State v. Olson

• Decision Date: 15 April 1965
• Docket Number: No. 39425,39425
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Keith A. OLSON, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 181

135 N.W.2d 181

271 Minn. 50

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Keith A. OLSON, Appellant.

No. 39425.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 15, 1965.

Syllabus by the Court

The constitutional validity of an officer's search of a person must depend upon the constitutional validity of his arrest, and that in turn depends upon whether at the time of his arrest probable cause existed--that is, whether at the time of the arrest the facts and circumstances within the officer's knowledge and regarding which he had reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient to warrant a prudent officer or person in believing that the person had committed or was committing an unlawful offense.

The rule of probable cause is a practical, nontechnical conception affording the best compromise that has been found for accommodating often opposing interests. Requiring more would unduly hamper law enforcement. To allow less would be to leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of the officers' whim or caprice.

Probable cause is to be evaluated from the viewpoint of a prudent and cautious police officer on the scene at the time of the arrest. The question to be answered is whether such an officer in the particular circumstances, conditioned by his observations and guided by the whole of his police experience, reasonably could have believed that a crime had been committed by the person to be arrested.

Our function is to determine whether the facts available to an officer at the time of the arrest would warrant a person using reasonable caution to believe that the suspect had committed an offense. Held, that the facts in this case and the information and evidence available to the officers when they arrested the defendant were sufficient to warrant a belief on their part that the defendant had committed or was about to commit an offense. Also, that there was sufficient probable cause to lawfully arrest him and to authorize the officers to search him thereafter without a warrant.

Beck v. State of Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 223, 13 L.Ed.2d 142, distinguished.

Maurice A. Klasen, St. Cloud, for appellant.

Robert W. Mattson, Atty. Gen., William B. Randall, County Atty., St. Paul, for respondent.

FRANK T. GALLAGHER, C.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the district court. Defendant agrees that the facts are those presented by the state. The essential acts occurred at the Unicorn Cafe in downtown St. Paul on July 18, 1963.

A waitress at the cafe, age 18, testified that around 10 o'clock that evening two men, one of them the defendant, entered the care, sat at the counter, and after some conversation ordered some unfermented grape juice. When the witness was asked by the prosecuting attorney if she noticed anything peculiar about the appearance of the defendant, she replied, '(T)he only thing I could tell was the way he talked and the way he looked. His eyes were kind of glassy and he kind of wobbled a little bit.' She also observed something unusual about his speech.

After taking defendant's order for the juice, she said he asked her if she 'wanted to get high.' She replied that she didn't drink and he said she wouldn't have to. The witness then said that after serving him the drink he gave her 'a dollar bill with a white envelope' and told her to keep the change but she 'gave him the change and the envelope back.' She explained that the envelope 'was folded in about four by four' and that she could tell by feeling it that it contained a powdered substance. She stated that when she returned the change and envelope to the defendant she told him that she 'thought it was some form of dope and then they got up and left.'

After they left, the police department was called but not by the witness. Two detectives from the department promptly appeared upon the scene and she made a report to them. After taking her report the officers left the cafe, and shortly afterwards the defendant and his companion came back. She directed them to the second floor with a balcony 'looking downstairs' and told them she would bring them some coffee. Soon the officers came back, asked her if the two who had just entered were the men who had been reported earlier, she said they were, and the officers went upstairs. Later the officers called her to come up and identify the one who had the envelope. She said that she had a conversation with Detective Glay in the presence of the defendant; that she told him it was the defendant who had the envelope.

On cross-examination the witness said that she had never seen anyone who had been under the influence of narcotics nor has she ever heard anything to the effect that the cafe was a hangout for people using narcotics. In reply to a question by her examiner, she said that she told Tom Mishou, age 17, who was in the cafe when defendant and his companion first came in, that she thought that they might have some form of narcotics. When asked why she thought so, she replied 'the way he (defendant) said it and he handed it to me.' She said that she did not know what was in the envelope and would not know marijuana if she saw it. Mishou also said on cross-examination by the defense that the waitress told him she suspected that there were narcotics in the envelope and that in his conversation with the police he told them that the 'two men * * * appeared to be trying to influence (the waitress) into using some substance.'

Detective Gray of the Morals Division, called by the state, testified that he and Detective Skarolid went to the Unicorn Cafe about 10:20 that evening in response to a call by the police dispatcher and interviewed the waitress; that she made a report and gave them a description of the two men. After receiving the information, they left the cafe. As they returned to their car, they observed two men pass who could possibly fit the description given them by the waitress. The men went into the cafe and the officers followed them and asked the waitress if they were the two men who had been there previously. Upon being informed that they were, the officers followed them to the mezzanine floor. The witness, after identifying himself as a detective, asked the defendant for some identification as to his age and address. Detective Skarolid questioned the other man. In connection with the requested identification, Gray stated that the defendant replied, 'What do you want to know that for, man?' 'Am I under arrest, man? What's going on here, man?' and that he kept that up; that when he asked, 'Am I under arrest?' the officer said he told him approximately three times that he was. While conversing with the defendant, the detective said that he observed that the former acted a little unusual, 'a little wild-like,' but he did not detect any liquor on his breath. However, he said that defendant acted 'kind of high,' as if he could have been drinking. His eyes--pupils--had a 'kind of popeyed look.' After asking the officer several times if he was under arrest, the defendant produced a selective service card for identification.

The officer further testified that the waitress was summoned to the second floor and in the presence of the defendant was asked if he was the man who 'offered her the envelope to get high' and her answer was 'Yes.' He said he then asked the defendant some further questions to verify the identification and took him into custody and restrained him.

Detective Gray was then asked on direct examination what other investigation was made after defendant's restraint. This was objected to, and following a prolonged discussion between the court and counsel with respect to motions, offers of proof, and reservations on ruling by the court in connection with evidentiary and procedural matters, the witness was permitted to answer.

He said, after repeating some of the matters referred to above in connection with his investigation, that he had cause to believe that the defendant 'might be either using or having the possession of the narcotic, mostly the reason of probably possessing it because of what she (the waitress) had told me.' He then proceeded to search the defendant. He had the defendant take off his coat, which he searched, then had him take his belongings out of his pockets and lay them on a table. He searched his pockets and found the white envelope still in his pocket. When he opened the envelope, he found some green substance in the bottom of it which he said appeared to be 'sort of a granule, leafy, kind of a little seedy substance.' He asked the defendant what the substance was that was in the envelope and his answer was 'Tea.' The defendant and his companion were taken to police headquarters. The witness said he retained the white envelope he had taken from the defendant and sent it to the crime laboratory to be analyzed.

Detective Skarolid, who was with Detective Gray at the time of defendant's arrest, testified along the same lines as Detective Gray regarding matters leading up to and pertaining to defendant's arrest and the white envelope taken from the defendant at the time of the search. Theodore Elzerman, criminologist in charge of the St. Paul police crime laboratory, explained tests he had made in connection with the contents of the envelope and said that his findings were that the green, leafy material contained in the white envelope was marijuana or cannabis sativa, the botanical name.

The proceedings in this case were commenced by a complaint in the municipal court of St. Paul in July 1963. At a preliminary hearing the next month defendant was bound over to the district court. In September 1963 he moved the district court to suppress the use as evidence of certain property taken from his person by the St. Paul police officers. The defendant was present and was also represented by his counsel. He contended that his arrest, admittedly made without a warrant, was unlawful and that any product of a search incident thereto must be suppressed. In its memorandum dated October 8,...