Court Opinion

ID: 9673184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:07:49.259199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:20.541625
License: Public Domain

R. M. Maher, J.
(concurring in part; dissenting in part). I agree with the majority’s decision to remand for a new trial because the trial court improperly announced to the jury its finding that defendant’s confession was voluntary. I cannot, however, agree with the majority’s conclusion that defendant’s arrest was legal.
In the opinions issued by the United States Supreme Court in Michigan v Mosley, 423 US 96; 96 S Ct 321; 46 L Ed 2d 313 (1975), the legality of *295defendant’s arrest was not reviewed. But both the majority opinion of Justice Stewart and the dissenting opinion of Justice Brennan noted the basis for defendant’s arrest. Justice Stewart referred to the testimony of the arresting officer that "information supplied by an anonymous caller was the sole basis for his arrest of Mosley”. 423 US at 97, fn 1. Justice Brennan, in dissent, pointed out that an anonymous tip was "conceded by the Court to be the sole basis for Mosley’s arrest”. 423 US at 118 (dissenting opinion).
A review of the testimony taken at the hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress his confession confirms the statements found in the Supreme Court opinions. The arresting officer testified that some time prior to defendant’s arrest on April 8, 1971, he received an anonymous phone call while on duty at Detroit Police Headquarters. The caller named defendant as one of the persons involved in recent armed robberies on the city’s lower east side.
On direct examination, the arresting officer was asked:
”Q. What information did you have that prompted you to arrest Richard Bert Mosley on that particular date?
”A. It was some time during the first week in April, got an anonymous phone call from — that—and the party gave me the name of several persons that were operating on the lower east side, holding up places and that, and the name of Richard Mosley and another party — two other men, I believe — that the information was that they had held up — .”
On cross-examination, the officer testified:
"Q. At the conclusion of your conversation with this *296anonymous telephone caller, did you apply to any judge or magistrate for a warrant of arrest for Mr. Mosley?
"A. No, sir.
"Q. For what offense specifically did you arrest Mr. Mosley at 1:05 p.m. or thereabouts on April 8th of 1971?
”A. For investigation of the robbery armed of the Blue Goose Bar and the White Tower Restaurant on Mack.
”Q. Was the White Tower Restaurant mentioned to you during your telephone conversation with this anonymous caller?
’A. Yes.
"Q. And the Blue Goose Bar also?
"A. Yes.
"Q. Would it be fair to say, Sergeant Cowie, that you arrested Mr. Mosley on April 8th of 1971, solely and exclusively on the information that you received from this anonymous telephone caller?

"A. Yes.”

The hearing on defendant’s motion continued the next day. The arresting officer then produced "pattern sheets”1 to show that more than the anonymous phone call prompted defendant’s arrest. The officer testified on direct examination that he had consulted descriptions from pattern sheets on recent lower east side robberies before he arrested defendant and that defendant matched several descriptions. The officer stated that defendant matched the description of the person involved in the March 25, 1971, robbery at the Night Party Store. The pattern sheet gave this description of the robber: 20s, 5-9, 130, afro, pencil mustache, medium complexion. The officer also stated that defendant matched the pattern sheet descriptions *297of two of the three men in the March 19, 1971, robbery at the Kercheval Market. One man was described as 20, 5-11, 160, dark complected, short hair. The other was described as 20, 5-6, 130, dark complected, trim mustache.
The officer had testified the day before that he had arrested defendant for investigation of robberies at the Blue Goose Bar and at the White Tower Restaurant. He did not attempt on direct examination to match defendant with the pattern sheet descriptions of the persons involved in those incidents. On cross-examination, the officer stated that defendant could have fit the description given for the number 1 man at the White Tower robbery. That man was described as 20, 5-8, 150, light complected, medium afro.
The four pattern sheet descriptions that the officer stated he relied on were, in part, inconsistent. The Kercheval Market robbers were described as dark complected, the Night Party Store robber as medium complected and the White Tower Restaurant robber as light complected. Two robbers were described as having afros, one as having short hair. Two were described as having mustaches, while two were not. Where the descriptions were not obviously inconsistent, they were not very helpful. There are thousands of young black males of medium height and medium weight in Detroit.
Under these circumstances, I cannot find a valid warrantless arrest of defendant. An anonymous tip, which did not verify itself, cf. Draper v United States, 358 US 307; 79 S Ct 329; 3 L Ed 2d 327 (1959), even if combined with several general descriptions that could fit thousands of people in the area, does not provide the basis for a reasonable belief that defendant had committed the robberies *298under investigation. Spinelli v United States, 393 US 410; 89 S Ct 584; 21 L Ed 2d 637 (1969), People v Walker, 64 Mich App 138; 235 NW2d 85 (1975). Under Wong Sun v United States, 371 US 471; 83 S Ct 407; 9 L Ed 2d 441 (1963), and Brown v Illinois, 422 US 590; 95 S Ct 2254; 45 L Ed 2d 416 (1975), admission of defendant’s confession was error.

 Pattern sheets are synopses of recent crimes drawn from the accounts given by victims and witnesses and circulated internally by the police department.