State v. Payano, 86-164-C

• Decision Date: 02 July 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-164-C,86-164-C
• Citation: 528 A.2d 721
• Parties: STATE v. Luis PAYANO et al. A.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 721

528 A.2d 721

STATE v. Luis PAYANO et al.

No. 86-164-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 2, 1987.

James E. O'Neil Atty. Gen., Thomas Dickinson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Providence, for plaintiff.

David N. Cicilline, John F. Cicilline, Joseph A. Bevilacqua, Jr., Providence, for defendants.

OPINION

WEISBERGER, Justice.

This case comes before us on appeal by the defendants, Luis Payano and Felipe Estrada, from judgments of convictions of robbery entered in the Superior Court. Following motions for new trial, which were denied, both defendants were sentenced to fifty years at the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI), of which fifteen were suspended and thirty-five were required to be served. Both the defendants were given fifteen years of probation to commence upon their release from the ACI. We affirm. The facts of the case are as follows.

On January 27, 1984, at approximately 1:35 p.m. a robbery took place at the offices of Automatic Chain Company (the company or Automatic Chain) located at 181 Corliss Street in Providence. The robbery began when a young unidentified Hispanic male entered the retail section of the company to discuss a gold purchase. After a short period, this young man jumped over the sales counter, displayed a revolver, and ordered the sales personnel to lie on the floor. Almost coincident with this action three individuals entered the guard area of the company. Recognizing one of the individuals as a previous customer, Michael Wilson, a security guard, buzzed open a locked door leading into the vault area. The three individuals immediately came through the door and entered the vault area. One of the three individuals carried a firearm.

Testimony from the employees of the company indicated that the robbery was carried out by four men. The employees were unable to identify the participants. Two of the robbers wore masks. The other two were without masks and were of apparent Spanish or Hispanic origin.

A great many items of jewelry were taken from the retail outlet by the robbers. Some of these items were stamped with the logo or trademark of the company. In addition, gold stored in the company vault was also carried off by the robbers.

The robbers escaped from the factory and retail outlet in a red two-door Ford Torino bearing license plate number OF 826. Later, police discovered that this vehicle was registered to one Daniel Mercedes. Mercedes informed the police that he had loaned the car to his friend, Felipe Estrada, shortly before the robbery.

The security guard, Michael Wilson, testified that a few days before the robbery he had been visited by Estrada and his brother, Luis. During the visit, the brothers questioned Wilson about the security system at Automatic Chain. He had not reported the visit because of a threatening phone call he had received.

Loni Worthington, a female companion of defendants, testified that on the afternoon of the robbery, Estrada and Payano arrived at her house carrying duffel bags filled with gold. She further testified that Estrada told her that the gold had come from a robbery of a gold factory. That afternoon, Estrada gave Ms. Worthington some gold jewelry. Thereafter, Ms. Worthington traveled with Payano and Estrada to New York, where the gold was exchanged for money. Upon her return to Rhode Island, Ms. Worthington was subjected to interrogation by the police. Payano and Estrada learned of this questioning and a few days later took Ms. Worthington to Florida.

During her stay in Florida, Ms. Worthington overheard pieces of conversations in which Payano and Estrada discussed the Automatic Chain robbery. In the course of these conversations Payano mentioned something about somebody's being stepped on. This statement was consistent with the testimony of Roger Boucher, an employee of the company who had testified that at one point one of the robbers stepped on his back.

Payano returned to Providence and was ultimately arrested there. Estrada remained in Florida and was arrested by Florida police pursuant to a request by the Providence police department, which had informed the Metro Dade County police department that Estrada had been indicted for robbery and that a warrant for his arrest was on file in the Providence police department and the Rhode Island Bureau of Criminal Identification. In fact, there were two warrants outstanding for Estrada, one of which had been issued pursuant to the indictment and the other, a bench warrant that had been issued by the Superior Court of Rhode Island as a result of Estrada's failure to respond to the court in respect to another case.

In support of their appeal, defendants raise eight issues. These issues will be considered in the order in which they were presented in defendants' briefs. Additional facts will be supplied as necessary in order to analyze and determine these issues.

I THE MOTION TO SUPPRESS THE FRUITS OF THE SEARCH AT THE TIME OF DEFENDANT ESTRADA'S ARREST

Estrada contends that certain fruits of a search that had been made of his dwelling house in Dade County, Florida should be suppressed as a result of an alleged violation of the principles set forth in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980). In substance the Court in Payton held that police may not enter the home of one suspected of a felony to arrest the suspect without a warrant absent the existence of exigent circumstances, even though the police have probable cause to believe that the suspect has committed a felony. The case dealt with the entry into the apartment of the defendant, Theodore Payton, in order to effectuate an arrest based upon probable cause to believe that Payton had committed murder. No warrant had been obtained, since a New York statute purported to authorize entry into a dwelling house for the purpose of effectuating an arrest for a felony without the necessity of a warrant. Holding that the statute that authorized such an entry for the purpose of carrying out an arrest for a felony was invalid, the Court suppressed the fruits of a search conducted in Payton's apartment in his absence. The sole fruit of the entry and search was a .30-caliber shell casing that was seized and later admitted into evidence at Payton's trial for murder. The rationale for the Payton decision, as expressed on behalf of the majority by Justice Stevens, was a reassertion of the special sanctity of protection accorded the dwelling place by the common law and ultimately by the Constitution of the United States. The majority conceded that there was a diversity of opinion among the common law commentators concerning the right of a peace officer to enter a dwelling in order to implement an arrest. Whereas Blackstone viewed an entry to arrest without a warrant as legal, Coke, on the other hand, viewed such an entry as illegal. The majority believed that the modern trend of opinion, as illustrated by recent decisions of state courts, indicated a movement away from authorizing arrests within dwelling houses based on probable cause alone. Probably the most succinct expression of the Court's holding may be found at the close of the opinion:

"If there is sufficient evidence of a citizen's participation in a felony to persuade a judicial officer that his arrest is justified, it is constitutionally reasonable to require him to open his doors to the officers of the law. Thus, for Fourth Amendment purposes, an arrest warrant founded on probable cause implicitly carries with it the limited authority to enter a dwelling in which the suspect lives when there is reason to believe the suspect is within." 445 U.S. at 602-03, 100 S. Ct. at 1388, 63 L. Ed. 2d at 660-61.

Therefore, for constitutional purposes the interposition of the judgment of a neutral magistrate between the police and the suspect is the factor of impelling constitutional dimension. Drawing a distinction based upon the jurisdiction in which the warrant was issued would serve no useful purpose since, for all practical purposes, constitutional procedural safeguards have been nationalized following the holding in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961). Requiring that each jurisdiction issue a separate warrant would provide no perceptible incremental benefit in elevating the protection of the Fourth Amendment. Its sole result would be to apply a technical distinction based upon geographical boundaries that would neither heighten the right to privacy nor add stature to the principle enunciated in Payton. We therefore are of the opinion that the warrants that were issued in Rhode Island, and whose validity has not been questioned, would form an adequate basis for the Florida police department, acting on the assumption that said warrants were valid, to enter the dwelling house in question. See United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 105 S. Ct. 675, 83 L. Ed. 2d 604 (1985) (police in one state conducted proper investigatory stop in objective reliance upon "wanted flyer" issued by police in another state on basis of their reasonable suspicion); Whiteley v. Warden 401 U.S. 560, 91 S. Ct. 1031, 28 L. Ed. 2d 306 (1971) (police officers aiding other officers in executing arrest warrants are entitled to assume that adequate information was presented to magistrate to support probable cause).

This court has previously determined in State v. Baton, 488 A.2d 696 (R.I. 1985), that Connecticut police officers, acting in reliance upon the existence of a valid Rhode Island warrant issued the previous day, acted within constitutional bounds in arresting the defendant in Connecticut. The arrest did not take place in a dwelling house. However, the existence of the Rhode Island warrant as authority for the Connecticut arrest demonstrates the proposition that the existence of a valid warrant in one state may be utilized as a basis for a lawful arrest in another state, without the necessity of the issuance of a warrant in the responding...