State v. Charles Grunewald.

• Decision Date: 10 October 1941
• Docket Number: 32,799.
• Citation: 300 N.W. 206,211 Minn. 74
• Parties: State v. Charles Grunewald.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

300 N.W. 206

211 Minn. 74

State v. Charles Grunewald.

No. 32,799.

Supreme Court of Minnesota

October 10, 1941

Defendant was convicted in the district court for Hennepin county of the crime of willful neglect of official duty as a police officer, and appealed from an order, Vince A. Day, Judge denying his motion for a new trial. Affirmed.

Harold C. Bellew and Mark J. McCabe, for appellant.

J. A A. Burnquist, Attorney General, M. Tedd Evans, Assistant Attorney General, Charles E. Houston, Special Assistant Attorney General, Ed J. Goff, County Attorney, and Per M Larson, Assistant County Attorney, for the State.

The opinion of the court was delivered by: Loring

Municipal corporation -- willful neglect of official duty as police officer -- conviction sustained.

1. The evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict.

Municipal corporation requested instructions properly refused.

2. Defendant's requested instructions that he as an officer had no right to arrest the proprietors of a house of ill fame (keeping a house of ill fame is a felony in Minnesota) without being in possession of competent evidence of the commission of that felony were properly refused.

Municipal corporation requested instructions properly refused.

3. It was not prejudicial error for the court to refuse defendant's request to read Mason St. 1927, §§ 10567 and 10570, pertaining to an officer's power to arrest because those sections covered situations other than that presented by the evidence, and the court in summarizing the indictment made the elements of the crime of which defendant was accused clear to the jury.

LORING JUSTICE.

The defendant, a police officer of the city of Minneapolis, was convicted of the crime of willful neglect of offical duty in failing to arrest the keepers of a certain house of ill fame. He now appeals to this court from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

The facts in this case are essentially the same as the facts in State v. Palmersten, 210 Minn. 476, 299 N.W. 669, and there is no need to restate them here.

The questions presented are: (1) Is the evidence sufficient to sustain the conviction; and (2) did the trial court err in refusing to charge as defendant requested?

After careful consideration of the record, we are of the opinion that there was abundant evidence to sustain the verdict.

The defendant asked for three separate instructions, all pertaining to the "duty" of the defendant. In the first, the defendant asked the court to charge that the defendant would not have been justified in arresting the keepers of the house of ill fame here involved without --

"having reasonable cause for believing that such felony had in fact been committed and being in possession of competent evidence to prove commission of the same."

The third request contained the statement that the defendant would not have been justified in breaking into the house of ill fame and arresting the persons found there --

"without having reasonable grounds to believe that a felony had in fact been committed in such premises and being in possession of competent evidence for proving the commission of such felony."

The statute defining an officer's power to arrest, Mason St 1927, § 10570(3), requires only that an officer arresting when a felony has been committed, as was the case here, have "reasonable cause for believing the person arrested to have committed it." What is "reasonable cause for believing" must be...