State v. Campbell
| Decision Date | 12 July 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 40402,40402 |
| Citation | 161 N.W.2d 47,281 Minn. 1 |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Jerry H. CAMPBELL, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. Probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant may be established by sworn testimony before the issuing magistrate supplementing factual statements of the affidavit in support of the application 2. A warrant issued by a magistrate is a constitutional prerequisite to the taking of a blood sample from a criminal suspect, absent unusual conditions rendering the warrantless invasion of the human body reasonable and not offensive to a human sense of decency or absent consent knowingly and voluntarily given. Held, the warrantless taking of a sample of defendant's blood was not a constitutional infringement of the integrity of defendant's person because defendant consented to such taking and because, even assuming that defendant gave consent under a misunderstanding as to its purpose, the police officers reasonably could have believed that he had given consent.
for the warrant. There is no constitutional prescription as to the form of an application for such warrant, and the procedure here substantially complied with the statutory prescription. Held, the search warrant issued for the search of defendant's apartment was valid in the circumstances of this case, and the items seized were admissible in evidence.
3. The evidence is fully sufficient to sustain a finding that defendant caused the death of decedent with premeditation and intent to effect his death, and to sustain defendant's consequent conviction of murder in the first degree.
C. Paul Jones, Public Defender, Ronald L. Haskvitz, Asst. Public Defender, Minneapolis, for appellant.
Douglas M. Head, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, George M. Scott, County Atty., Henry W. McCarr, Asst. County Atty., Minneapolis, for respondent.
Defendant, Jerry H. Campbell, was tried in Hennepin County District Court without a jury 1 and convicted of the crime of murder in the first degree for the shooting death of one Wilford Hanson in the course of an armed robbery of Hanson's Super Fair Store in Minneapolis on October 21, 1965.
Defendant appeals from the judgment on the following grounds:
(1) A warrant was issued by the magistrate for the search of his apartment without sufficient evidence to establish probable cause, as required by the Fourth Amendment.
(2) The taking of a blood sample from defendant without a warrant was, in the circumstances surrounding the taking, a violation of his rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.
(3) The evidence, regardless of admissibility, was insufficient to sustain a conviction of murder in the first degree, as distinguished from murder in only the third degree, because there was no proof of the essential element of premeditation and intent to effect the death of his victim. 2
A preliminary statement of the facts surrounding the homicide is necessary to a consideration of all three issues presented. An armed robber entered Hanson's Super Fair Store at 4245 Fourth Avenue South, Minneapolis, shortly after 9:30 p.m. on October 21, 1965. The robber was masked by a paper bag in which openings had been torn for the eyes. He was wearing dark trousers, a striped shirt, and 'scuffed and tie shoes' that were 'kind of pointed.' He was about 5 feet 10 inches in height and had black hands, from which it appeared that he was a Negro. He 'sounded kind of young.' The store's cashier thought he was 'the same person that had robbed our store about a week before.'
As he entered from the front of the store, the masked robber confronted the cashier, a woman, and stated: The cashier turned toward the cash register, but the robber motioned her away with his gun and said: 'I want you in the back room * * * I want the old man.' Defendant ordered her and three other persons to the butcher shop area at the rear of the store. Decedent, a man answering the description of the 'old man,' was there engaged in the process of cutting meat and held a boning knife in his hand. The robber approached to within 6 or 7 feet of the decedent. The robber said to decedent: 'I got you this time.' The robber held his gun just in front of him, close to his face, pointing toward decedent 'like he could see what he is shooting at.' Decedent said in substance: 'Don't I know you?' The robber said to him: 'Throw down the knife, Mr. Hanson.' Decedent instead threw the knife at the robber, wounding him in the chest. The robber fired two shots. One shot struck the ceiling, but the other shot, according to the testimony of a pathologist, struck decedent between the eyes and entered his brain, a mortal wound.
After the shooting the robber ordered the cashier to give him the money from the cash register. He then fled, going out the front door, across the adjacent parking lot, and toward the alley behind the store. Police officers found his paper mask in the alley behind the store, about three houses to the north. A search of defendant's apartment in the early hours of the following day resulted in the seizure of these items of real evidence used against defendant at trial: Pieces of paper matching the paper tear-out portions of the paper mask used by the robber; blood-stained clothing answering eye-witnesses' description of that worn by the robber, including shoes, trousers, and a shirt having a cut in the front; and the gun identified by the state's firearms expert a that used in the crime.
Detectives Robert D. Anderson and Aloysius Pufahl of the Minneapolis Police Department Homicide Division, who were in charge of investigating the crime, were led to defendant as the murder suspect when Hennepin County General Hospital authorities informed them that a Jerry Campbell, who 'had given the address of 4015 Fourth Avenue South, Apartment 5, as his residence,' had been admitted to surgery with a stab wound in his upper stomach. That apartment was located just 2 1/2 blocks from Hanson's Super Fair Store. It was established that the defendant had gone to the apartment, which he shared with one Philip Graves, and there changed his clothing. At about 9:50 p.m. he went to the residence of an acquaintance, one Ronald Sims, at 3947 Fifth Avenue South, less than a block from his own apartment, and Sims took him to Hennepin County General Hospital. Defendant had told Sims that he had been stabbed by 'four guys in the alley there between Fourth Avenue and Fifth Avenue.' Sims observed, however, that there was no blood on defendant's clothing and, as he told the police who interrogated him shortly thereafter, he saw no 'penetration holes' in defendant's shirt and sweater. Sims gave the police defendant's approximate address.
Detectives Anderson and Pufahl had been assigned to the case at 10:30 p.m. They first went to the store and interrogated the eyewitnesses and other police officers who had gone to the scene immediately after the crime. They then went to the General Hospital at about 10:40 p.m. but were unable to interrogate defendant because he was unconscious and in surgery. They noted from the hospital records that defendant had been admitted at approximately 10:00 p.m.
Detectives Anderson and Pufahl then made a check of defendant's police record from which they learned that a Jerry Campbell had been arrested in Minneapolis in August of 1965 on a fugitive warrant from Waterloo, Iowa, for robbery of a grocery store; Campbell had been returned to Iowa authorities but was currently out on $5,000 bond; and police authorities of Waterloo had requested surveillance of Apartment 5, 4015 Fourth Avenue South because they claimed to have evidence that these premises were 'a gathering-place of certain holdup men.' The detectives thereafter procured a warrant for the search of defendant's apartment.
Detective Russell Krueger and another detective subsequently went to General Hospital on the morning of October 22, the day after the murder, and obtained a sample of defendant's blood. A blood analysis revealed that his blood was of the same blood grouping as that found on the robber's abandoned paper mask and on the shirt and trousers seized in defendant's apartment.
1. The search warrant under which the police searched defendant's apartment was granted by Judge Elmer R. Anderson of the Hennepin County Municipal Court at his home at about 1:00 a.m. on October 22, 1965. Detective Anderson made the application supported by an affidavit stating in part:
The affidavit contained, in addition, the following explicit description of the premises to be searched and the property to be seized:
'* * * (H)e has reason to believe, and does believe, that on the premises known as 4015--4 Ave. So. Apt. 5 in the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, there is now being concealed certain property, namely: one 32 automic (sic) pistol.
Currency and coin not to exceed $500
Men's clothing consisting of one man's sport shirt of blue, gray and reddish color, dark pants
Torn pieces of paper bag which was used as mask.'
Defendant contends that this affidavit was fatally defective because it did not conform to constitutional and statutory requirements 3 that search warrants may be issued only upon a factually sufficient showing of probable cause. The specific defect urged by defendant is that the affidavit made no 'affirmative allegation that the affiant spoke with personal...
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