Court Opinion

ID: 9533129
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:28:38.499045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:55.478425
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
BRETT, Judge.
The petition for rehearing herein •concedes the opinion rendered makes a correct statement of the law but asserts that the “officer making the arrest did not know for a fact the act constituting the offense” that where the “officer does not know of the •act constituting the offense it is not committed in his presence.”- “The officer could not know wlien he looked into the car. that the thing that he saw was narcotic drugs”. ‘■‘In' fact that was never established until a U. S. chemist *' * * • determined it to be morphine sulphate”. Cited in support •of the foregoing ■ contention are misdemeanor cases, wherein the law requires -that for an arrest without a warrant for committing a misdemeanor the -act must have been committed in the officer’s presence. The fallacy of this argument is because not •only peace officers but lawyers sometimes ■“lose sight of the distinction between the right to make arrests without a warrant in a felony and in misdemeanor cases.” Gaines v. State, 28 Okl.Cr. 353, 230 P. 946. Apparently it has been inadvertently overlooked that this is not a misdemeanor but a felony case. Title 63, § 420, O.S.1951. The rule so aptly stated in Welch v. State, 30 Okl.Cr. 330, 236 P. 68, 70, 72, as follows, applies herein:
“If.a * '* * peace officer arrest a person without a warrant, he is not bound to show in his justification a felony actually committed, to render the arrest lawful, but if he suspects one on his own knowledge of facts; or upon facts communicated to him by others, and thereupon he has reasonable ground to believe that the accused has been guilty of felony, the arrest is not unlawful. * * *
“If the facts are such that a reasonably prudent man would have believed accused guilty, and would have acted upon that belief, a police officer is jus-' tilled in making an arrest without warrant, although subsequent events prove that no offense had been committed”.’
This rule was lifted almost verbatim from the decision of Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543. Herein the officer making the arrest had ample facts upon which to suspect a felony had been committed. The best proof of which may be found in the subsequent analysis of the chemist.
The other point relied on by the defendant herein that the comment by the county attorney that “the defendant made no defense” has in effect been held not to constitute a comment on the fact the defendant did not testify in his own behalf. Many opinions reaching back a long' time before the present membership-of this court, hold that statements to the jury of similar import to. that herein, involved did not constitute a breach of Title 22, § 701, O.S.1951; Chesser v. State, 63 Okl.Cr. 84, 73 P.2d 191. Nevertheless we have Said:
“Frankly we do not approve of couri- ' sel for the state trying to see how close they can come to commenting upon the failure of the defendant to testify without violating the statute, but this court seems to be committed to the rule that the prosecution might say in the argument that the evidence of the state has not been denied or contradicted. Presnell v. State, 71 Okl.Cr. 162, 109 P.2d 834; Sellers v. State, 88 Okl.Cr. 114, 200 P.2d 443, 444.” Taylor v. State, Okl.Cr., 251 P.2d 523, 526.
POWELL, P. J., and JONES, J., concur.