Jackson v. United States

• Decision Date: 08 February 1962
• Docket Number: No. 16631.,16631.
• Citation: 112 US App. DC 260,302 F.2d 194
• Parties: Sammie JACKSON, Jr., Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

112 US App. DC 260, 302 F.2d 194 (1962)

Sammie JACKSON, Jr., Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 16631.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued November 27, 1961.

Decided February 8, 1962.

Mr. David M. Clinard, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Philip A. Gragan, Washington, D. C. (both appointed by the District Court), was on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. William H. Collins, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. David C. Acheson, U. S. Atty., Nathan J. Paulson, and Thomas M. O'Malley, Asst. U. S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee. Mr. Arnold T. Aikens, Asst. U.S. Atty., also entered an appearance for appellee.

Before WILBUR K. MILLER, Chief Judge, and WASHINGTON and BURGER, Circuit Judges.

BURGER, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is taken from convictions on two counts of an eight count indictment charging housebreaking and grand larceny under 22 D.C.Code Ann. §§ 1801, 2201, and 2202. The appellant's chief contention is that the police lacked probable cause to arrest him without a warrant and that his timely motion to suppress certain evidence seized by the arresting officers when he was arrested should therefore have been granted.

The circumstances leading up to appellant's arrest are as follows: Police recovered from a local pawnshop a Smith & Wesson pistol which was one of a number of items, including a rhinestone bracelet, reported as stolen in a housebreaking two weeks earlier. The pawnshop records showed that one John Keyes had pawned the pistol. Police went to Keyes' apartment to question him. His friend Ethel Curtis, who was at the apartment with Keyes, told the police out of the presence of Keyes that the appellant, Sammie Jackson, had given Keyes the pistol. Keyes, when confronted with what Ethel Curtis had said, confirmed the statement that Jackson had given it to him. The woman also told police that Jackson was a "bad one" who had been "locked up" in Baltimore a few weeks before for carrying a gun. At police request she then telephoned Jackson and ascertained that he was at his home in Washington. Keyes, but not Ethel Curtis, then accompanied the police in a patrol car to Jackson's apartment. The police in the meantime had called for another squad car to proceed directly to meet them at the Jackson home. Enroute from Keyes' home to Jackson's home the police read to Keyes a list of the stolen items and upon reciting and describing the rhinestone bracelet they were told by Keyes that he had seen a bracelet corresponding to that description in a hall closet at appellant's apartment. Since men do not habitually keep such bracelets in their closets, this was an important element in the "intelligence estimate" which the police were about to make.

This, in sum, was the information in the possession of the police when they reached Jackson's home. Standing alone no one factor of information constituted probable cause. The question is whether considered together all the information was enough.

The police, still accompanied by Keyes, met Jackson at his door¹ and arrested him. Keyes pointed out the closet where he had seen the rhinestone bracelet. In two suitcases found in that closet the police recovered large quantities of stolen property which had previously been reported to them by the victims. Shortly thereafter and before they had Jackson under actual physical restraint, he plunged through a closed window, escaped and was not apprehended for some time. On this appeal appellant contends that the police had no probable cause to arrest him at the time they confronted him in his apartment.

We have indicated on many occasions that there are few absolutes in the area of the law dealing with what constitutes probable cause for arrest. We have also emphasized from time to time that probable cause is not to be evaluated from a remote vantage point of a library, but rather from the viewpoint of a prudent and cautious police officer on the scene at the time of arrest. The question to be answered is whether such an officer in the particular circumstances, conditioned by his observations and information, and guided by the whole of his police experience, reasonably could have believed that a crime had been committed by the person to be arrested. See Bell v. United States, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 383, 254 F.2d 82, cert. denied, 358 U.S. 885, 79 S.Ct. 126, 3 L.Ed.2d 113 (1958). The law recognizes that mistakes in judgment will occur.

"Because many situations which confront officers in the course of executing their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be allowed for some mistakes on their part. But the mistakes must be those of reasonable men, acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability. The rule of probable cause is a practical, nontechnical conception affording the best compromise that has been found for accommodating these often opposing interests. Requiring more would unduly

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