Manson v. State
| Citation | 11 Ind.Dec. 293,229 N.E.2d 801,249 Ind. 53 |
| Decision Date | 02 October 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 30955,30955 |
| Parties | Arlene MANSON, Jefferson Thomas Suber, Appellants, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Indiana |
John T. Grimes, Kokomo, Albert Ewbank, Indianapolis, for appellant.
John J. Dillon, Atty. Gen., Dennis Dewey, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.
The appellants were charged and found guilty of grand larceny and sentenced accordingly. They have appealed. The specifications are that the trial court erred in overruling the motion to suppress evidence obtained in the search of defendant Suber's automobile. The points presented in the briefs center mainly about this contention.
The evidence shows that officer Frank Rose of the Kokomo police department received a radio message over the police radio system that there were two colored subjects at Maplecrest shopping center and believed to be in Golightly's store, and they were seen in a blue 1960 Oldsmobile with Indianapolis prefix on the license number, and that they had put some stolen merchandise in the trunk. When officer Rose arrived, he went to Golightly's store at the shopping center and apparently found the two colored persons and followed them as they circled about the store, came out and went into another store known as Grants, made a small purchase and then went to the parking lot to the Oldsmobile described in the radio message. Mr. Suber, the appellant, started his car and the officer then arrested him 'for shoplifting.'
The officer says that he did not see the appellants do anything which would cause him to believe they were shoplifting, but he did have reason to believe because of the police call that there was stolen merchandise from the shopping center in the trunk of the car. He thereupon searched the car and in the rear trunk found a laundry bag with eight suits on clothes hangers and pants still on clothes hangers, rolled up; also a lady's cost that had a $100.00 price tag thereon. None of the merchandise in the back of the car was wrapped for purchase. The officer stated that appellant Suber said upon inquiry that the merchandise came from the Golightly store.
It is undisputed that a search of a car without warrant after a lawful arrest of the one in possession is not constitutionally interdicted. Carroll v. United States (1925), 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543; 25 I.L.E., Search & Seizure, § 22, p. 422.
Parenthetically, we may say appellant Manson has no standing to ask that the evidence obtained in the search of the car be suppressed, since she did not onw it, and was not in possession or control of it. 25 I.L.E. Search & Seizure, § 5, p. 417.
It is argued that there was no probable cause for the police officer to make the arrest and subsequent search based upon the arrest, for the reason that the only information he had was based upon the police radio message to him from the dispatcher at police headquarters. In support of that it is further urged that the radio broadcast made from police headquarters was based solely upon the hearsay of Mrs. Donna Umbarger, who was informed by unnamed persons that the appellants had taken the merchandise from Golightly's.
In determining the existence of probable cause for an arrest or search, must we go behind the information which a police officer receives, which appears to him at the time and under the circumstances to be reliable and from a reliable person, and nevertheless examine the basis of the information and its reliability?
It is the law that the fruits of the search cannot be used to support or justify an illegal search. Idol v. State (1953), 233 Ind. 307, 119 N.E.2d 428.
Likewise, it seems to us that to justify or condemn the good faith search by a police officer upon hindsight information, of which he was not aware, would be illogical. Probable cause justifying an arrest without a warrant exists where facts and circumstances within the arresting officer's knowledge or of which he had reasonably trustworthy information, would lead a reasonably prudent person under the conditions at the time to believe at crime had been committed.
The right to arrest without warrant grew out of the need to protect the public safety by making prompt arrests. It had its origin in the ancient 'Hue and Cry', upon which all hearing the alarm were bound to join in pursuit of a felon. The 'Hue and Cry', if repeated by another, would be hearsay.
In this case the arresting officer acted upon an alarm over a police radio to him.
The law looks at the facts and circumstances as they were presented to the police officer who had to make a prompt decision. It is not necessary that the information be direct. Hearsay may at times be sufficient basis for probable cause for arrest or search.
'The fact that the...
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...431 (1965); Bradshaw v. State, 192 So.2d 387 (Miss.1966), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 941, 88 S.Ct. 299, 19 L.Ed.2d 293; Manson v. State, 249 Ind. 53, 229 N.E.2d 801, 803 (1967); People v. Arnold, 91 Ill.App.2d 282, 233 N.E.2d 764 (1968); People v. Avery, 31 A.D.2d 885, 298 N.Y.S.2d 104 (1969); ......
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