State v. Walker, CX-97-418

• Decision Date: 13 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. CX-97-418,CX-97-418
• Citation: 584 N.W.2d 763
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. James Antino WALKER, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 763

584 N.W.2d 763

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. James Antino WALKER, Appellant.

No. CX-97-418.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Aug. 13, 1998.

Syllabus by the Court

Under the totality of the circumstances, the police lacked probable cause to arrest an individual when the only evidence police had at the time of the arrest was an anonymous letter without verification of the reliability of the letter writer or corroboration of a range of detailed information by independent police investigation. As a result, evidence obtained in the search incident to this illegal arrest must be suppressed as the fruit of an illegal search.

S. Mark Vaught, Gregory M. Pennella, St. Paul, for appellant.

Paul R. Scoggin, Asst. Hennepin County Atty., Minneapolis, for respondent.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

GILBERT, Justice.

The issue presented in this criminal appeal is whether under the totality of the circumstances an independent investigation by police, instigated by the receipt of an anonymous letter, provided sufficient corroboration of statements in the letter to establish probable cause to make a warrantless felony arrest. The police arrested appellant James Antino Walker without a warrant in February 1996 for the murder of two men. In a search incident to this warrantless arrest, police officers discovered approximately 3.5 grams of crack cocaine in six or seven chunks in Walker's pants pocket. Although Walker was never charged with the two murders that he was arrested for, he was charged with and convicted of third-degree possession of crack cocaine. The court of appeals affirmed in an unpublished decision. Because we conclude that the police did not have probable cause to arrest Walker for murder, the crack cocaine discovered in the search incident to the arrest should have been suppressed as the fruit of an illegal search. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals.

Walker first came to the attention of the police on December 13, 1995, when the Golden Valley Police Department received the following verbatim anonymous typewritten letter in the mail stating that Walker was involved in a murder:

I AM WRITING TO YOU ABOUT THE MURDER OF THE GUY ON THE BICYCLE LAST SUMMER. I CAN,T KEEP QUIET ANYMORE. ITS RUINING MY LIFE. I CANT TELL YOU WHO I AM BECAUSE I WAS THERE I WAS DRIVING THE CAR. BUT I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

I WAS AT A HOUSE IN PLYMOUTH WITH JAMES WALKER AND LEE CROOKS. LEE OWED JAMES A LOT OF MONEY FOR CRACK THAT HE SMOKED. JAMES WAS TALKING ABOUT ANOTHER DRUG DEALERW WHO NEEDED TO BE KILLED. LEE STARTED TO BRAG ABOUT BEING WILLING TO KILL THE GUY INSTEAD OF PAYING FOR THE CRACK. WE LEFT PLYMOUTH TO GO TO NORTH MPLS FOR MORE CRACK. ON THE WAY WE PASSED THE GUY ON THE BIKE JAMES HANDED LEE A GUN AND TOLD HIM TO PROVE HE WAS MAN ENOUGH TO KILL SOMEONE. JAMES TOLD ME TO TURN AROUND WE PASSED THE GUY AGAIN AND TURNED THE CAR AROUND AGAIN WHEN WE DROVE UP BY THE GUY AGAIN THE GUY STOPPED HIS BIKE AND LEE SHOT HIM. WE DROVE AWAY THEY WERE L AUGHING WE DIDNT KNOW THE GUY DIED TIL LATER.

JAMES LIVES IN RICHFIELD ON ABOUT 73 RD AND PORTLAND LEE IS FROM THE MISTIC LAKE RESERVATION IN PRIOR LAKE HIS REAL NAME IS VANCE LEE CROOKS AND HE IS A INDIAN THATS ALL I KNOW.

The police presumed that the anonymous letter referred to the murder of a man named Loren Bussey. Bussey had been shot and killed by a .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun while riding his bicycle in Golden Valley in August 1995.

In response to the anonymous letter, the Golden Valley Police began investigating the murder allegation with the help of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office. Detective Michael Spillane, who had 21 years of experience with the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, was the detective in charge of the murder investigation. Investigators confirmed that both Walker and Crooks were actual persons and that Walker indeed lived near 73rd and Portland in Richfield. At this time, Walker was also under a separate investigation for suspected drug dealing. On December 27, 1995, the police executed a warrant to search Walker's home as a part of the drug investigation. This search warrant is not included in the record, and Walker does not contest its validity. The parties have not provided us with any information as to the basis for or legality of that search and we, therefore, do not address or decide that matter. In the search of Walker's home, the police found a box of .40 caliber bullets, but they did not find a .40 caliber gun. They also found a photo of Walker lying on a bed with an automatic handgun beside him.

The next day, the police interviewed James Bliss, the husband of a woman who was living with Walker. Bliss told police that during the summer of 1995, someone had burglarized his home and stolen many guns, including a .40 caliber Sig Sauer handgun and a 9mm Glock. Bliss said he believed that Walker might have been involved in the burglary. Police showed Bliss the photo of Walker with the automatic handgun that they had seized in the search of Walker's home. Bliss stated that he believed that the gun in the photo was his stolen 9mm Glock. Detective Spillane testified at the Rasmussen hearing, however, that he could not tell from the photo whether the gun beside Walker was a .40 caliber handgun or a 9mm Glock.

Police attempted to trace Bliss's stolen guns in order to link them to Walker. A police firearms examiner determined that the bullet that killed Bussey was "consistent" with having been fired from a .40 caliber Sig Sauer, but the .40 caliber Sig Sauer taken in the Bliss burglary was never recovered. Police learned that another .40 caliber gun taken in the burglary had been impounded in October 1995 when Minneapolis police arrested a man for an unrelated crime. There is no evidence that Walker had any connection with this man.

In the midst of the investigation, on February 7, 1996, police found the body of Daniel Nuss in Golden Valley. Nuss had been shot and killed the previous day. Ballistics analysis revealed that Nuss had been killed by the same .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun that was used to kill Bussey.

At the time police discovered Nuss's body, they had not confirmed any additional information in the anonymous letter. Specifically, the police had not ascertained that anyone mentioned in the letter had participated in the events described in the letter. The police had the letter analyzed for fingerprints, but found no usable prints. Their attempt to determine if the letter was written on a typewriter or on a word processor provided no help in identifying the writer. Nor had the police linked Walker to any of the weapons that Bliss had reported stolen. The only link between Walker and the murder was the anonymous letter but the police also questioned the reliability of the letter. At the Rasmussen hearing on December 6, 1996, Detective Spillane was asked on cross-examination if, based on his 21 years of experience as a police officer, he considered the letter to contain truthful information. He testified, "I guess I don't really feel comfortable coming to a conclusion on that * * * * I really can't say."

Nonetheless, on February 8, the day after they discovered Nuss's body, several detectives from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, without an arrest warrant, went to Walker's new home in Mound to arrest Walker for the murders of Bussey and Nuss. An unregistered car was parked in Walker's driveway. In an apparent effort to determine whether Walker was at home and then to get Walker out of his home, the detectives asked an officer from the Mound Police Department to ask Walker about the unregistered car. Walker came outside to talk to the Mound police officer about the car. While Walker and the officer were talking, the detectives approached Walker and arrested him in the driveway of his home for the murders of Bussey and Nuss. One of the detectives conducted a search incident to the arrest and discovered in Walker's left front pants pocket a bag containing six or seven rocks of crack cocaine.

After the arrest, the police obtained a search warrant for Walker's house in Mound and searched the house later that day. Even though Walker had been arrested for two murders, the basis for the search warrant focused entirely on narcotics; officers did not list guns or other weapons as items that they were specifically searching for. No weapons were uncovered at the house in Mound, although another .40 caliber bullet was found in the living room. Police did not discover any additional evidence in Walker's house that could potentially connect him to either murder.

Walker was never charged with the murders of Bussey and Nuss nor with the alleged burglary of Bliss's home. On June 19, 1996, however, Walker was charged with third-degree possession of a controlled substance under Minn.Stat. §§ 1152.03, subds. 2(1) and 3(a); 609.101, subd. 3 (Supp.1995) for the crack cocaine found in the search incident to his arrest for murder. At the Rasmussen hearing, Walker sought to have the crack cocaine suppressed. He argued that his arrest was illegal because the police did not have probable cause to arrest him for murder and, therefore, the crack was illegally seized. The trial court ruled that the police did have probable cause to arrest Walker for murder and therefore the arrest and the search incident to the arrest were valid and the crack cocaine was lawfully seized.

At Walker's trial, the state called the Minneapolis city chemist to testify about the substance found in the bag in Walker's pocket. The chemist had tested one of six or seven chunks in the bag and determined that it was crack cocaine. She testified that she had tested only one of the chunks because the chunks were all in a single package and had the same color and texture; her standard practice in this situation was to test only one chunk. She explained that she then weighed all of the chunks in the bag, which had a total...