Brubaker v. United States

• Decision Date: 10 August 1950
• Docket Number: No. 11116.,11116.
• Citation: 183 F.2d 894
• Parties: BRUBAKER v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

183 F.2d 894 (1950)

BRUBAKER v. UNITED STATES.

No. 11116.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

August 10, 1950.

John Paul Jones, Memphis, Tenn. (Riley Walker & Pritchard, Memphis, Tenn., of counsel), for appellant.

Charles G. Black, Memphis, Tenn. (John Brown, and Thomas C. Farnsworth, both of Memphis, Tenn. on the brief), for appellee.

Before HICKS, Chief Judge, SIMONS and MILLER, Circuit Judges.

SIMONS, Circuit Judge.

The appellant, and one, Lil Alfred Crawford, were indicted, convicted and sentenced for violation of the Dyer Act, 18 U.S.C.A. 408 revised §§ 2311-2313. They were charged in count 1 of the indictment with the illegal transportation and in count 2 with the illegal receiving of a 1939 gray Chevrolet sedan. Both were acquitted under the first count and convicted under the second. Brubaker alone appeals.

The grounds urged for reversal are that the arrest of Brubaker without a warrant and the search of the car and his person were illegal; that reversible error was committed by the Court's charge that recent possession of stolen property raises a presumption of guilt and by the receipt in evidence, over objection, of two revolvers found in Brubaker's suitcase. It is also urged that there was no substantial evidence to support the conviction, because the Government failed to prove that the car was moving in interstate commerce, or that Brubaker knew the car was stolen.

It is disclosed by the record that the officers had a warrant for Crawford charging him with the transportation of a stolen car in interstate commerce, though not the car here involved. They had had information that Crawford was on the way to Tipton County, Tennessee. They interviewed the sheriff of that county and learned that the sheriff knew Crawford. On August 7, the sheriff notified them that Crawford would be in Covington on Sunday, August 8, to consult him on a business proposition. Four agents arrived in Covington on that date and interviewed the sheriff. Two of them stationed themselves in the sheriff's home and the other two at the home of Bill Uttz, who was acquainted with Crawford and involved in the same car theft for which the warrant had issued. He lived about 100 feet from the Blue Star Tavern which he owned. About 3:00 P.M. on that day, the sheriff received a telephone call from Crawford, made from the Tipton County Motor Company in Covington, that he had arrived there and wished to see him. He called back the garage operator, received a description of the car in which Crawford had arrived, learned that Crawford and another man had come up in a gray 1939 Chevrolet sedan, and received a general description of both men. This information was relayed to the officers by the sheriff and by the agent in charge to his subordinates at the Uttz home. Somewhat later, Crawford called the sheriff again from the local bus station in Covington, and an appointment was made for Crawford to meet the sheriff at the Blue Star Tavern. When the car arrived there, the four agents converged at the tavern, two of them from the Uttz home and two from the sheriff's office. They observed the car had a green Louisiana license, contained a suitcase and loose clothes, and was without an ignition key. Upon entering the tavern, they found a number of persons there, but all of them were cleared by the bartender as being local persons except two who proved to be Crawford and Brubaker. They were interviewed by the agent in charge after he had revealed his identity. Both denied knowledge of the Chevrolet car or of each other. Both were arrested, taken to the sheriff's office, and then driven in separate cars to the FBI office in Memphis forty miles away. There they were interrogated, advised of their constitutional right to refuse answering questions, but both continued to deny knowledge of the car or its contents. When, however, the suitcase was examined, and it was pointed out to Brubaker that various articles of apparel had what seemed to be laundry marks with a notation "BRU" thereon, he then admitted that the clothing and suitcase were his property, but upon being shown the two loaded revolvers, found in the suitcase, he denied that they were his, or that he had placed them there. His explanation then, or at any rate upon the trial, was that some man whom he had met previously that day, but whom he had never seen before and whose name he did not know, had asked permission to place a package in the suitcase. He thought the package contained liquor.

On the next day, August 9, a complaint was filed against Brubaker for violation of the Federal Fire Arms Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 901 et seq. Subsequently, it was disclosed that the Chevrolet sedan was equipped with a "hot" wire which permitted the by-passing of the ignition lock to start the motor. Brubaker was then indicted along with Crawford for violation of the Dyer Act. He pleaded not guilty to both indictments, and after his conviction on the Dyer Act charge the Government withdrew the Fire Arms Act indictment from the docket with leave to reinstate.

Our first question involves the legality of the arrest. The appellant leans heavily upon the decision of the Supreme Court in United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 68 S. Ct. 222, 92 L.Ed. 210. That case holds that in the absence of an applicable federal statute the law of the state where the arrest without warrant takes place governs its validity, and also stands for the principle that one who merely accompanies a criminal in an antomobile to a rendezvous in broad daylight and the meeting is not secretive does not by that circumstance alone justify the assumption by officers that he is engaged in an illegal enterprise so as to validate his arrest and the search of his person, without warrant.

The legality of an arrest is said to be governed by § 11536(3) of the Tennessee Code of 1932, which provides that an officer may without a warrant arrest a person when a felony had in fact been committed and he had reasonable cause for believing the person arrested to have committed it. The Supreme Court of Tennessee has defined reasonable cause to be such as would justify a reasonable man to believe a particular person arrested was guilty of a felony. Thompson v. State, 185 Tenn. 73, 203 S.W.2d 361. In considering this section...