Ryals v. State
| Decision Date | 18 March 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 75324,75324 |
| Citation | 186 Ga.App. 457,367 S.E.2d 309 |
| Parties | RYALS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
John R. Thigpen, Sr., Blackshear, for appellant.
Harry D. Dixon, Jr., Dist. Atty., Margaret M. Edwards, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Ryals appeals the denial of his motion for new trial following his conviction of burglary.
On the evening of the night the offense occurred, Ryals had visited the victim's home in the company of his wife and two young daughters, ostensibly to look for a wristwatch which he had lost on the premises while doing yard work for the victim earlier that day. With the victim's permission, and in his presence, the appellant and his family looked around the house but were unable to find the watch and subsequently left. The victim testified that before retiring that night, he locked the outside door of his home and latched the adjacent screen door. When he awoke in the morning, he discovered that his billfold containing $62 was missing from his trousers, which he had left hanging from a chair next to his bed. He also discovered that the screen door had been slit in the area of the latch.
The victim immediately reported the theft to the police; and, based on his assertion that no visitors other than the Ryals family had been present at his house the previous evening, the police obtained a warrant to search the family's mobile home. While the officers were en route to the home to execute the warrant, they observed Ryals and his wife walking alongside the road and placed both of them in the back seat of the patrol car. They then proceeded to the mobile home to execute the search warrant. Although the ensuing 45-minute search uncovered no evidence connecting Ryals to the burglary, both Ryals and his wife were nevertheless taken to the police station, where, at 11:55 a.m., the appellant signed a written waiver of his Miranda rights. A lengthy interrogation session followed, terminating at approximately 5:00 p.m. with the appellant's placement of his signature on the following written statement: Following a Jackson v. Denno hearing, the trial court admitted this statement over Ryals' objection that it had not been voluntarily made. See generally OCGA § 24-3-50. Held:
1. The appellant contends that "[t]he trial (sic) committed reversible error by finding that [his] alleged confession was freely and voluntarily given." While this enumeration of error is couched solely in Fifth Amendment terms, the appellant additionally argues in his brief that the police violated his "State and Federal Constitutional Rights" by holding him in custody and making it clear to him "that [he] was not going to be allowed to leave the police station until such time as they received a confession from him as to his guilt in this case." We hold that this argument is sufficient to raise the contention that the confession was extracted in violation of the appellant's due process rights under the Fourth as well as the Fifth Amendment.
Pursuant to the Appellate Practice Act of 1965, which comprehensively and exhaustively revised and modernized appellate procedure in Georgia, enumerations of error are to be reviewed in such a manner "as to bring about a decision on the merits of every case appealed and to avoid dismissal of any [appeal] or refusal to consider any points raised therein, except as may be specifically [authorized by the Act.]" OCGA § 5-6-30. (Emphasis supplied.) "Where it is apparent from the notice of appeal, the record, the enumeration of errors, or any combination of the foregoing, what judgment or judgments were appealed from or what errors are sought to be asserted upon appeal, the appeal shall be considered in accordance therewith notwithstanding that the notice of appeal fails to specify definitely the judgment appealed from or that the enumeration of errors fails to enumerate clearly the errors sought to be reviewed." OCGA § 5-6-48(f).
In conformance with the letter and spirit of the Appellate Practice Act, we conclude that the appellant's constitutional challenge to the admissibility of his custodial statement is properly before us, notwithstanding his lack of precision in specifying the precise source of the constitutional right which he contends has been violated.
2. It is apparent that the appellant's statement was obtained as the product of an arrest made without probable cause. In a case with remarkably similar facts, the United States Supreme Court, in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), held that a defendant's due process rights were violated by just such an in-custody interrogation conducted pursuant to an unlawful arrest, notwithstanding the defendant's purported voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights following the arrest. Accord State v. Harris, 256 Ga. 24, 343 S.E.2d 483 (1986). In the present case, as in Dunaway, supra, there was clearly no probable cause for the appellant's arrest, and Dunaway, supra, 442 U.S. at 219, 99 S.Ct. at 2260, citing Comment, 25 Emory LJ. 227, 238 (1976). The fact that a confession may be voluntary for purposes of the Fifth Amendment is merely a threshold requirement for Fourth Amendment analysis. Dunaway, supra, 442 U.S. at 217, 99 S.Ct. at 2259. Accordingly, even assuming arguendo that the evidence would otherwise support a conclusion that the appellant's confession was voluntary, we conclude that it should have been excluded from evidence as the fruit of an unlawful arrest.
3. Without the appellant's in-custody statement, there was insufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. It follows that the appellant's motion for a directed verdict of acquittal should have been granted.
Judgment reversed.
POPE, J., concurs and also concurs specially.
McMURRAY, P.J., dissents as to the judgment of reversal.
I concur specially with the majority opinion for two reasons: (1) This court can consider error not enumerated in exceptional cases where no exception is taken, if the error is obvious, and seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation or judicial proceedings, and (2) this is a Fourth Amendment error, based upon egregious police conduct, which should not be condoned by the judicial system.
(1) Almond v. State, 180 Ga.App. 475, 480, 349 S.E.2d 482. The error is obvious and it seriously affects the fairness, integrity and public reputation of judicial proceedings. This court is authorized to consider the error. Kearney v. State, 184 Ga.App. 64, 66, 360 S.E.2d 633.
(2) The U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416, considered the admissibility of a suspect's statement following his detention, without probable cause, and held that the warnings required by the Miranda decision in no way inform a person of his Fourth Amendment rights, including his right to be released from unlawful custody following an arrest made without a warrant or without probable cause. Id. at 601, 95 S.Ct. at 2260. In the instant appeal, there was only a search warrant, not an arrest warrant--and for good reason as there was no probable cause to arrest. Although Ryals was detained at the police station for approximately seven hours and warned of his Miranda rights, Miranda warnings alone cannot make a suspect's statement following an illegal arrest a product of free will, and serve to break the causal connection between the illegal arrest and the confession. Id. at 603, 95 S.Ct. at 2261. The question whether a confession made after an illegal arrest is the product of a free will must be answered on the facts of each case, and no single fact is dispositive; in determing whether a confession is obtained by exploitation of an illegal arrest, the giving of the warnings required by the Miranda decision, the temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and, particularly, the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct are all relevant. Id. And, even if the trial court finds the confession voluntary under the Fifth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment issue remains.
The Supreme Court again, in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824, found that "[t]he Rochester police violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, when, without probable cause to arrest, they seized petitioner and transported him to the police station for interrogation," as in the instant appeal. The suspect was "seized" within the meaning...
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