People v. Thomas

Citation478 N.W.2d 712,191 Mich.App. 576
Decision Date21 October 1991
Docket NumberDocket No. 111910
PartiesPEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph THOMAS, Defendant-Appellant. 191 Mich.App. 576, 478 N.W.2d 712
CourtCourt of Appeal of Michigan (US)

[191 MICHAPP 578] Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Gay Secor Hardy, Sol. Gen., John D. O'Hair, Pros. Atty., Timothy A. Baughman, Chief of Research, Training, and Appeals, and Jeffrey Caminsky, Asst. Pros. Atty., for the People.

Robert M. Morgan, Detroit, for defendant-appellant on appeal.

Joseph Thomas, in pro. per.

Before J.H. GILLIS, P.J., and SAWYER and REILLY, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant was convicted, following a jury trial, of two counts of first-degree felony murder. M.C.L. Sec. 750.316; M.S.A. Sec. 28.548. He was sentenced to serve life in prison. He now appeals and we reverse.

The murders that gave rise to defendant's convictions occurred on December 6, 1974. Defendant was charged in those murders shortly after their commission, pleaded guilty of two counts of second-degree murder on March 12, 1975, and was sentenced to serve forty to one hundred years in prison for each conviction. Following various unsuccessful appeals to this Court and the Supreme Court and an attempt to withdraw his guilty plea in the trial court, defendant was able to obtain habeas corpus relief in 1987, resulting in the withdrawal of his guilty plea and his trial on the current charges. A trial was conducted in July 1988, resulting in defendant's present convictions.

Defendant raises a number of issues on appeal, one of which is dispositive. Defendant argues that his initial arrest was unlawful and, therefore, certain physical evidence seized following his arrest as well as statements made by defendant to the police following his arrest should have been suppressed. We agree that defendant was arrested [191 MICHAPP 579] unlawfully and that the statements made by him to the police following that arrest should have been suppressed, but do not agree with defendant that the physical evidence should have been suppressed.

The police arrested defendant at his residence without a warrant. Defendant argues that the police lacked probable cause to make an arrest. We agree. A police officer may arrest without a warrant if he has reasonable (or probable) cause to believe that a felony has been committed and that the suspect committed the felony. M.C.L. Sec. 764.15; M.S.A. Sec. 28.874. Probable cause to arrest exists if the facts available to the officer at the moment of arrest would justify a fair-minded person of average intelligence to believe that the suspected person has committed a felony. People v. Oliver, 417 Mich. 366, 374, 338 N.W.2d 167 (1983). The only facts known to the police at the time of defendant's arrest concerning defendant's involvement in the murders were that an unnamed street source of one of the officers had said that the "word on the street" was that an individual named "Hassen" living on the same street as defendant was involved in the murders, that defendant's middle name is Hassen, and that defendant was wanted for questioning in the case because of his known association with two other suspects in the murders, General Dorsey and Jeffrey Dorsey (a neighbor of the victims). 1

This evidence does not establish probable cause to make an arrest. The mere fact that defendant is a known associate of two suspects in the killings, while perhaps grounds to make defendant also a suspect, does little to establish defendant's involvement in the murders. Further, the fact that an [191 MICHAPP 580] unidentified informant told an officer that the "word on the street" was that an individual with the same name as defendant's middle name was involved in the crime also fails to establish probable cause. First, the officer declined to identify his source and did little to establish the source's credibility other than pointing out that the source was not in custody at the time of supplying the information, and there was no evidence to corroborate the accuracy of the source's information. Indeed, the officer's testimony was that the source told him that the "word on the street" was that a person by the name of Hassen who lived on the same street as defendant was involved in the murders. There is no indication that the source spoke from personal knowledge that Hassen was involved in the murders. Rather, the source merely indicated that he had heard that Hassen was involved. The individuals from whom the source got his information apparently were not even identified to the police officer, let alone identified in court.

Rumor and a known association with other suspects in a case, while certainly justifying investigation by the police into an individual's involvement in a crime, do not establish probable cause to believe that the person was involved in the commission of the offense. See Oliver, supra at 374, 338 N.W.2d 167 (to establish probable cause based upon information supplied by an informant, there must be sufficient facts to permit an independent determination that the person supplying the information is reliable and that the information is based on something more substantial than casual rumor). Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court clearly erred in finding that probable cause existed to arrest defendant.

The prosecutor also appears to argue that the [191 MICHAPP 581] statements made by defendant following his arrest as well as the physical evidence recovered in connection with defendant's arrest are admissible under the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule. 2 Although the evidence obtained as a result of defendant's unlawful arrest normally would be suppressed under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, it nevertheless may be admissible if the prosecution can show that the same evidence inevitably would have been discovered despite the unlawful police conduct that results in the application of the exclusionary rule. Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984).

Nix represents the second time that that case was before the Supreme Court. In an earlier opinion in the case, Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977), the Supreme Court granted Williams a new trial, concluding that his right to counsel had been violated. In Brewer, a ten-year-old girl had been murdered and Williams had been arrested for that murder before discovery of the body. While transporting Williams from the place of arrest back to Des Moines, where the abduction had occurred, one of the officers gave Williams what has become known as the "Christian burial speech." The officer pointed out to Williams that a snowstorm was coming that would make it impossible to find the body and that the parents of the victim should be entitled to a Christian burial for their daughter, who had been abducted on Christmas Eve and murdered. As a result of the speech, Williams directed the officers [191 MICHAPP 582] to the body. Having concluded that the conduct of the officers violated Williams' right to counsel, the Supreme Court concluded that incriminating statements themselves, as well as any testimony by the police concerning the fact that Williams had led them to the body, could not be admitted into evidence.

The Court, however, left open the question whether evidence of where the body was found as well as the condition of the body could be admitted on the theory that the body would have been discovered anyway. Id. at 406, n. 12, 97 S.Ct. at 1243, n. 12. On retrial, the state trial court found that the body inevitably would have been discovered and allowed the evidence of the discovery of the body and the condition of the body at trial. Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court concurred in this conclusion in Nix, concluding that the body inevitably would have been discovered because an intensive search for the body had been in progress approximately 2 1/2 miles from where the body was found and had been proceeding to the area where the body was located.

In the case at bar, the prosecutor suggests, and the trial court concluded, that defendant inevitably would have been arrested on the basis of evidence that was developed by the police following defendant's arrest and independent of the arrest. Specifically, the police obtained statements from witnesses that placed defendant in the area of the homicides before the homicides, and fingerprint analysis of latent prints recovered from property stolen from the victims' house matched defendant's fingerprints on a fingerprint card the police had from a prior arrest of defendant. We agree that this evidence, combined with the knowledge the police already had concerning defendant's known involvement with the Dorsey brothers and [191 MICHAPP 583] the information obtained by the street informant, would have yielded probable cause to arrest defendant at a subsequent time. Similarly, we are satisfied that a search would have been conducted at that subsequent time that would have yielded the physical evidence obtained. Accordingly, the inevitable discovery doctrine can be applied to justify the admission into evidence of the physical evidence seized during and after defendant's arrest. To this extent, the trial court's decision was not clearly erroneous. People v. Martinez, 187 Mich.App. 160, 171, 466 N.W.2d 380 (1991).

This, however, does not resolve the question whether evidence of defendant's statements to the police should have been suppressed. The prosecutor cites no case in which the inevitable discovery doctrine has been applied to a defendant's statements. 3 On the other hand, defendant has cited no case in which the application of the inevitable discovery doctrine to statements has been considered. Our own research of the issue has not revealed any Michigan cases that have addressed this issue, and few cases from foreign...

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4 cases
  • People v. Richardson
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US
    • March 7, 1994
    ...a fair-minded person of average intelligence to believe that the suspected person has committed a felony." People v. Thomas, 191 Mich.App. 576, 579, 478 N.W.2d 712 (1991). At the time of the arrest in this case, Nuculaj had provided the arresting officers with detailed descriptions of two o......
  • People v. Champion, Docket No. 132469
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US
    • June 20, 1994
    ...a fair-minded person of average intelligence to believe that the suspected person has committed a felony. [People v. Thomas, 191 Mich.App. 576, 579, 478 N.W.2d 712 (1991), citing People v. Oliver, 417 Mich. 366, 374, 338 N.W.2d 167 In Nelson the police had observed defendants spend four min......
  • People v. Hill
    • United States
    • Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US
    • November 19, 1991
    ... ... These facts would not justify a fair-minded person of average intelligence in believing that the suspect had committed a felony; therefore, probable cause to arrest did not exist. People v. Oliver, 417 Mich. 366, 374, 338 N.W.2d 167 [192 MICHAPP 56] (1983); People v. Thomas, 191 Mich.App. 576, 478 N.W.2d 712 (1991) ...         The prosecution's argument that the $50 bill inevitably would have been discovered during an inventory of defendant's personal property incident to a proper arrest must also fail. We agree that, although evidence obtained as a result ... ...
  • People v. Thomas
    • United States
    • Michigan Supreme Court
    • April 8, 1992
    ...v. Joseph THOMAS, Defendant-Appellee. No. 93099. COA No. 111910. Supreme Court of Michigan. April 8, 1992. Prior Report: 191 Mich.App. 576, 478 N.W.2d 712. ORDER On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not persuaded that the......

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