Haverstick v. State
| Decision Date | 28 April 1925 |
| Docket Number | 24,727 |
| Parties | Haverstick et al. v. State of Indiana |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
1. SEARCHES AND SEIZURES.---One lawfully arrested may be searched, including packages and his automobile.---Officers may search a person lawfully arrested for misdemeanor committed in their presence, including packages or bags carried, and the automobile in which he is riding when arrested, without a violation of his constitutional rights p. 148.
2. CRIMINAL LAW.---Evidence obtained by search after arrest may be used in trial for another offense.---Where the search of a defendant was made upon a lawful arrest, the facts thereby discovered may be used in evidence against him upon trial for another offense than that for which he was arrested. p. 150.
3. INTOXICATING LIQUORS.---Evidence considered and held to prove transportation.---Evidence that defendant, who owned the car he was driving, had, in company with another who assisted in the driving, transported six cartons of whisky for another is sufficient to support a verdict of guilty. p. 150.
4. INTOXICATING LIQUOR.---In prosecution for transportation as a felony instructions on misdemeanor are unnecessary.---In a prosecution for transporting liquor under Acts 1923, ch. 34 p. 108, which makes transporting in an automobile a felony there is no necessity for instructing the jury as to the misdemeanor of transporting liquor by other methods, when there is no evidence that it was transported in any other way. p. 151.
5. CRIMINAL LAW.---One objecting to instructions correct in principle, must tender others if desired.---Where instructions given are correct as far as they go, a failure to give fuller instructions is not cause for reversing a judgment, in the absence of a proper request for instructions covering alleged omissions. p. 151.
6 INDICTMENT.---The misdemeanor of transporting intoxicatting liquors is not a lesser degree of the felony of transporting.---The misdemeanor of transporting intoxicating liquor defined in Acts 1923, ch. 23, p. 70, in any manner other than by such means as will constitute a felony of transporting by automobile under Acts 1923 p. 108, is not a less degree of the felony defined by the latter statute, but is a wholly different offense committed by entirely different means. p. 152.
7. INTOXICATING LIQUOR.---In prosecution for felony of transporting the jury may not find verdict of guilty of the misdemeanor.---In a prosecution for the felony of transporting liquor in an automobile the court properly refused an instruction that in case defendants were found guilty the jury could return a verdict of guilty of a felony or a misdemeanor, since the indictment charged only the felony of transporting in an automobile. p. 152.
8. INTOXICATING LIQUOR.---Instructions vaguely referring to the Constitution are properly refused.---In a prosecution for the felony of transporting liquor by automobile an instruction is properly refused which merely lauds the Constitution and asserts that it "can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it." p. 152.
9. CRIMINAL LAW.---Instruction characterizing the law as vague and difficult of interpretation is properly refused.---An instruction is properly refused which characterizes the law under which a prosecution is brought as "so vague and uncertain as to make its interpretation very difficult," as it is the duty of the court to interpret the law and tell the jury what it means, and not to disparage the law. p. 153.
From Marion Criminal Court (56,152); James A. Collins, Judge.
Lloyd Haverstick and Thomas Fagin were convicted of transporting liquor in an automobile, and they appeal.
Affirmed.
H. B. Pike and T. Ernest Maholm, for appellants.
U. S. Lesh, Attorney-General, for the State.
Appellants were charged by affidavit with the offense of unlawfully, knowingly and feloniously transporting intoxicating liquor in an automobile, and being tried by a jury were found guilty, and each was sentenced to pay a fine and suffer imprisonment. Overruling their respective motions for a new trial is the only error assigned.
It was made to appear, without dispute, that two deputy sheriffs of Marion county, Indiana, were driving an automobile toward Indianapolis, along the National Road in said county, near Morris street, when the defendants drove past in a Ford coupe "at the terrific rate" of more than forty-five miles an hour, and turned east in Morris street; that the deputy sheriffs followed and overtook them, when both of the defendants were arrested on the charge of driving at an unlawful rate of speed, to which charge appellant Fagin afterward pleaded guilty, and for which he paid a fine and costs; that after the arrest was made the deputy sheriffs examined the car which defendants had been driving and in a "side pocket" on the side where appellant Haverstick had been sitting, found a loaded revolver, and behind the cushions a box of cartridges, the ownership of which Haverstick admitted, afterward pleading guilty to the charge of carrying concealed weapons, and paying a fine and costs; that in the back part of the coupe the officers found six cartons, not sealed, each of which contained a five gallon can of "white mule whisky"; that Haverstick owned the car, and they had brought the whisky over from Terre Haute, each driving a few miles, in turn; that a man they met in Terre Haute had promised to pay them $ 50 for the trip if they would bring the cartons over and deliver them to a person they were to meet in Indianapolis, and that they were hauling the liquor for him.
But the officers had no search warrant at the time they searched the car. And before the jury was sworn appellants filed a verified motion setting up that fact and asking that all evidence of what was learned by making the search should be suppressed, because it was alleged that the search had been made in violation of the constitutional right of the accused to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure of their effects. Art. 1, § 11, U.S. Constitution, § 63 Burns 1926, § 56 Burns 1914. This motion was overruled and appellants excepted. And they objected and excepted to each of many items of evidence relating to the liquor found in the car, and to the introduction in evidence of one of the cartons of whisky. They specified as reasons for asking a new trial each of said rulings, and also that the verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence, insisting that there was no evidence tending to prove them guilty except what was unlawfully obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure. The right of officers to search a person upon lawfully putting him under arrest, as was done in this case under the facts stated, is affirmed by all the authorities. State, ex rel., v. Clausmeier (1900), 154 Ind. 599, 57 N.E. 541, 50 L. R. A. 73, 77 Am. St. 511; Weeks v. United States (1913), 232 U.S. 383, 392, 34 S.Ct. 341, 344, 58 L.Ed. 652, L. R. A. 1915B 834, Ann. Cas. 1915C 1177; French v. State (1891), 94 Ala. 93, 10 So. 553; People v. Beach (1911), 49 Colo. 516, 520, 113 P. 513, 37 L. R. A. (N. S.) 873; State v. Magnano (1922), 97 Conn. 543, 117 A. 550; State v. Gulczynski (1922), 120 A. 88; Haile v. Gardner (1921), 82 Fla. 355, 360, 91 So. 376; Dozier v. State (1899), 107 Ga. 708, 33 S.E. 418; North v. People (1891), 139 Ill. 81, 107, 28 N.E. 966; State v. Hassan (1910), 149 Iowa 518, 524, 128 N.W. 960; Turner v. Commonwealth (1921), 191 Ky. 825, 830, 231 S.W. 519; Getchell v. Page (1908), 103 Me. 387, 69 A. 624, 18 L. R. A. (N. S.) 253, 125 Am. St. 307; People v. Cona (1914), 180 Mich. 641, 147 N.W. 525; Toliver v. State (1923), 133 Miss. 789, 98 So. 342; Holker v. Hennessey (1897), 141 Mo. 527, 540, 42 S.W. 1090, 39 L. R. A. 165, 64 Am. St. 524; Azparren v. Ferrel (1920), 44 Nev. 157, 191 P. 571, 11 A. L. R. 678; O'Connor v. Bucklin (1879), 59 N.H. 589; State v. Mausert (1915), 88 N.J.L. 286, 95 A. 991, L. R. A. 1916C 1014; People v. Chiagles (1923), 237 N.Y. 193, 197, 142 N.E. 583, 32 A. L. R. 676; State v. McDaniel (1901), 39 Ore. 161, 65 P. 520; Hughes v. State (1921), 145 Tenn. 544, 569, 238 S.W. 588, 20 A. L. R. 639; Quivers v. Commonwealth (1923), 135 Va. 671, 674, 115 S.E. 564; State v. Nordstrom (1893), 7 Wash. 506, 35 P. 382; State, ex rel., v. Brown (1914), 83 Wash. 100, 145 P. 69; State v. Edwards (1902), 51 W.Va. 220, 41 S.E. 429, 59 L. R. A. 465; Thornton v. State (1903), 117 Wis. 338, 345, 93 N.W. 1107, 98 Am. St. 924; Wiggin v. State (1922), 28 Wyo. 480, 206 P. 373; 1 Wharton, Criminal Proc. (10th ed.) § 97; 2 R. C. L., 467; Note 32 A. L. R. 681.
The search may extend to the contents of a package, bundle or bag carried by the person arrested. State v. Gulczynski, supra; State v. Hassan, supra; Turner v. Commonwealth, supra. And the right to search an automobile in which the accused was riding at the time of such lawful arrest has been repeatedly upheld. Patrick v. Commonwealth (1923), 199 Ky. 83, 250 S.W. 507; Toliver v. State, supra; Azparren v. Ferrel, supra; Hughes v. State, supra; United States v. Neadeau (1924), 2 Fed. (2d Series) 148.
Where the search was not an invasion of any rights of the accused but was lawfully made pursuant to a legal arrest, the facts thereby discovered may be used in evidence against him. And the legality of the arrest being clear, the fact that articles found on his person or in his immediate possession were being used in the commission of an offense other than the one for which the arrest was made is not sufficient cause for excluding evidence of what the search disclosed, when he is placed on trial for such other offense. French v State, supra; State v. Magnano, supra; Dozier v. State, supra; Getchell v. Page, supra; Toliver v. State, supra; ...
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