State v. Edwards, 64204

• Decision Date: 16 November 1981
• Docket Number: No. 64204,64204
• Citation: State v. Edwards, 406 So.2d 1331 (La. 1981)
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Donald EDWARDS.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 1331

406 So.2d 1331

STATE of Louisiana v. Donald EDWARDS.

No. 64204.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Nov. 16, 1981.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 14, 1981.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ossie B. Brown, Dist. Atty., Premila Burns Chumbley, Kay Kirkpatrick, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.

Walton J. Barnes, II, Zachary, for defendant-appellant.

CALOGERO, Justice.

This appeal comes before us again, this time after a remand to the district court for a reopened hearing on the motion to suppress the inculpatory statements made by defendant, Donald Edwards. The statements were made in the presence of police officers shortly following his arrest on charges of first degree murder and aggravated burglary of one Ruth McInnis Todd.

From the original hearing on the motion to suppress, from the trial evidence, and from the reopened hearing conducted after our remand, the following sequence of events can be reconstructed.

On the Tuesday night of January 17, 1978, seventy-eight year old Ruth McInnis Todd was robbed and stabbed to death in her house in Baton Rouge. The perpetrators, with a box of old coins taken from the house, fled in Ms. Todd's yellow Rambler, the keys of which had been removed from her purse. This same vehicle, later parked opposite a 7-11 convenience store, aroused the suspicions of patrol officers Odom and Bourgeois when they drove past and observed the three occupants give them "a real good look." When the officers completed their turn around the block, the car had been abandoned but its interior was littered with wrappers of the type used for old coins. Having seen three males of the general description of those seen in the car in the 7-11 store and buttressed by the testimony of the clerk in the 7-11 store, Odom and Bourgeois chased an Olds Cutlass leaving the 7-11 parking lot. The officers arrested the three occupants, found wearing clothes similar to those observed when Odom and Bourgeois initially passed the parked Rambler. These three were released three days later (Friday afternoon) when their alibis for the time in which the Todd crime occurred proved strong, and the clerk, according to police officers, recanted his positive identification. Before the trio's release, one of them, Felton Porter, told homicide detective Gardiner that he had seen a "young dude" approach the Rambler while it was being inspected by officers Odom and Bourgeois, but then turn around and walk quickly away. By this time, detective Gardiner had also received lists of possible suspects from the auto theft and burglary divisions but these were not used because of information received over the weekend.

Late Friday evening and early Saturday morning, a person arrested and later released on a separate charge suggested two possible lines of inquiry about the Todd murder to Gardiner, one of which included the names of four young men: a local neighborhood information source, Michael Hatch, and three possible suspects, Norman Kent, Michael Sheppard, and "Mule". When the information given on the first line of inquiry proved unproductive over the weekend (that lead unexplained by the officers and not pertinent here), Gardiner returned on Monday morning to the four names and particularly to Michael Hatch, the alleged eyes and ears of the neighborhood. Michael Hatch revealed that around 11:00 or 11:15 P. M. on Tuesday, January 17th, he was leaving the Dalton Theatre area heading towards Plank Road when he met John Norman Kent, Michael Sheppard, and Donald Edwards (whose nickname was Mule). Although it was not particularly cold, the three were wearing gloves, carrying a box, and indicated that if the police came they'd "better haul." Hatch continued walking, saw the activity around the yellow Rambler parked across from the 7-11 store, and went home.

Likewise, in the course of investigating the Todd crime, Lieutenant Gill, supervisor of the armed robbery division of the Baton Rouge Police Department, received word from a confidential informant about a poker game which had taken place shortly after the murder-probably Wednesday or Thursday night. The same three young men, placed by Michael Hatch in the vicinity of the yellow Rambler under suspicious circumstances on the night of the murder, were present at the poker game at which old coins were used for betting. Furthermore, Gill's informant heard Norman Kent bragging about the Todd murder. Information supplied by this informant about where one of the participants was staying was verified as correct. A second informant, known only to Lieutenant Gill by a first name, telephoned in detailed information of the Rambler's location by the 7-11 store Tuesday night and spoke of seeing three males running from the vehicle.

With this information gathered by both the homicide and armed robbery divisions, but without a warrant, officers arrested John Norman Kent and Michael Sheppard ¹ on Monday afternoon at their high school. Homicide detectives Gill and Breaux went to Donald Edwards' house around 2:00 P. M. that same day to arrest him. Not finding him home then, they returned with Officers Lasoyne and Allain as back-up around, 3:00 P. M. and arrested Edwards in the presence of both his parents. The officers gave him his Miranda warnings. According to the records, all three suspects were booked at 3:15 P. M. Norman Kent confessed to the crime and implicated Sheppard and Edwards. Questioning of Edwards began at 5:00 P. M. with Officers Allain and Lasoyne again reading him the Miranda warnings and obtaining his signed waiver. During the questioning, officers played Edwards a portion of Kent's confession. At 5:28 P. M. on Monday, January 23, 1978, Donald Edwards gave a taped statement of his own, admitting his complicity in the activities which culminated in the stabbing death of Ruth Todd.

After hearing the state's evidence at trial, particularly Edwards' taped confession and the testimony of Michael Sheppard, the jury found Edwards guilty of first degree murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

In his original appeal to this Court, defendant's counsel argued thirty assignments of error. As one of these, defendant alleged that the trial judge erred, at the hearing on the motion to suppress Edwards' inculpatory statement, in cutting off defense inquiries into the identity and reliability of the police informants. Such inquiry, he asserted, was necessary under State v. Scott, 355 So.2d 231 (La.1977) and the Supreme Court decisions of Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979) and Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.ed.2d 416 (1975). It was determined by this Court on first entertaining defendant's appeal that such questioning should have been allowed relative to establishing the presence or absence of probable cause for the warrantless arrest of Edwards. In a per curiam opinion, the case was remanded to the district court to re-open the hearing on the motion to suppress with the instruction that if probable cause were not found to sustain the arrest, the trial judge should vacate the sentence and order a new trial to be held without the benefit of Edwards' taped inculpatory statement. If, on the other hand, the trial judge affirmed its denial of the motion to suppress by finding probable cause for Edwards' arrest, the case should be returned to this Court for further consideration of that and the other outstanding assignments of error made in the original appeal to this Court. State v. Edwards, 375 So.2d 1365 (La.1979)

On remand, the trial judge did determine that there was probable cause for the warrantless arrest of Donald Edwards for the aggravated burglary and murder of Ms. Todd. Upon this renewed appeal, defendant contends that the trial judge erred in this decision and alternatively that his other assignments of error, originally urged and not yet considered, warrant our reversal of his conviction. Thus, we address first this question of probable cause to make a warrantless arrest.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR TWO, THREE AND TWENTY-TWO

La.C.Cr.P. art. 213, allows police officers to make arrests without a warrant when "(3) The peace officer has reasonable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed an offense, although not in the presence of the officer;" Concerning the standards for judging an officer's action in situations called for in the codal provision, this Court said in State v. Marks, 337 So.2d 1177 at 1181 (La.1976):

Reasonable cause, which we have treated as consonant with the probable cause concept, exists when the facts and circumstances known to the arresting officer and of which he has reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient to justify a man of ordinary caution in believing that the person to be arrested has committed a crime. Reasonable or probable cause must be judged by the probabilities and practical considerations of everyday life on which average men, and particularly average police officers, can be expected to act. ... (Citations omitted)

While the state's burden relative to the propriety of an arrest is far less than that concerning trial and conviction, mere suspicion on the part of the arresting officers is not enough. State v. Ranker, 343 So.2d 189 (La.1977). State v. Randolph, 337 So.2d 498 (La.1976).

When the defendant challenges the admissibility of a confession on the ground that it was the result of an arrest made without probable cause, the burden of showing admissibility rests on the prosecution. State v. Scott, 355 So.2d 231 (La.1977); Brown v. Illinois, supra.

At the original hearing on the motion to suppress, there had been testimony that the implicating statement by Norman Kent, along with other evidence, prompted the arrest of Donald Edwards. On remand, the trial judge was not much impressed with the possibility of Kent's implicating statement having triggered the arrest of Edwards since Kent and Edwards may have been...