Court Opinion

ID: 9535166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:46:10.755778+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:10.893025
License: Public Domain

DOOLING, J., and DRAPER, J.
We concur in the order of reversal.
We feel, however, that the facts surrounding and preceding the arrest should be more fully stated and discussed.
According to the testimony of Aiello, one of the arresting officers, he relied in making the arrest 1. on information given to him by an unidentified informer and 2. on information given to him by one Sehillaee, the superior police officer who sent him out that night to observe the appellant’s conduct.
Some time previously the unidentified informer had told Aiello generally that the appellant was dealing in narcotics. There was some inconsistency in Aiello’s testimony in this regard. At one time he testified that he was not sure that the informer gave him any information directly, but in any event this general information, coupled with appellant’s conduct on the night of his arrest, was not sufficient to justify the arrest. The law of the case is clear on this point. We said in People v. Harvey, 142 Cal.App.2d 728, 731 [299 P.2d 310]: “The fact that defendant was believed to be dealing in narcotics, added to such innocent conduct as the officers observed, was not sufficient to justify defendant’s arrest without a warrant.”
In addition Aiello testified that Sehillaee informed him on the night of the arrest that he had sent the same informer out to purchase narcotics from the appellant. Aiello testified that Sehillaee further told him: “ ‘ A buy will be made tonight at about . . . nine o’clock.’ That the buyer would appear in a ... blue coupe ... if Mr. Harvey talked to such a person, if a blue coupe appeared and he made any conversation with any such person, then if Mr. Harvey would go to his resi*523dence, then I could assume that he was picking up marijuana and that he would make delivery ... That this was his method of operation . . . That he would meet the party in the vicinity of his residence, chat with him a while, disappear, re-appear, and the sale would be made ...”
We are satisfied that if Aiello had received this information directly from a reliable informer, including the description of appellant’s customary method of selling marijuana, and had observed thereafter appellant talk to a man in a blue coupé, go into his house, reappear and stand looking up and down the street, under those circumstances and with that information Aiello could reasonably believe that appellant had marijuana in his possession and was waiting for the return of the blue coupé to deliver it. Under those circumstances we would hold that Aiello had reasonable grounds for arresting the appellant.
That however is not the situation here. Aiello’s information came not from the informer but from Schillaee. Schillaee told Aiello that the informer had told Schillaee these things. Schillaee was dead at the time of trial and so could not testify to the fact that he had received the information from the informer which he transmitted to Aiello.
We are satisfied that if Schillaee could have been produced and had testified that he did receive this information from the informer the arrest would likewise have been justified. It seems clear to us that if a superior police officer has reliable information which would justify him in making an arrest himself, he can delegate the making of the arrest to a subordinate, and justify the arrest by the subordinate by his (the superior’s) knowledge. To permit the subordinate to justify the arrest on the superior’s unsworn statement to the subordinate that the superior has obtained information from another justifying the arrest, however, would permit police officers to justify arrests by hearsay on hearsay, without requiring the sworn testimony of anybody that the information upon which the arrest was made was actually given to any police officer. To allow this would permit the manufacture of reasonable grounds for arrest within a police department by one officer transmitting information purportedly received by him from an informer to another officer who had not received such information from the informer, without establishing under oath that the information had in fact been given to any officer by the informer, or indeed that there was an informer at all. The possibilities of the phantom informer, if this were to be *524permitted, are too obvious to need elaboration. (Cf. People v. Lawrence, 149 Cal.App.2d 435, 451 [308 P.2d 821].)
We find nothing in People v. Fischer, 49 Cal.2d 442, 446-447 [317 P.2d 967], inconsistent with this conclusion. There the “advance information” upon which the arresting officer relied came from a superior officer. Neither its reliability nor its source was challenged, the sole objection being that it was hearsay. In addition the arresting officer, acting on the “advance information” received from his superior, acquired personal information from the defendant sufficient to justify his arrest. He telephoned to the defendant and held a conversation showing his willingness to accept a bet. In the case before us the objection was properly made to the introduction of the marijuana into evidence that it was obtained by an illegal search and seizure, and the arresting officers personally observed nothing in the conduct of appellant which would justify his arrest. They acted solely on the information received from Schillaee.
If the informer should be produced by the prosecution and should testify that he had in fact given the information to Schillaee which Schillaee transmitted to Aiello the trial court would be justified, if this was believed, in holding that Aiello had reasonable grounds for appellant’s arrest. Instead the prosecution refused to disclose the informer’s identity, its objection on the ground of privilege being sustained. This is asserted by appellant to have been error. The importance to appellant of this information is clear on the facts of this case since, because of Schillaee’s death, the informer is the only person living who could testify to his conversation with Schillaee. However, our holding on the other ground, makes it unnecessary for us to pass on this specification.
A petition for a rehearing was denied January 31, 1958, and respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 26, 1958. Gibson, O. J., Shenk, J., and Spence, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.