State v. Peoples
| Decision Date | 15 June 1971 |
| Citation | 275 N.E.2d 626,28 Ohio App.2d 162 |
| Parties | , 57 O.O.2d 226 The STATE of Ohio, Appellee, v. PEOPLES et al., Appellants. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The purport of Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977, and Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, is to prevent oppressive police tactics which violate individual rights and produce involuntary confessions.
2. A person not a police officer, or not acting in concert with or at the request of police authority, is not required to extend constitutional warnings prior to the eliciting of an incriminating statement.
3. Private security officers or private detectives are not officers of the law in such capacity that they have to render a constitutional warning precedent to taking of a statement in nature of a confession.
4. Under R.C. § 2945.42, the defendant in a criminal prosecution may be cross-examined as to his convictions of crime under state or federal laws.
5. Mere inexperience or unskillfulness, mistakes or errors of judgment, and improper trial strategy in connection with the case are ordinarily insufficient to justify setting aside a judgment of conviction because of the claimed incompetency of retained counsel for the accused.
6. The judgment of conviction is void where retained counsel's representation has been so inadequate as to make the trial a farce and a mockery of justice, thereby denying the accused of a fair trial (due process of law) or invading his constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel.
Vincent E. Gilmartin, Pros. Atty., and John A. Kicz, Youngstown, for appellee.
Lawrence H. Friedlander, Cleveland, and Louis K. Levy, Youngstown, for appellants.
Defendants, appellants herein, are appealing their conviction by a jury of grand larceny, in violation of R.C. § 2907.20.
On May 5, 1970, at approximately 2:27 a. m., plant protection police working at the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Brier Hill Works found that approximately 254 feet of copper cable had been cut down from the side of the Coke By-Products Building and was missing. A check of the surrounding area produced nothing. Approximately 6:00 a. m., when it began to get light, the plant protection police found marks in the heavy dew where the stolen cable had been dragged. They followed these marks to the north boundary fence. While watching from this fence about 6:50 a. m. a pickup truck drove west on old West Federal Street and stopped about 75 feet away from where the plant protection police were watching. Defendants got out of the truck and began to load copper cable into the truck. At this time, the plant protection police climbed over the fence, approached defendants with weapons in their hands, ordered them to stop what they were doing and to raise their hands, and asked them what they were doing. Defendants stated they had found the copper cable there.
The plant protection police searched defendants and the truck, but the only thing they found, besides the copper cable that was lying in full view in the truck, was a temporary tne-day license in the name of Mack Peoples in the glove compartment of the truck.
The plant protection police then called the Youngstown police, who took custody of them.
The evidence indicates that the copper cable that defendants were loading on the truck was the same copper cable removed from the Youngstown Sheet and Tube property.
Defendant Mack Peoples testified that he and defendant Amos Stone were delivering a truck that he had repaired that night when the truck ran out of gas. They were walking home past old West Federal Street about 6:00 a. m. when they noticed the copper cable along the road. They then walked to Tipper's Auto Wrecking on Cherry Street, which the evidence indicated was 4.1 miles from where the copper cable was located, and got a truck which they drove back to pick up the copper cable. Defendant Peoples contended that they arrived with the truck where the copper cable was located about 7:30 a. m.
Defendants' first assignment of error is that the verdict is against the manifest weight of the evidence and that the trial court erred in overruling defendants' motions to direct a verdict for defendants. We have reviewed the record of this case and find defendants' first assignment of error to be without merit.
Defendants' second assignment of error concerns the interrogation of defendants by the plant protection police without being advised of their constitutional rights and the search of defendants and their truck by the plant protection police.
The reocrd is not too clear as to what official authority the plant protection police had to enforce the law, but the record does indicate that their authority to arrest was restricted to the property of Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company.
R.C. § 2935.04 provides, as follows:
'When a felony has been committed, or there is reasonable ground to believe that a felony has been committed, any person without a warrant may arrest another whom he has reasonable cause to believe is guilty of the offense, and detain him until a warrant can be obtained.'
We are inclined to feel that the plant protection police of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company had legal authority to arrest defendants under the circumstances of this case. But even if they did not have such authority, we find that whatever constitutional rights of either of the defendants that might have been affected by their being arrested by the plant protection police of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company and their transfer to the Youngstown Police, neither of the defendants were prejudiced by such arrest in the trial of this case.
Cases outside of Ohio have held that the purport of Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 12 L.Ed.2d 977, and Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, is to prevent oppressive police tactics which violate individual rights and produce involuntary confessions, and that a person not a police officer, or not acting in concert with or at the request of police authority, is not required to extend constitutional warnings prior to the eliciting of an incriminating statement. A private security officer and a private detective have been held not to be officers of the law in such capacity that they have to render a constitutional warning precedent to the taking of a statement in the nature of a confession. Schaumberg v. Nevada, 83 Nev. 372, 432 P.2d 500; People v. Morgan, 24 Mich.App. 660, 180 N.W.2d 842; People v. Omell, 15 Mich.App. 154, 166 N.W.2d 279.
Even if the plant protection police were required to give the 'Miranda' warnings, we cannot see how they were prejudiced in any way by the failure to give such warnings. When defendants were asked by the plant protection police what they were doing, they stated that they were loading copper cable which they had just found at that location. Defendant Mack Peoples testified to the same effect at the trial of the case. Thus, there is no 'confession' involved in this case. Defendants did not say anything to the plant protection police that would incriminate them with the crime with which they were ultimately charged.
The only items introduced as evidence at the trial as a reault of the search conducted by the plant protection police were the copper cable and the temporary ten-day license in the name of Mack Peoples.
Objects in plain view of an officer, who has a right to be in a position where he is, do not involve any problem of search or seizure. Harris v. United States, 390 U.S. 234, 88 S.Ct. 992, 19 L.Ed.2d 1067.
Since the copper cable was in plain view of the plant protection police, there is no problem of an illegal search as to the copper cable.
The temporary ten-day license in the name of Mack Peoples might raise a question of an illegal search. However, even if such a search was illegal, which is open to question, we hold that the introduction of the temporary ten-day license of Mack Peoples in the trial of this case was not prejudicial to either of the defendants. If anything, the evidence was accumulative because both defendants were amply identified independent of the temporary license.
We hold defendants' second assignment of error to be without merit.
Defendants' third assignment of error concerns their bail before...
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