Davidson v. State, 46709

• Decision Date: 17 February 1972
• Docket Number: Nos. 1,No. 46709,3,2,46709,s. 1
• Citation: 188 S.E.2d 124,125 Ga.App. 502
• Parties: Larry DAVIDSON v. The STATE
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 124

188 S.E.2d 124

125 Ga.App. 502

Larry DAVIDSON v. The STATE.

No. 46709.

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division Nos. 1, 2, 3.

Feb. 17, 1972.

Murray M. Silver, Atlanta, for appellant.

Eldridge W. Fleming, Dist. Atty., Hogansville, for appellee.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court

BELL, Chief Judge.

The defendant was convicted of the possession of marijuana and he appeals. Held:

The defendant's motion to suppress certain evidence in this case was overruled and he enumerates this as error. The defendant's automobile and his person were searched and physical evidence seized, viz., a pipe from the car and a quantity of marijuana from his person. All of this was accomplished without warrants to arrest or to search. The evidence reveals that defendant, who was accompanied by two other individuals, parked and locked his car on a public street in Carrollton, Georgia, and started walking down the street. They were stopped by policemen some 50 yards distant from the parked automobile and were required to get into the police car. A policeman present testified that he had observed none of these individuals performing any criminal activity. According to the State's evidence the only justification advanced for this apprehension was that the city police had been earlier notified by the campus police of West Georgia College to be on the lookout for a car fitting the description of defendant's because a college parking ticket had been placed on the car as it was not registered on campus and the campus police wanted to advise the defendant that he would have to pay the parking fine. After the defendant's apprehension, the campus police were notified and a member of the force arrived at the scene. The defendant was required by the police to return to his car as the latter wanted to give the car a 'routine check.' Defendant unlocked it and a 'hash' pipe was found in the car. Then defendant's person was searched and a quantity of marijuana was found.

The search and seizure in this case can only be justified if it was made incident to a lawful arrest. The curtailing of defendant's locomotion by the city police officers under these facts constitutes an arrest. Code § 27-201; Conoly v. Imperial Tobacco Co., 63 Ga.App. 880, 885, 12 S.E.2d 398. Under our statutory law an arrest without a warrant may only be made when an offense is committed in the presence of an officer; when the offender is endeavoring to escape; or for other cause where there is likely to be a failure of justice for the want of an officer to issue a warrant. Code § 27-207. See Section 1 of the Act approved March 16, 1966 (Ga.L.1966, p. 567; Code Ann. § 27-301).

The issues and facts of this case are in all essentials identical with those in the case of MacDougald v. State, 124 Ga.App. 619, 184 S.E.2d 687. The defendant here and the defendant in MacDougald were in the same car; were walking down the street together when apprehended; were indicted by the same grand jury by identical indictments for the same offense; were tried in separate trials on the same day before the same judge; the same witnesses testified to the same thing in each of the trials, the only thing being different at all is that in MacDougald the defendant was searched in the police station where marijuana was found in his boot while the defendant here was searched just outside the automobile-and that is no material difference at all! Thus the holding in MacDougald is controlling and requires reversal. Here, as in MacDougald, there was no evidence that defendant was violating any law at the time of his arrest; no evidence of flight; and no evidence to authorize the arresting officer to arrest the defendants because there was likely to be a failure of justice if arrest was not made. The issuance of the earlier parking citation affords no basis for the arrest of defendant. Under these facts the defendant's arrest was clearly unlawful. Thus the search cannot be justified as an incident of a lawful arrest. See Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed. 917 and Uva v. State, 124 Ga.App. 486, 184 S.E.2d 200.

It was error for the trial court to overrule the motion to suppress the evidence as the search and seizure was unlawful and reversal is required.

Judgment reversed.

JORDAN, P.J., and HALL, P.J., EBERHARDT, DEEN, EVANS and CLARK, JJ., concur.

DEEN and CLARK, JJ., concur specially.

PANNELL and QUILLIAN, JJ., dissent.

DEEN, Judge (concurring).

I concur with the majority opinion and would like to make further observations and comments.

In this case Charles Allen testified (p. 20): '. . . and so after shining the light on the inside of the car, and he said the pipe was on the driver's side which it was not, it was on the passenger's side, on the right side, and it was sticking out under the seat there you could see it in clear view . . .'

In MacDougald the same witness testified (p. 6) 'Q. Did you look in that car? A. Yes. Q. Did you see something in there? A. Well, on the right side, on the passenger side in the front seat up under the seat there was a bottle containing-and well, what they use as a smoke pipe under the right seat on the passenger side up under the seat there and there was a bottle containing some kind of liquid fluid. Q. Is this the type of pipe commonly called the type used for smoking marijuana? A. Yes. . . . Q. Did you then search this car? A. Well, I didn't search the car right then. I got the bottle out because I didn't have to search.'

Both cases hinge on this testimony, because unless the sight of a 'hash pipe' constituted the commission of a crime in the presence of the officers the arrest without a warrant was illegal and neither pulling the plastic envelope from Davidson's pocket or searching MacDougald's boot was legal as being (a) made in connection with a valid arrest under warrant or (b) with a crime committed in the officer's presence although without a warrant. The decision in MacDougald, being the testimony of the same witness as to the same transaction on an identical motion to suppress, constitutes a holding that no crime was being committed in the officers' presence at the time the automobile was searched. Therefore, seizing the envelope from Davidson's pocket is equally as illegal as seizing the envelope in MacDougald's boot. In view of the holding in MacDougald we have no option but to reverse.

It is also my opinion that a reversal is proper. The question was dealt with at length in Anderson v. State, 123 Ga.App. 57, 179 S.E.2d 286 quoting from Charles Reich's article 'Police Questioning of Law Abiding Citizens' and from Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 holding justifiable the search of an automobile where the officer has probable cause to believe that what he sees within it without a search is property the possession of which is itself a crime. 'The point at which the routine protection of the public becomes an invasion of the right of privacy of the individual must rest on the particular circumstances involved.' Id., 123 Ga.App. p. 61, 179 S.E.2d p. 289. Possession of a 'hash pipe' is not illegal and will not justify an otherwise illegal search (although it may well constitute probable cause for believing the owner possesses marijuana to smoke in it) unless we substitute for the requirement that a crime is being committed in the officer's presence (Code § 27-207) the lesser requirement that the officer show...