Collins v. State

• Decision Date: 05 April 1973
• Docket Number: No. 338,338
• Citation: 17 Md.App. 376,302 A.2d 693
• Parties: Vernon Allen COLLINS v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 376

17 Md.App. 376

302 A.2d 693

Vernon Allen COLLINS v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 338.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

April 5, 1973.

Harold Buchman, Baltimore, on brief for appellant.

Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., James L. Bundy, Asst. Atty. Gen., Milton B. Allen, State's Atty., for Baltimore City and Leslie L. Gladstone, Asst. State's Atty., on brief for appellee.

Submitted to ORTH, C. J., GILBERT, J., GEORGE W. BOWLING, Associate Judge, District Court of Maryland of District No. 4, Specially Assigned and MARVIN J. LAND, Associate Judge, District Court of Maryland of District No. 8, Specially Assigned.

ORTH, Chief Judge.

Vernon Allen Collins was arrested on 22 September 1970. When searched, incident to his arrest, a glassine envelope containing heroin hydrochloride was found on his person. He was charged with possessing heroin, tried at a bench trial in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, found guilty, and sentenced to 4 years. On appeal he challenges the admission in evidence of the heroin seized from him and asserts he was denied a speedy trial.

I

Collins filed a pretrial motion to suppress the evidence. Maryland Rule 729. The primary ground stated in the motion was that the search of him and the seizure of the contraband from him were unreasonable as proscribed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The motion was heard prior to trial. The State produced Detective John Haase of the Homicide Squad of the Baltimore City Police Department who testified that he arrested Collins on 22 September 1970 under the authority of an arrest warrant. The warrant was admitted in evidence. It was valid on its face, given under the hand and seal of a judge of the Municipal Court of Baltimore City on 10 September 1970. It was addressed 'To any police officer of Baltimore City' and made the 'complaint', set out above the warrant proper, a part of the warrant. It commanded such officer to apprehend the person charged in the complaint and to bring him before a judge of the Municipal Court of Baltimore City presiding in the Criminal Division to be dealt with according to law. The complaint read:

'Det. Harold Rose-Homicide Squad (On information received) charges, upon information and oath, before me, a Judge of the Municipal Court of Baltimore City, in the State of Maryland that Vernon Allen Collins did commit a criminal offense, to wit: did Assault and shoot one Alexander Small Butler 22 yrs., thereby causing his death in Baltimore, City, State of Maryland, on or about the 2 day of Sept., 1970.

'Therefore this Complainant prays that the said person so charged may be apprehended and dealt with according to law.'

The complaint stated, over the signature of the judge issuing the warrant, that it was subscribed and sworn to by Rose on 10 September 1970.

Collins did not adduce evidence on the issue. He argued, as he now argues, that there was no underlying basis shown for the issuance of the warrant, that is, that no probable cause appeared in the record sufficient to support the warrant. He claimed that the warrant was therefore invalid, the arrest under its authority illegal, the search and seizure incident to the arrest unreasonable, and the evidence so obtained inadmissible. The court denied the motion on the basis that an arrest warrant, unlike a search and seizure warrant, did not require an affidavit showing probable cause. This was a correct statement of the general rule of law then in effect. ¹ See infra. The general rule, however, was not applicable in the particular circumstances of this case. The court erred in denying the motion.

II

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States proscribes the issuance of any warrant '. . . but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.' The Supreme Court of the United States has clearly established in its decisions concerning Fourth Amendment probable cause requirements that before a warrant for either an arrest or a search can issue, the judicial officer issuing such a warrant must be supplied with sufficient information under oath to support an independent judgment that probable cause exists for the warrant. Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637; United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 85 S.Ct. 741, 13 L.Ed.2d 684; Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723; Rugendorf v. United States, 376 U.S. 528, 84 S.Ct. 825, 11 L.Ed.2d 887; Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697; Giordenello v. United States, 357 U.S. 480, 78 S.Ct. 1245, 2 L.Ed.2d 1502. The same probable cause standards are applicable to federal and state warrants under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726. And, of course, the sanction when evidence is obtained by an unreasonable search or seizure is to exclude it; the federal exclusionary rule is applicable to state prosecutions. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081.

In Maryland, probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant must appear in the affidavit supporting the warrant. No evidence may be received outside the four corners of the affidavit either to show the existence of probable cause or to controvert the truth of the allegations therein. Scarborough v. State, 3 Md.App. 208, 211-212, 238 A.2d 297. Probable cause for a challenged warrantless arrest may be shown by evidence of the circumstances surrounding the arrest. Williams v. State, 14 Md.App. 619, 287 A.2d 803; Cleveland v. State, 8 Md.App. 204, 259 A.2d 73. Probable cause for the issuance of an arrest warrant must be made known under oath to the issuing judicial officer, but we consistently held, prior to the adoption of M.D.R. 706, that it was not required that it be established by recorded testimony. ² Nadolski v. State, 1 Md.App. 304, 229 A.2d 598. See Duggins v. State, 7 Md.App. 486, 490, n. 1, 256 A.2d 354. In Williams v. State, 6 Md.App. 511, 252 A.2d 262, we again declined to require recorded testimony. See Scarlett v. State, 201 Md. 310, 93 A.2d 753. An arrest warrant valid on its face establishes prima facie the legality of the arrest made on its authority, but this does not mean that in the absence of an affidavit, the accused may not introduce evidence bearing on the issue of probable cause or be limited in any way in his crosee-examination of witnesses on the matter. Williams v. State, 6 Md.App. at 516-517, 252 A.2d 262; Nadolski v. State, supra, 1 Md.App. at 308, 229 A.2d 598. In the instant case, however, there was an affidavit, which, as is apparent from the terms of the warrant, supported the issuance of the warrant. In other words so far as the record before us reveals, the sole support for the arrest warrant issued at Detective Rose's request was the complaint. There being an affidavit, we must look to it to see if there was probable cause, and the general rule which we have held as governing with respect to arrest warrants issued without a written record of the complainant's assessment of probable cause is not applicable. The factual posture of the case here places it squarely within the ambit of Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306, and we believe that case to be dispostive. Here, as in Whiteley, the complaint consisted of nothing more than the complainant's conclusion that the individual named therein committed the offense described in the complaint. Here, as in Whiteley, the actual basis for the complainant's conclusion was information from an unnamed informant with other operative facts omitted from the complaint; no facts were set out, for example, to show the credibility of the informant or the reliability of his information. Here, as in Whiteley, there was no showing that the complainant by his personal observations possessed sufficient factual information to support a finding of probable cause; on the contrary the complaint explicitly stated that the complainant's knowledge was 'on information received.' As was said in Whiteley at 568, 91 S.Ct. at 1037: 'In sum, the complaint on which the warrant issued here clearly could not support a finding of probable cause by the issuing magistrate.' Therefore, Collins's arrest under the authority of the warrant violated his constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. ³

III

Our holding that the arrest warrant was invalid, and the arrest, as made under its authority, was illegal, does not end our inquiry. 'A police officer may arrest a person without a warrant if he has probable cause to believe that a felony has been committed or attempted and that such person has committed or attempted to commit a felony whether or not in his presence or view.' Code, Art. 27, § 594B(c). It is the existence of probable cause at the time of the arrest which is the measure of the legality of the arrest. Evans v. State, 11 Md.App. 451, 274 A.2d 653. Probable cause may be based on information collectively within the knowledge of the police. Hebron v. State, 13 Md.App. 134, 281 A.2d 547. So even when an officer acting on a direction to arrest was personally without sufficient probable cause to justify the arrest, it may be shown that information within the knowledge of the police team constituted probable cause. Thompson v. State, 15 Md.App. 335, 290 A.2d 565. In such case, of course, the State is required to produce the evidence on which the officers initiating the arrest acted. Id. The statute here considered is declaratory of the common law rules of arrest without a warrant, and it does not affect the established definition of probable cause, Rife v. State, 9 Md.App. 658, 267 A.2d 326, which has the same meaning it had under the common law, Wescott v. State, 11 Md.App. 305, 273 A.2d 824. The rule of probable cause is a non-technical conception of a reasonable ground for belief of...