Crowder v. Com.
| Decision Date | 01 September 1972 |
| Citation | 213 Va. 151,191 S.E.2d 239 |
| Parties | Gordon Arthur CROWDER v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia. |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
William A. Dervishian, Richmond, for plaintiff in error.
James E. Kulp, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Andrew P. Miller, Atty. Gen., on brief), for defendant in error.
Before SNEAD, C.J., and I'ANSON, CARRICO, HARRISON, COCHRAN and HARMAN, JJ.
Gordon Arthur Crowder was arrested in Richmond on December 4, 1970 by Virginia State Trooper L. W. Burchett. Trooper Burchett had been conducting undercover investigation in the narcotics field in the Richmond-Petersburg area, and had personal knowledge at the time that there were two outstanding felony warrants in Petersburg for the arrest of defendant. Following his arrest defendant was taken to Richmond police headquarters where he was routinely processed and searched, at which time LSD was found in his possession. Upon the basis of this evidence he was then arrested for possessing a controlled drug within the jurisdiction of the court below, was subsequently indicted and convicted. He appeals the conviction, alleging that his arrest by Burchett was unlawful, and that therefore the evidence obtained in the search of him that followed should have been suppressed.
The sole issue involved here is the validity of the arrest by the state trooper. Defendant's position is that in order for his arrest in Richmond to have been lawful the warrants issued in Petersburg should have been presented to a magistrate of Richmond for endorsement.
He relies upon that portion of Code § 19.1--94 which reads as follows:
'If a person charged with an offense shall, after or at the time the warrant is issued for his arrest, escape from or out of the county or corporation in which the offense is alleged to have been committed, the officer to whom the warrant is directed may pursue and arrest him anywhere in the State; or any person authorized to issue process under § 19.1--90, of a county or corporation other than that in which the warrant was issued on being satisfied of the genuineness thereof, may endorse thereon his name and official character, and such endorsement shall operate as a direction of the warrant to an officer of such endorser's county or corporation.'
The Attorney General argues that the language of the statute concerning an endorsement is discretionary and not mandatory, and that a fair reading of the entire statute indicates that when an arrest warrant has been issued and the accused thereafter removes himself from the jurisdiction in which the alleged crime was committed, the officer to whom the warrant is directed may pursue and arrest the accused anywhere in the state.
It is unnecessary that we resolve this issue for, in the case at bar, Trooper Burchett was not effecting an arrest with a warrant. His probable cause for the arrest was his own personal knowledge that defendant had been charged with the commission of two felonies in Petersburg, and that felony warrants had been issued for his arrest...
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State v. Craft, s. 14138
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