State v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 02 March 1967
• Docket Number: Nos. 38981,38982,s. 38981
• Citation: 424 P.2d 650,70 Wn.2d 638
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. James WILSON and Haywood Williams, Appellants.

Page 638

70 Wn.2d 638

424 P.2d 650

STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. James WILSON and Haywood Williams, Appellants.

Nos. 38981, 38982.

Supreme Court of Washington, Department 2.

March 2, 1967.

Read, Church & Kleweno, William Dunn, Vancouver, for appellants.

R. DeWitt Jones, Pros. Atty., C. Brent Nevin, Deputy Pros. Atty., Vancouver, for respondent.

HUNTER, Judge.

Defendants (appellants) James Wilson and Haywood Williams were convicted of second-degree burglary in the breaking and entering of the Union Oil Company office building in Vancouver, Washington, April 19, 1966. They appeal from the judgment and sentence of the court entered pursuant to the verdict of the jury. The facts of this case are as follows:

On the night of April 19th, Officer C. E. Chambers was patrolling the industrial area of downtown Vancouver. At approximately 8:20 that evening, well after dark, he noticed a station wagon with foreign license plates, parked on the ramp of the Precision Door Company, a company usually closed for business at that time of the night. In the car, he observed there were three men. The vehicle itself was unlighted and curiously, for that time of night, had its rear loading gate down. The officer then observed a fourth man cross the lightly traveled street from the direction of the Union Oil Company office building.

When this man entered the car, the motor started, the lights went on and the car began to back down the ramp toward the street. Two individuals in the station wagon then noticed the police car behind them. The station wagon stopped, the lights went out and three of the occupants got out of the car and looked under the hood. After a moment the hood was lowered and the loading gate closed. The men got back into the vehicle, the car was started and the lights came on. The driver then backed the car into the street and proceeded down 11th Street at a normal rate of speed.

Officer Chambers' suspicions were aroused and he radioed for assistance in stopping the car. Within minutes his cover arrived and Chambers pulled the station wagon over to the curb. He asked the occupants what lawful business they had in this area of town at night under the circumstances he had observed. They responded that they were looking for a friend but were unable to give the officer his name, and that they had pulled off the street when the lights of their car went out. Receiving only partial identification from the men and not believing their story, Officer Chambers placed all four under arrest for vagrancy.

In the meantime, one of the cover patrol cars went back to where the vehicle had first been sighted, some four blocks away, and radioed back that the Union Oil Company office had been burglarized and that various items of office equipment had been placed outside the building. With that information, Officer Chambers advised the suspects they were under arrest for both vagrancy and suspicion of burglary. He then directed them to get out of the station wagon, and with the assistance of the other officer they were searched. A pocket knife with electrical burns on the blade was seized as a result of this search. The suspects were placed in police vehicles for transport to the county jail.

Officer Robert Adams then proceeded to inventory the contents of the station wagon before having it towed to the police garage. While inventorying the items, he noticed a jar of Union 76 UNOBA grease on the floor of the vehicle between the front and the rear seat. He did not seize this article at the time, but merely noted that it was in the automobile. The next day the car was searched by other officers of the Vancouver police department, who had procured a valid search warrant. The jar of grease was taken by them at this time and recognized as having come from a display case in the burglarized building. The burns on the blade of the pocket knife were later associated with the cutting of an electrical cord connected to one of the office machines taken from the premises. The trial court admitted both the jar of grease and the pocket knife into evidence, after overruling a motion to suppress them from the evidence in the case.

The defendants first contend that the trial court erred in admitting these items into evidence; since both had been obtained as the result of an unlawful arrest and search.

The defendants maintain that Officer Chambers stopped the car and held the defendants for vagrancy only as a pretext to check them out; that no probable cause existed for their arrest for vagrancy. They argue that the subsequent search, though made at a later time when probable cause existed that a burglary had been committed, was tainted by the original illegality in stopping the vehicle. We disagree.

The authority of police officers to make an arrest without a warrant is restricted to (1) where there has been a misdemeanor committed in the presence of an arresting officer, or (2) when the arresting officer has probable cause to believe that the person or persons arrested have committed a felony. State v. Hughlett, 124 Wash. 366, 368, 214 P. 841 (1923); State v. Davis, 69 Wash.Dec.2d 129, 417 P.2d 622 (1966). The constitutional standard for searches and seizures without a warrant requires that the search must be substantially contemporaneous with and incident to a lawful...