 relates to denial by the trial court of defendant’s pretrial motion to suppress both the contraband and the physical observation of the defendant made by the arresting officers. While defendant pleaded guilty, he is entitled by statute to appeal the denial of a motion to suppress.4
The basis of the challenge revolves around the actions of one of the two agents who, when Hills went into the living room to bring the “sticks” to the agents for counting, stepped back into the kitchen — where he had been *404before — and looked through an open door. That agent then saw defendant in the living room and saw Hills get the closed bag which he was to bring to the agents in the den. Defendant claims the officer’s looking into the living room from the kitchen made identification of the defendant and possession of the 200 “sticks” the “fruit” of an unconstitutional search and seizure. There are four reasons, each one of them sufficient, why the claim of this defendant is without merit.
RIGHT TO ARREST DEFENDANT. Under the circumstances here, at the time the federal agent stepped into the kitchen, he had not only the right to look into the living room, but also the right to go into the living room and arrest both Hills and defendant. The statute in this state provides that a law enforcement officer may arrest a person when “[t]here are reasonable grounds to believe that the person is committing or has committed a crime.”5
This court has held that probable cause to arrest is present if the facts and circumstances known to the police officer warrant a prudent man in believing an offense has been committed.6 The United States Supreme Court has held that probable cause to arrest without warrant exists where “ ‘the facts and circumstances within [the arresting officers’] knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that’ an offense has been or is being committed.”7
In the case before us reasonably trustworthy information came from the seller Hills. The defendant was identified by Hills as the supplier, present in an adjoining *405room, of the contraband. Here all that went before, the facts and circumstances leading up to the presence of the seller, supplier and purchasers in the farmhouse, would compel any prudent man to believe that defendant and Hills were in the next room — in possession of illegal narcotics — with intent to sell and deliver.
Since reasonable grounds existed for the agent to believe that Hills and the defendant were in possession of narcotics (with Hills having gone to the room for the purpose of getting the contraband from defendant and counting out 200 “sticks”), the agent in the kitchen was fully warranted in proceeding into the living room and placing under arrest both defendant and his business associate, Hills. The agent is not to be faulted for only looking when he was entitled to do far more than look. To only look when one is entitled to arrest raises no problem of constitutional dimensions.
RIGHT TO INVESTIGATE CRIME. When Hills headed for the living room to get the illegal “sticks,” the agent who went to the kitchen had the right to keep Hills under observance — to continue investigation of the crime being committed. In addition to the right to arrest for probable cause, law enforcement officers have the right, if not duty, to investigate where there is reason to believe a crime has been or is being committed.8 Our court has stated: “Certainly the police may investigate claims of crime on evidence not sufficient to justify *406an arrest.”9 The test as to such police investigation is whether the investigation is “constitutionally reasonable under the circumstances.”10 Such seeking of verification or “corroboration” has been termed by this court to be “prudent, proper and entirely reasonable.”11
Here with all terms and conditions of an illegal sale agreed upon and the money ready to be paid over, the seller went to the living room for the sole purpose of securing and returning with the narcotic drugs. When he returned to the den the 200 “sticks” were to be counted in the presence of the agents. Since this was the sole reason for the seller’s trip to the living room, it was an entirely proper and entirely reasonable investigatory police procedure to keep seller Hills under observation as he went to and returned from the living room. The fact that grounds for arrest of seller and supplier, *407sitting in the living room, also then existed does not erode the right of the law officers to keep the seller under observation while he went to fetch the contraband.
RIGHT OF OFFICER TO BE IN KITCHEN. On this appeal defendant does not dispute that the officer in the kitchen was entitled to see what anybody in the kitchen could observe. Conceding that what the officer saw from the kitchen was in plain and open view from the kitchen by anyone, defendant argues that, what is necessary for the application of the plain view doctrine, is that the officer must have a right to be where he is when he observes the evidence in plain view. The defendant here contends the officer had no right to be in the kitchen.
Defendant’s sole basis that the officer had no right to go back to the kitchen — where he had been before with the seller — is the request made by Hills when he went to the living room to get the contraband “sticks” that the customers waiting to complete the sale not go into the living room. To quote defendant’s statement of facts: “Hills requested both Agents Stacy and Hehr not to go into the living room of the house.” Earlier, Hills had told the customers-agents “his source did not want to meet anyone.”
Defendant thus claims “it is a reasonable inference from the circumstances that when Hills ‘directed’ the undercover agents to the den, and ‘requested’ them not to go into the living room, he was implicitly indicating that the agents were to stay in the den.” This is one possible inference. At least as reasonable is the inference that Hills meant only for the agents not to go into the living room because the supplier “did not want to meet anyone.” Such request was not a request that no visit be made to the kitchen.
This is the inference drawn by the trial judge at the suppression hearing. The lower court here held that “because Hills requested only that the agents not go *408into the living room” and did not ipstruct them to stay-in the den, the agent who went back to the kitchen was entitled to be there when he looked into the living room. Where alternative reasonable inferences are available to the trier of fact as to what was “requested” by the seller-landowner as to where the purchasers could or could not wander, the inference drawn by the trier of fact is to be upheld. Neither this court nor .the defendant is entitled to substitute a different inference where the one drawn by the trier of fact is eminently reasonable, here the most reasonable.
NO SEARCH AND SEIZURE. Under the United States Constitution citizens are to be secure “against unreasonable searches and seizures.”12 In the case before us there was no unreasonable search and no seizure at all. Defendant’s brief quotes our court as having said, “A search can be conducted by one’s eyes alone.” But that quoted sentence is followed immediately with these words: “ ‘A search implies a prying into hidden places for that which is concealed.’ [People v. Marvin, 358 Ill. 426, 428, 193 N.E. 202 (1934)] It is not a search to observe what is in plain view. Even though visual surveillance of things within plain view may be regarded as a search the real issue to be settled is whether or not such activities are regarded as an unreasonable search as circumscribed by either the Fourth amendment of the United States constitution or art. I, sec. 11 of the Wisconsin constitution.”13
Putting aside the officer’s right to arrest, right to investigate and right to be in the kitchen, it is mind-boggling to describe the officer’s glance into the living room as an unreasonable search or a seizure at all. As to identification of the defendant, the agent saw only the same person he had observed earlier in the same living room from the same kitchen when the owner-*409seller Hills had taken- the agents through that kitchen to the den. As to the contraband, the agent saw only the seller Hills pick up a bag, its contents not apparent to view, and take it to the den. It was in the den, seconds later, that the seller Hills himself opened that bag, displaying its contents to the agents and counting out the 200 “sticks” of illegal contraband. What the officers learned of the contents of the bag derived not from a look into the living room but from the opening of the bag by the seller in the den.
Exactly as the trial court found, the fact is that:
“The hashish was not the product of a search or a seizure. It was freely and forthrightly delivered to the agents by Hills as a result of a transaction. The agents did not look for the hashish; it was brought to them and handed to them. They did not seize the hashish; it was placed in their hands in the den where they were told to be by the owner of the house. It was not discovered by any observation of an agent in a place he had no right to be. Such evidence, the rem itself, cannot be suppressed.”
The writer would thus uphold the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress, holding that: (1) At the time the officer first looked into the living room on the way to the den, he was entitled to go into the living room and arrest defendant; (2) at the time the officer went into the kitchen he was entitled to keep seller Hills under observation in investigating the crime; (3) under the “request” made by the farmhouse owner Hills, the officer was entitled to step into the kitchen; and (4) there was here no search, certainly no unreasonable search, and here no seizure at all, the contraband being given to the federal agents by Hills as part of the illegal transaction. For these four reasons, any one of which would be sufficient for affirmance, the writer would affirm.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice LEO B. HANLEY and Mr. Justice CONNOR T. HANSEN join in this dissent.

 Shortly after the meeting with Hills, federal agents set up a stationary surveillance of the farmhouse. Arriving there at approximately 12:16 p.m., they observed a red van truck exiting from the driveway. At approximately 2:16 p.m. a light colored foreign car arrived at the farmhouse. A female carrying a bag exited the car and entered the farmhouse. The bag corresponded in approximate size and color to the bag subsequently given by Hills to the agents which contained illegal contraband.

 “Thai Sticks” are small bamboo shoots with compressed marijuana mixed with opium gum. Here it was subsequently ascertained that the “sticks” involved consisted of compressed marijuana and hashish.

 Contrary to secs. 161.41(3), 161.14(4) (k) and 939.61, Stats.

 Sec. 971.31(10), Stats.

 Sec. 968.07(1) (d), Stats.

 Leroux v. State, 58 Wis.2d 671, 683, 207 N.W.2d 589 (1973), citing Kluck v. State, 37 Wis.2d 378, 389, 155 N.W.2d 26 (1967).

 Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 313 (1969), quoting Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162 (1926), cited in Leroux v. State, supra, at 683.

 See: State v. Beaty, 57 Wis.2d 531, 538, 206 N.W.2d 11 (1973), ■where, in a ease involving a stop to question a suspect, this court held as to reasons for suspecting commission of a crime, “Such suspicion-engendering activities warranted and, in fact, dictated that the defendant be stopped and questioned about his activities. As the United States Supreme Court said in Terry [Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 23 (1968)] ‘. . . It would have been poor police work indeed for an officer ... to have failed to investigate this behavior further.’” Keeping a suspect engaged in the commission of a crime under observation is as essential to proper investigation as stopping to question.

 Browne v. State, 24 Wis.2d 491, 507, 129 N.W.2d 175, 131 N.W.2d 169 (1964).

 Id. at 508, this court adding at 508, 509: “If police conduct is not considered unreasonable in the circumstances, it is not made unreasonable if it is deemed to have involved a civil trespass.” The court in Browne concluded: “In the case at bar, and considering the nature of the crime involved, the police conduct in presenting themselves at the rooming house after receiving the phone call, in identifying themselves as police officers, in being ushered by the fellow roomer to the kitchen, in asking as to the whereabouts of Browne, and in viewing him through the open door, constituted a reasonable investigation on the part of the police officers that warranted any invasion of privacy Browne suffered from having the officers brought to the threshold of his room without his affirmative consent.”

 See: State v. Gums, 69 Wis.2d 513, 528, 230 N.W.2d 813 (1975), this court stating at 517: “The contraband observed was in plain view of the officers or of anyone who happened to be in the kitchen or living room. Rather the claim is that the officers had no right to stand where they stood when they saw what they saw.” In Gums, in retracing the steps taken by the police officers from police station to kitchen and living room, the court found no merit to defendant’s challenges to each of the steps taken as to its propriety and reasonableness under the circumstances.

 Fourth Amendment, U. S. Const. See also: Art. I, sec. 11, Wis. Const.

 Edwards v. State, 38 Wis.2d 332, 338, 156 N.W.2d 397 (1968).