State v. Maxie

• Decision Date: 27 December 1962
• Docket Number: No. 36253,36253
• Citation: 61 Wn.2d 126,377 P.2d 435
• Parties: The STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. William Marshall MAXIE, Appellant.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

Page 126

61 Wn.2d 126

377 P.2d 435

The STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. William Marshall MAXIE, Appellant.

No. 36253.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Dec. 27, 1962.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 7, 1963.

Irving C. Paul, Jr., and Henry Opendack, Seattle, for appellant.

Charles O. Carroll, Pros. Atty., Lewis Guterson, Deputy Pros. Atty., Seattle, for respondent.

HILL, Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction on a charge of burglary. The only issue is whether the trial court erred in refusing to suppress the evidence, which was secured by searching the defendant at the time of his arrest, and in admitting that evidence at the trial over the objection of the defendant. This depends on whether the arrest, which preceded the search, was lawful; and that, in turn, depends on whether the arresting officer had reasonable and probable cause to believe that the defendant had committed a felony.

No elaboration of the law, as to when an officer may make an arrest without a warrant, is required; see State v. Brooks (1960), 57 Wash.2d 422, 424, 357 P.2d 735, 736. In that case we used the following quotation from State v. Hughlett (1923), 124 Wash. 366, 368, 214 P. 841, 843:

"* * * Proper cause for arrest has often been defined to be a reasonable ground of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in themselves to warrant a cautious man in believing the accused to be guilty. * * *'

The determination of whether the arrest was lawful in this case, does not depend upon conflicting evidence but upon whether the affidavit ¹ filed by the arresting officer, in opposition to the motion to suppress, spells out reasonable and probable cause.

At the time of the hearing on the motion to suppress, the arresting officer testified in person but added nothing material to his statement in the affidavit.

Briefly stated, the circumstances are: A police officer in a small town learned, at 1:45 a. m., that a cafe in the community had just been broken into and that the loot included a quantity of Canadian coins; and, then, a short time later when he learned from a waitress in an all-night cafe that a stranger, whom she pointed out, had just requested her to give him dollar bills for coins (mostly Canadian), which she had done, he questioned the stranger and, believing that he had committed the burglary, arrested him. We hold that these circumstances constitute reasonable and probable cause for his belief; hence, reasonable and probable cause for the arrest.

The trial judge, the Honorable Donald L. Gaines, made an admirably succinct analysis at the conclusion of the hearing on the motion to suppress, in which he said:

'* * * Now, again, we are down to the problem of whether the showing that is made here constituted reasonable cause to arrest the Defendant.

'Now, reasonable cause is not proof sufficient to convict in the nature of things. Otherwise the police officer would be helpless to make an arrest unless he was handed a signed confession or something like that. The problem and the law is, what does constitute reasonable cause under the circumstances for a peace officer to make an arrest. He is called upon to make that decision, to make it quickly, and I sometimes think we hand the police officer the job of making the decision or making an arrest on an instant's notice, that the courts will spend hours debating whether cause existed or not. That is the problem a peace officer carries with him all the time, along with his badge.

'Now, do these facts constitute reasonable cause as set forth in Mr. Clark's affidavit, as controverted by Mr. Maxie's affidavit and explained by Mr. Clark's affidavit, or testimony in court this morning.

'* * * I find there was probable cause to make this arrest and inquiry. Now, that doesn't prove him guilty of the offense, that is what we have a trial for. The question is, did he have a right to make an arrest for a felony, and of course the test is, as our Supreme Court has just recently again reiterated, does he have probable cause in view of the circumstances as they confront him at the time to detain an individual as was done in this case.'

Much fun was made of the fact that the arresting officer made the arrest because, as stated in his affidavit, he had never seen the defendant in town before. When the mirth over the sallies subsides, there is found to be sound judgment in the officer's statement. Had the person, pointed out by the waitress as changing the Canadian coins for dollar bills, been one of the other patrons of the cafe who lived in North Bend, the officer would have known that he had time for a more complete investigation and to ask for the issuance of a warrant; but when the suspect is a stranger and the officer has reasonable grounds to believe him guilty of a felony, an officer in a town like North Bend either arrests such suspect or takes the chance that within the next forty-five minutes he will be somewhere in a large city if he travels west or south, or on the other side of the mountains if he travels east. As the trial judge pointed out in his oral opinion, an officer in these mobile days has to make his arrests fast or not at all.

This was not an arrest on mere suspicion. What we said in State v. Young (1932), 39 Wash.2d 910, 918, 239 P.2d 858, 863, is applicable here:

'* * * A mere suspicion denotes lack of fact or evidence. Here the arrest was based upon reasonable grounds, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in themselves to warrant a cautions man in believing the accused to be guilty of the reported felony. * * *'

Indeed, a majority of this court are of the opinion that had the officer failed to make an arrest under the circumstances, he would have been derelict in his duty.

There was no reason to suppress the evidence, gained on the search following a lawful arrest. That evidence satisfied the jury that the defendant had been guilty of two burglaries. The conviction is affirmed.

FINLEY, C. J., and DONWORTH, OTT, HUNTER and HAMILTON, JJ. concur.

Dissenting Opinion

On this appeal from a judgment of conviction for burglary, there is here for decision the legality of the search of the appellant's person, which, in turn, depends upon the validity of his arrest.

Early in the morning, the police department of North Bend was notified of the burglary of a cafe in that community, and that a quantity of Canadian coins had been stolen. Soon thereafter, on the same morning, the police chief inquired of a waitress in another cafe if anyone there had spent Canadian coins. She identified the defendant as one who had exchanged coins, some of them Canadian, for three one-dollar bills. Whereupon, the appellant was arrested and thereafter, without a warrant, searched by the police.

The search revealed a large quantity of coins, partly Canadian and partly domestic and two rolls of coins, which coins were seized and at the trial offered and admitted in evidence over the appellant's objection, notwithstanding his pretrial motion to suppress such evidence.

The validity of the arrest depends upon the showing in the affidavit of the chief of police, which is set forth in note 1 of the majority opinion; it will not be repeated.

That a burglary had been committed is beyond dispute, but the validity of appellant's arrest depends upon whether or not at the time of the arrest the chief of police had probable cause to believe that the appellant had committed the offense.

Since Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, ¹ the validity of an arrest which is claimed to justify a search is no longer a matter of state law. ² Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 (1914), decided that evidence seized as the result of an unlawful search was not admissible in a prosecution for a Federal offense. Eight years later (1922), this court, in State v. Gibbons, 118 Wash. 171, 203 P. 390, although as a matter of state law, adopted the exclusionary rule of the Weeks case, notwithstanding that State v. Royce, 38 Wash. 111, 80 P. 268, held to the contrary. The exclusionary rule has been consistently followed since 1922. ³

Three years before Mapp v. Ohio, supra, ⁴ Washington law was summarized in State v. Greco, 52 Wash.2d 265, 266, 324 P.2d 1086, 1087, as follows:

'Wolf v. People of State of Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782, decided that the Fourth Amendment to the Federal constitution applied to state action, but that the Federal exclusionary rule, which originated in Weeks v. U. S., 232 U.S. 383, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652, as a means of enforcing the constitutional guaranty against unreasonable searches and seizures, did not. Wolf v. People of State of Colorado, supra, discloses that thirty-one states now reject the exclusionary doctrine of the Weeks case, while sixteen states--including Washington, State v. Gibbons, 118 Wash. 171, 203 P. 390--follow the Federal exclusionary rule.'

Mapp v. Ohio, supra (June, 1961), overruled Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (June, 1949), and held that searches and seizures in state prosecutions in state courts are governed by Federal law. Therefore, one must turn to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States to ascertain whether the North Bend Chief of Police had probable cause for believing that the appellant had committed the burglary. If he did have probable cause for such a belief, the arrest was lawful, and if not, the arrest was illegal and the subsequent search of the appellant's person unlawful, and if so, appellant's motion to suppress the evidence seized was erroneously denied.

The determination of this point does not depend upon the resolution of conflicting evidence but upon the sufficiency of the affidavit of the chief of police. Before his visit to the cafe in question, he was without knowledge of either the appellant or any suspicion of his possible connection with the crime. The only thing which he...