Edwardsen v. State
| Decision Date | 20 June 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 480,480 |
| Citation | 243 Md. 131,220 A.2d 547 |
| Parties | Edward R. EDWARDSEN v. STATE of Maryland. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Harvey N. Zimmerman, Baltimore (Richard K. Jacobsen, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.
R. Randolph Victor, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., Charles E. Moylan, Jr. and Donald Needle, State's Atty. and Asst. State's Atty., respectively, of Baltimore City, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.
Before PRESCOTT, C.J., and HAMMOND, HORNEY, MARBURY and McWILLIAMS, JJ.
This appeal by Edward R. Edwardsen from his conviction of statutory burglary by a Baltimore City jury presents for the second time a question as to whether the police had probable cause to make the arrest without a warrant. The conviction of the appellant on the same charge was reversed and remanded in Edwardsen v. State, 231 Md. 332, 190 A.2d 84 (1963), because there was an insufficient showing of probable cause. There is here another question as to whether the trial judge abused his discretion in denying the motion for a change of venue.
When the furniture store located at 1918-1922 Eastern Avenue was opened on the morning of February 14, 1962, it was discovered that the store had been broken into and that thirteen transistor radios valued at $288 and approximately $27 in cash were missing. Entrance had been made by way of the fire escape attached to the apartment house (next door to the burglarized premises) at 1924 Eastern Avenue through a trapdoor on the roof of the two-story store sometime after it was closed the night before.
Prior to the burglary, the Southeastern Police Station received an anonymous telephone call to the effect that two men would break into the Ernst Furniture Company 'around' February 14th and the desk clerk, who received the call, recorded the information in a 'complaint book' kept for that purpose. About two and a half hours after the burglary had been discovered another anonymous call was received stating the name of the burglar and describing the automobile he drove.
At the retrial of this case, Lieutenant Dignan, who had received the second anonymous call, testified that a woman informed him that 'if you want the man that broke into the Ernst Furniture Company, he is driving a '53 Pontiac four-door sedan, blue.' He further testified that the informer, who refused to identify herself, told him that the operator of the automobile was Edward Edwardsen. Officer Kordek, who was present when the lieutenant received the second call, testified that he heard him mention the name Edwardsen during the conversation with the informer; that the lieutenant relayed to him the information he had received concerning the involvement of the defendant in the burglary; that he knew Edwardsen; that he knew he drove an automobile fitting the description given by the informer and that he knew what type of work he did and where he was employed.
Shortly after the receipt of the second call, Officer McCluskey, who (with another officer) had investigated the burglary after it had been reported over the police radio and ascertained how entry was made and what had been stolen, went to the police station to make his report and was given the details of the second anoymous call. Officer McCluskey, besides knowing Edwardsen and the automobile he operated, also knew that he had a criminal record and was familiar with his conduct, character and reputation, and so testified at the second trial.
After having briefed them, the lieutenant told the officers to 'go out and see if they could find the car or Edwardsen.' On going to the vicinity of Lakewood Avenue and Boston Street, the officers saw the automobile they were looking for (from which the license tags had been removed) on the parking lot across from Edwardsen's place of employment and went to the office to inquire for him. There they learned that he had left the office only a few minutes before. They then went to the shop. There they were told by a fellow employee that Edwardsen was 'just around here playing a radio and he left.' After they had looked around the neighborhood and were about to go back to the shop, the officers saw the defendant walking toward the automobile. He quickened his pace when told to 'hold it.' And when (contrary to testimony at the first trial) he was asked where he resided and replied '1924 Eastern Avenue,' he was arrested forthwith and immediately searched. One of the three keys taken from his pocket was used to start the automobile and, in the ensuing search of it, the police found several transistor radios next to a leather jacket on the floor behind the front seat. The radios were later identified as those stolen from the furniture store and the jacket was identified as belonging to the defendant.
The first conviction was reversed and remanded for a new trial because the record of the trial merely showed 'that the officers 'received certain information,' and (that) as a result thereof they arrested the appellant.' But at the second trial, the State, in addition to presenting the details of the information the police had received both before and after the burglary, produced other evidence bearing on the issue of probable cause, the relevant portions of which are above set forth.
The appellant, citing Beck v. State of Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 223, 13 L.Ed.2d 142 (1964), and other cases, for the proposition that the information the police received from an unknown source was unreliable, contends that there was insufficient evidence to support the finding that the police had probable cause to arrest him without a warrant. The well established rule, of course, is that a police officer lacks authority to make an arrest for a felony without a warrant unless he has reasonable grounds or probable cause to believe at the time of the arrest that a felony has been committed and that the person arrested had committed the offense. Johnson v. State, 238 Md. 528, 209 A.2d 765 (1965); McChan v. State, 238 Md. 149, 207 A.2d 632 (1965) and cases cited therein. But we think that the information the police received from the anonymous informer or informers on separate occasions, coupled with the knowledge the police had as to the defendant's name and prior criminal record, as to his work and place of employment, as to what had been stolen and his 'playing' of a radio soon thereafter at his place of employment, as to the identity of the parked automobile toward which he was walking when the police caught up with him and as to his residing next door to the burglarized premises, was sufficient to justify a belief that the defendant committed the burglary and constituted reasonable grounds for the arrest of the defendant without a warrant. Clearly...
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