People v. Andriacci

• Decision Date: 28 May 1968
• Docket Number: No. 2,Docket No. 3340,2
• Citation: 11 Mich.App. 482,161 N.W.2d 435
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph ANDRIACCI, Lee Magnafichi, Richard Penachio and Peter Di Fronzo, Defendants-Appellants
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 435

161 N.W.2d 435

11 Mich.App. 482

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph ANDRIACCI, Lee Magnafichi, Richard Penachio and Peter Di Fronzo, Defendants-Appellants.

Docket No. 3340.

Court of Appeals of Michigan, Division No. 2.

May 28, 1968.

Rehearing Denied July 19, 1968.

Released for Publication Oct. 15, 1968.

Leave to Appeal Denied Oct. 23, 1968.

Lawrence A. Burns and Charles Campbell, Detroit, for appellants.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Robert A. Derengoski, Sol. Gen., Lansing, S. Jerome Bronson, Pros. Atty., Oakland County, Pontiac, for appellee.

Before McGREGOR, P.J., and GILLIS and MILLER, ^* JJ.

McGREGOR, Presiding Judge.

This appeal springs from a jury conviction of the defendants for breaking and entering. ¹

On the Sunday afternoon of November 22, 1964, a Birmingham beauty shop owner visited his shop, only to find it occupied by three intruders, who fled out the back door as the owner entered the front. After noticing that a hole had been knocked in a common wall with the next-door fur salon, the beauty shop owner and a companion undertook a hot pursuit down the alley after the fleeing men.

These pursuers were unable to catch the culprits before they reached a waiting auto being manned by a fourth accomplice. However, the shop owner observed the license number of the getaway auto and also got a look at the face of one of the automobile passengers. Later, at a police lineup, the shop owner identified the man he saw in the getaway auto as the defendant Joseph Andriacci. A call was placed by the beauty shop owner to the local police and a radio dispatch resulted in an almost immediate spotting of the wanted auto by a cruising police car.

During the next half hour or so, there occurred a coordinated effort by several police departments to apprehend the wanted men. After sight was lost of the auto during a high-speed chase, the fleeing auto was stopped by a police cruiser blocking a narrow bridge. Three men, later identified as three of the defendants by the solitary patrolman attending the cruiser forming the roadblock, ran from the getaway auto, and the auto again sped away in another direction. The lone patrolman at the bridge opened fire on the fleeing auto, sped after it in hot pursuit, and radioed a report of these events to his headquarters. Within 10 minutes, other police officers apprehended three of the defendants coming out of a wooded area into which footprints in the snow led from where the three defendants were seen departing from the getaway auto. When the getaway auto was spotted again, the driver--later identified by the police officer who had manned the roadblock as the defendant Peter DiFronzo--had departed, and footprints in the snow led to the driveway from which an auto had been reported stolen only moments before. DiFronzo was not apprehended that day, but voluntarily surrendered to the police about three weeks later.

Several claims of error are presented in this case: (1) that the arrest warrants issued upon complaint of a police lieutenant were constitutionally defective, (2) that defendants were prejudiced by statements and testimony which tended to indicate stolen autos were involved in the above described chase, and (3) that defendant Andriacci was subjected to an unconstitutional police lineup.

Defendants' theory that the arrest warrants were defective proceeds on the premise that C.L.1948, §§ 766.2, 766.3 (Stat.Ann.1954 Rev. §§ 28.920, 28.921) require arrest warrants to be issued only after testimony of one having personal knowledge of the alleged offense. Defendants seem to urge that there can be no arrest warrant issued unless there is an eyewitnesses to a crime. This theory gains little support from either logic or the law books. Criminals are often successful in their attempts to perpetrate their misdeeds away from the sight of others and, consequently, no eyewitnesses exist. The application of defendants' theory would relegate competent police investigations to the category of uselessness and would measurably decrease the ability of the police to render protection to the general public.

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