Reed v. State, CA

• Court: Arkansas Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: CRACRAFT
• Citation: Reed v. State, 656 S.W.2d 249, 9 Ark.App. 164 (Ark. App. 1983)
• Decision Date: 07 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. CA,CA
• Parties: Anthony REED, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. CR83-35.

Page 249

656 S.W.2d 249

9 Ark.App. 164

Anthony REED, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CA CR83-35.

Court of Appeals of Arkansas Division II.

Sept. 7, 1983.

William R. Simpson, Jr., Public Defender, Arthur L. Allen by Deborah R. Sallings, Deputy Public Defenders, Little Rock, for appellant.

Steve Clark, Atty. Gen. by Theodore G. Holder, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

CRACRAFT, Judge.

Anthony Reed appeals from his conviction of the crimes of breaking and entering and aggravated robbery. He does not question the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction but only maintains that the trial court erred in not suppressing evidence of his confession. We find no error and affirm the conviction.

The crimes for which appellant was convicted were committed in December, 1981 when an intruder unlawfully entered a dwelling occupied by Minnie Nunn and robbed her at knife point. These crimes and a number of similar ones committed in the same vicinity remained unsolved, until August 1982. At that time appellant was arrested for another aggravated robbery which was committed against a Mrs. Caswell, and he confessed not only to that crime but to ten others, including those committed against Mrs. Nunn.

The appellant first contends that he was arrested without probable cause and that his confession was the fruit of an illegal arrest and therefore constitutionally infirm. We do not agree.

The appellant was arrested pursuant to a warrant issued by a judicial officer. Rule 7.1(b), Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure (1977) authorizes a judicial officer to issue an arrest warrant if on the information presented it appears that there is reasonable cause to believe an offense has been committed and that the person to be arrested committed it. The principles by which a determination of the existence of sufficient probable cause to justify an arrest are discussed in Sanders v. State, 259 Ark. 329, 532 S.W.2d 752 (1976). The existence of probable cause must be determined upon the facts and circumstances either which the arresting officer has knowledge of at the moment of the arrest or which are made known to the magistrate at the time the warrant is issued. This determination is based upon the factual and practical considerations of everyday life upon which reasonable and prudent men act. The reviewing court should follow a liberal rather than a strict course and all presumptions are favorable to the trial court's ruling on the legality of the arrest. The burden of demonstrating error rests upon the appellant.

Probable cause is only a reasonable ground of suspicion supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in themselves to warrant a cautious man to believe that the accused committed a felony but not tantamount to the quantum of proof required to support a conviction. It is clear from Sanders that our courts have committed themselves to the reasonable, common-sense approach to these determinations and that arrests are to be appraised from the viewpoint of a prudent and cautious police officer at the time the arrest is made. It also declares that constitutional standards permit common-sense, honest judgment by police officers in their probable cause determinations. When the arrest is based upon a judicial officer's, rather than police officer's, determination of probable cause, the reviewing court should not require evidence of more "judicially competent or persuasive character as would have justified an officer in acting on his own without a warrant," and should sustain a judicial determination as long as there is a "substantial basis" for the conclusion that the accused person has committed a felony. Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964); Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960).

When we view the facts available to the police and judicial officer at the time the warrant was issued from the standpoint of common sense and with a pragmatic approach we find the evidence sufficient to constitute probable cause for appellant's initial arrest for the Caswell robbery.

After robbing Mrs. Caswell her assailant fled from her house, and she called her neighbor for assistance. Mr. Hite and his two sons immediately responded and although they saw no one either on or leaving Mrs. Caswell's premises, they observed an individual standing on the corner across from her house. He fled when they walked toward him. The Hites pursued him but quickly lost sight of him. More than a block from the Caswell house the Hites encountered two witnesses who stated that they had seen a person...