State v. McCranie, 51724
| Decision Date | 23 January 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 51724,No. 3,51724,3 |
| Citation | 223 S.E.2d 765,137 Ga.App. 369 |
| Parties | The STATE v. J. J. McCRANIE |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Lewis R. Slaton, Dist. Atty., Joseph J. Drolet, Carole E. Wall, Asst. Dist. Attys., Atlanta, for appellant.
Worozbyt, Spruell & Blackburn, Theodore Worozbyt, Atlanta, for appellee.
On February 23, 1975, at approximately 5:00 a.m., Officer Menzel of the Atlanta Police Department answered a call to a wreck on Stewart Avenue under the I-75 bridge. While attending to police matters relative to the wreck he heard two shots spaced about five seconds apart. He concluded that the shots came from the direction of the Streaker Club approximately 200 yards away and, upon proceeding to that location, observed an automobile in the parking lot of the burned-out night club some 300 feet off the public road. The occupant was ordered to get out of the automobile, and Menzel then recognized him as J. J. McCranie, owner and operator of the club.
In response to questioning about the shots, McCranie replied that he had not heard any shots fired. The door on the driver's side of McCranie's car was left open and the interior light was on, and Menzel saw one spent shell on the driver's seat, one on the floor, and the butt of a pistol protruding from under the seat. Upon picking up the shells Menzel found that they were still warm. He smelled the gun and concluded that it had been recently fired. Menzel smelled alcohol on McCranie's breath, placed him in the patrol car and arrested him for discharging firearms and for being drunk.
Menzel then called a wrecker to two the car away and began an inventory of its contents. He used the trunk key to open the trunk and found the drugs for the unlawful possession of which McCranie was indicted. Ga.L.1974, pp. 221-268. The trial court granted McCranie's motion to suppress, and the state appeals pursuant to Code Ann. § 6-1001a(d).
We affirm. The state seeks to justify the search on the grounds that it was made pusuant to standard inventory procedures of impounded automobiles. The justification is necessarily premised on the validity of the impounding. However, McCranie was not arrested for automobile offenses; and it is undisputed that Menzel knew McCranie, knew that he owned and operated the club, and knew that the automobile was on private premises belonging to him. In these circumstances the trial court was authorized, though not required, to find from the totality of...
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