State v. Jones
| Decision Date | 24 January 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 61332,61332 |
| Citation | 274 N.W.2d 273 |
| Parties | STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Dewayne Allen JONES, Appellant. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Philip B. Mears, Iowa City, for appellant.
Richard C. Turner, Atty. Gen., Faison T. Sessoms, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., and Eugene J. Kopecky, County Atty., for appellee.
Considered en banc.
Defendant was charged by county attorney's information with the crime of breaking and entering in violation of § 708.8, The Code, 1977. Following the entry of his plea of not guilty, he was tried to a jury, convicted, sentenced and appeals. We affirm.
Specifically, the defendant was charged with having broken and entered a Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Rapids shortly after midnight on August 3, 1977. It was asserted that he gained entrance into the store by breaking the glass of a front door with a broom. A baker who was working in the store heard the sound of breaking glass went to investigate, saw a man leaving the store through the broken door and pursued the individual across the parking lot but no farther.
The investigating police officers were furnished the name of a suspect by an informant, one Michael Grow. Grow told the police that Jones could be located at a certain house on Johnson Avenue in Cedar Rapids, of which his sister Linda Robertson was a tenant, and represented to the police that in her absence he was in charge of the apartment. The officers then went to the police station and obtained a picture of the suspect from police files, together with pictures of several other persons who fit the same general description, and showed the pictures to the baker at the store who picked out the picture of Jones. The police proceeded to the apartment and were admitted by Grow.
Ms. Robertson's co-tenant, Mindy Carpenter, had been dating defendant Jones. She was asleep in her bedroom at the time the police entered the apartment. Ms. Robertson, Grow's sister, testified at trial that Grow "stayed off and on" at her house; further stating, "he'd stay like two or three days at a time; and then I wouldn't see him for a couple of weeks, just a come and go type of thing." Although Grow had been present in the apartment the day before the alleged breakin, he had not stayed there during the preceding two months.
After Grow admitted the police to the apartment, he directed them to a closet in Ms. Carpenter's bedroom where Jones was found and placed under arrest. Approximately an hour had elapsed between the time of the initial investigation by the police and the time they went to the apartment.
Initially, defendant's counsel moved to suppress the testimony of the arresting officers having to do with their observations of the circumstances surrounding the arrest of the defendant, based upon claimed violation of defendant's Fourth Amendment rights, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, and Article I of § 8 of the Iowa Constitution. Defendant alleged that the warrantless arrest had been made without probable cause, and that even if probable cause existed no exigent circumstances had been shown to justify the police's failure to obtain an arrest warrant. Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court overruled defendant's motion to suppress, holding there was probable cause to make a warrantless arrest of the defendant; that exigent circumstances existed; and that the officers had been admitted to the apartment by someone who appeared to have authority to admit them.
At trial, prior to the testimony of the arresting officers, defendant's counsel renewed the objections which had been set out in his motion to suppress and was again overruled. The officers then testified that defendant had been found in a bedroom closet at the house on Johnson Avenue, had a fresh laceration on his arm which required stitches, and did not appear to be intoxicated at the time of his arrest. Defendant's counsel appeared to be attempting to establish an intoxication defense for the defendant. The defendant claims that the testimony by the police officers was the result of an illegal arrest, that there had been no valid consent to justify a warrantless entry to effectuate the warrantless arrest.
The defendant states the following issues for our review:
(1) That the trial court erred in ruling that an occasional house guest in an apartment, who is a brother of a co-tenant thereof, had authority to consent to the entry of police officers into the apartment.
(2) That if there were not a valid consent to the search, that there were no exigent circumstances to excuse or relieve the police officers from obtaining an arrest warrant or a search warrant prior to their entry into the apartment where the suspect was believed to be.
Because our resolution of the second stated issue is dispositive of this appeal, it is unnecessary to determine the first numbered issue.
We hold the officers had probable cause to make a warrantless arrest of defendant and because exigent circumstances existed they had authority to enter the apartment without a search warrant and search for and arrest defendant.
I. The primary focus of this case is on the validity of the warrantless arrest at a dwelling place in the early hours of the morning. There was a warrantless entry into the apartment and a warrantless arrest of defendant. Neither an arrest warrant nor a search warrant had been obtained by the police officers. The officers intended to arrest the defendant when found. Until such time, the officers were involved in a search. The dual nature of the police activities in instances analogous to the present was clearly set out in Morrison v. United States, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 352, 355, 262 F.2d 449, 452:
Generally, a search warrant issued by a neutral magistrate is required before a private residence may be searched unless a valid consent to the search and entry of the place to be searched has been given to the police, United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242; Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854; State v. Shane, 255 N.W.2d 324 (Iowa 1977), or exigent circumstances exist.
II. The State contends that so long as there was probable cause to believe that the defendant had committed the felony of breaking and entering, the warrantless entry into the apartment is constitutionally valid, being justified by the "exigent circumstances" standards set forth in State v. Johnson, 232 N.W.2d 477 (Iowa 1975), first enunciated in Dorman v. United States, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 313, 435 F.2d 385 (1970).
No real dispute exists that the officers had authority to make a warrantless arrest of defendant. Sec. 755.4(3), The...
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