Green v. State

• Citation: 77 Md.App. 477,551 A.2d 127
• Decision Date: 01 September 1988
• Docket Number: No. 227,227
• Parties: Richard A. GREEN v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 477

77 Md.App. 477

551 A.2d 127

Richard A. GREEN v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 227, Sept. Term, 1988.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 3, 1989.

Jose Felipe Anderson, Asst. Public Defender (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Norman L. Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. and Stuart O. Simms, State's Atty. for Baltimore City, on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Submitted before WILNER, GARRITY and ROBERT M. BELL, JJ.

GARRITY, Judge.

The appellant, Richard A. Green, charged with possession with intent to distribute heroin and cocaine, was tried in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City (Hammerman, J.) on a not guilty plea to an agreed statement of facts and convicted of both charges. ¹ He was sentenced to serve two concurrent six- year terms of imprisonment. The appellant asserts that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress.

Facts

Officer Fred Bealefeld of the Baltimore City Police Department testified that at about 6:00 p.m. on March 25, 1987, he received information from a "registered confidential informant." ² The informant related that a young black male of medium complexion, wearing a red jacket over a black hood, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes, was sitting on the steps of a house in the 2300 block of Etting Street selling gelatin capsules filled with cocaine, which the individual was dispensing from his pocket. The informant further stated that he had observed the transaction "less than five minutes" before calling the police, and that the individual was located across from an area of the 2300 block of Etting Street where basketball was being played.

Officer Bealefeld, his partner, Officer Michael Caperoon, and Officer Glenn Williams immediately proceeded to Etting Street in plain clothes in an unmarked vehicle. Upon reaching the 2300 block of Etting Street, the officers observed the appellant, Richard A. Green, getting up from the front steps of a row house. Green's appearance matched the description given by the informant. According to Officer Bealefeld, as Officers Williams and Caperoon exited the vehicle, Green "ran down the steps he was on, ran just a short distance, and went up some steps to the very next house, and was trying to get in the doorway." Green succeeded in gaining entrance to the house, in which he resided with his mother and sister, and went "a few steps into the actual first room." He was followed into the house by Officers Williams and Caperoon and apprehended.

The officers brought Green out of the house and onto the street. Upon conducting a search of his person, the police recovered from Green's left pants pocket a plastic bag containing numerous white gelatin capsules. A further search of Green by the officers resulted in the discovery of a glassine bag containing thirty white gelatin capsules, a bundle of twenty-five blue glassine bags containing a white powder substance, thirteen white glassine bags containing a white powder substance, and $69 in cash. Subsequent laboratory analysis determined that twenty-five of the gelatin capsules contained cocaine, and that the blue and white glassine bags contained heroin. The trial court, based upon the totality of the circumstances, including the court's finding of "flight," denied Green's motion to suppress the evidence.

Discussion

The appellant contends he was arrested without probable cause and, therefore, the fruit of the search conducted incident to his arrest should have been suppressed. ³

The State counters by arguing that the police had probable cause to arrest the appellant on the basis of the information and circumstances known to the officers before they effectuated the arrest.

It is well established that an arrest is legal if made under the authority of a valid arrest warrant. Hebron v. State, 13 Md.App. 134, 145, 281 A.2d 547 (1971), cert. denied, 264 Md. 748 (1972). It is equally well established, however, that a warrantless arrest may also be legal under certain circumstances. Id. In Maryland, the circumstances under which a warrantless arrest may be made by a police officer are now spelled out by statute, although the statute's provisions are in part declaratory of the common law. Md.Ann.Code art. 27, § 594B (1957, 1987 Repl.Vol.); Hebron, 13 Md.App. at 145, 281 A.2d 547.

The legality of a warrantless arrest made pursuant to § 594B is measured by the existence of probable cause at the time of the arrest. See Hebron, 13 Md.App. at 145, 281 A.2d 547; Evans v. State, 11 Md.App. 451, 455, 274 A.2d 653, cert. denied, 262 Md. 746 (1971). We have observed in prior decisions that probable cause within the contemplation of the statute has the same meaning that it had under the common law. See, e.g., Wescott v. State, 11 Md.App. 305 306-307, 273 A.2d 824, cert. denied, 262 Md. 750 (1971); Rife v. State, 9 Md.App. 658, 663, 267 A.2d 326 (1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 998, 91 S.Ct. 2185, 29 L.Ed.2d 165 (1971). In this context, probable cause exists when the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the arresting officer, or of which he has reasonably trustworthy information, are sufficient to warrant a reasonably cautious person in believing that a felony had been or is being committed by the person arrested. Stevenson v. State, 43 Md.App. 120, 127-28, 403 A.2d 812 (1979), aff'd., 287 Md. 504, 413 A.2d 1340 (1980); Thompson v. State, 15 Md.App. 335, 341, 290 A.2d 565, cert. denied, 266 Md. 743 (1972).

It is beyond dispute that information furnished to a law enforcement officer by an informant, together with the officer's personal knowledge, may serve as the basis of probable cause for a warrantless arrest and search incident to that arrest if the trial court is informed "with specificity what the inform[ant] actually said, and why the officer thought the information was credible, and the court is satisfied such information was sufficiently reliable and reasonably trustworthy to give the officer, as a prudent man, probable cause to believe that the accused had committed or was committing, a felony." Hundley v. State, 3 Md.App. 402, 405, 239 A.2d 593 (1968), cert. denied, 251 Md. 750 (1968). See also Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959); Mullaney v. State, 5 Md.App. 248, 246 A.2d 291 (1968), cert. denied, 252 Md. 732 (1969).

The benchmark case with regard to warrantless arrests made on the basis of an informant's tip is Draper v. United States, supra. See Malcolm v. State, 70 Md.App. 426, 436 n. 1, 521 A.2d 796 (1987), aff'd, 314 Md. 221, 550 A.2d 670 (1988). In Draper, a federal narcotics agent was told by an informant, whose information the agent had always found to be accurate and reliable, that Draper, whom the agent did not know, but who was described by the informant, was dealing in narcotics, had gone to Chicago to obtain a supply, and would return on a certain train on a certain day or the day after. The agent met the train, easily recognized Draper from the informant's description, and arrested him without a warrant. The Court held that the arrest was lawful, the combination of a reliable informant and verification by observation of all details of the information except the actual possession of narcotics establishing probable cause.

Also helpful to our analysis of the present case is the decision in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527, reh'g. denied, 463 U.S. 1237, 104 S.Ct. 33, 77 L.Ed.2d 1453 (1983). In Gates, the Court held that a tip received in the form of an anonymous letter, which the police were able to verify as to various details, furnished probable cause for the issuance of an arrest warrant. ⁴ The tip detailed future activities of the suspects that were highly suspicious in nature. As the identity of the informant was unknown, however, his credibility could not be vouched for, but the ability of the police to verify details of the tip as to future activities of the suspects gave some degree of credibility to the information and, thus, to the informant. Of particular significance to the Court was the fact that the verified information included details that would ordinarily be known only to someone familiar with the suspects and their plans and activities. Knowledge of such verified details, the Court opined, gave rise to a reasonable inference that the informant had access to reliable information about the suspects' illegal activities. Thus, the Court concluded that the nature of the verifiable details furnished by the informant, involving suspicious behavior that the informant was able to predict in advance, furnished a reasonable basis to believe that the informant was credible and had a reliable source of information.

Our recent decision in Millwood v. State, 72 Md.App. 82, 527 A.2d 803, cert. denied, 311 Md. 286, 533 A.2d 1308 (1987), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 2033, 100 L.Ed.2d 618 (1988), is indicative of the quality and type of verifiable information an informant must give to supply the lesser degree of reliability needed in a stop and frisk situation under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). ⁵ In particular, we highlight the pertinency of the following discussion from Millwood:

[W]e turn now to an examination of the anonymous tip in the case sub judice. The caller informed the state police that methamphetamines were being transported in Pennsylvania along Interstate 81 by a white male wearing an "Indiana Jones" style hat and a white female, both occupying an automobile of a specific year, make, model and color with Pennsylvania tags. If that had been the extent of the tip given by the informant, it might well be questionable whether confirmation of that information would have justified even an investigatory stop. A mere description of the Thunderbird and its occupants could have been provided by any mischief maker who merely happened to observe the distinctive automobile as it...