Court Opinion

ID: 9660660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:18:06.015125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:21.197796
License: Public Domain

VANCE, Justice
dissenting.
This case turns on the question of whether the arrest of appellant without a warrant was valid. An officer may arrest without a warrant for a misdemeanor committed in his presence. K.R.S. 431.-005(1)(d).
The majority holds that the arrest was invalid because the officer, without actually seeing a misdemeanor committed in his presence, proceeded upon the theory that there was reasonable grounds to believe that a misdemeanor had been committed.
Under the facts of this case, it is my belief that the officer not only had reasonable grounds to believe a misdemeanor was committed in his presence, but I also believe the facts clearly demonstrate that a misdemeanor was, in fact, committed in his presence. The arrest, therefore, was valid and the search of the appellant was valid.
In addition, I do not believe that Cooper v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 577 S.W.2d 34 (1979), should be overruled. In Cooper the officer had actually observed the defendant in possession of marijuana cigarettes before he made the arrest and conducted the search of the defendant. There was no doubt that the defendant had committed the misdemeanor of possession of marijuana in the presence of the officer before the arrest. The arrest was valid and the search of the defendant was valid.
Cooper also touched upon the validity of the search of the defendant’s automobile, but in this case it is the search of the appellant himself and not his automobile which is in question. The only search here was of the appellant’s person, and the *45search, if the arrest is valid as I believe, was proper.
LAMBERT and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., join in this dissent.