Stewart v. State, CR
| Citation | 289 Ark. 272,711 S.W.2d 787 |
| Decision Date | 23 June 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. CR,CR |
| Parties | Danny STEWART, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. 85-191. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Brad J. Beavers & W. Frank Morledge, Forrest City, for appellant.
Steve Clark, Atty. Gen. by Jerome T. Kearney, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.
The appellant, Danny Stewart, was charged with having murdered Edna Jolly on March 7, 1984. He was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. His principal argument for reversal is that his confession to the police was the product of an illegal arrest and should have been suppressed. The State responds that the arrest was proper because the police acted in good faith within the Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). We cannot uphold the conduct of the police or of the municipal judge with respect to the arrest warrant and must reverse the judgment of conviction.
Mrs. Jolly's murder in March was an unsolved crime for almost five months. On August 1 Linda Hancock reported to the Forrest City police that she was getting obscene phone calls. A tap placed on her telephone showed that another call received by Ms. Hancock later that day had been made from the house in which Danny was living with his parents. Ms. Hancock described the caller's voice as that of a young black male. Officer Bill Dooley went about getting a warrant for Danny's arrest. The officer filled in a printed form of Affidavit For Arrest Warrant, in which Linda Hancock was to swear that Danny Stewart had made an obscene phone call to her. Officer Dooley took the affidavit to Ms. Hancock's home and obtained her signature. She did not swear to it. Instead, the officer took the signed form to the office of the municipal court clerk, where a deputy filled in and signed the jurat without having talked to Ms. Hancock.
Municipal Judge John D. Bridgforth had signed a pad of 50 or more blank arrest warrants and had authorized the clerk to issue warrants on her own after having read the supporting affidavit and made certain it had been signed. Judge Bridgforth testified that he never saw the affidavit in this instance and made no judicial determination of reasonable cause for the arrest of Danny Stewart. The clerk, however, filled in one of the presigned warrants, charging Danny Stewart with harassment by communication, and gave it to Officer Dooley. He turned it over to another officer, who arrested Stewart and brought him in for questioning. Stewart was given the usual Miranda warning. He was first questioned about the phone calls and then about the murder of Edna Jolly. Stewart signed a confession in which he told how he had gone to a house on Franklin Street and entered by breaking a large window, after having first broken a small window in the back door. He found "an old white lady" in the bedroom. When she began yelling he hit her more than once with the piece of wood he had used to break the windows. He carried her outside and left her in a ditch by a railroad track. The details he gave corresponded to what the police had found back in March. The confession was the cornerstone of the State's case.
We have already decided to accept and adhere to the Leon relaxation of the exclusionary rule. Lincoln v. State, 285 Ark. 107, 685 S.W.2d 166 (1985). In the case at bar, however, the key element of good faith is lacking. Officer Dooley knew that Linda Hancock had not made her accusation under oath, an essential element of an affidavit. He could not have acted in good faith in obtaining the arrest warrant on the strength of that spurious affidavit.
The conduct of Judge Bridgforth was inexcusable. The Leon opinion states that the good faith exception will not apply in cases "where the issuing magistrate wholly abandoned his judicial role." Leon, p. 3422. In Arkansas the magistrate's judicial role is clearly stated in Criminal Procedure Rule 7.1(b):
(b) In addition, a judicial officer may issue a warrant for the arrest of a person if, from affidavit, recorded testimony, or other information, it appears there is reasonable cause to believe an offense has been committed and the person committed it.
Judge Bridgforth testified that he had authorized the court clerk to issue warrants of arrest for misdemeanors. This warrant was for a misdemeanor, the making of an obscene call. But Rule 7.2(a)...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Stevens v. State
...truly be an "exception" in Arkansas, as the supreme court refused to apply it to salvage unconstitutional searches in Stewart v. State, 289 Ark. 272, 711 S.W.2d 787 (1986), and Herrington v. State, 287 Ark. 228, 697 S.W.2d 899 (1985). However, my survey of cases since 1986 detected only nin......
-
United States v. Barnes
...the suppression hearing that Hoffman’s misdemeanor warrants were issued without a probable-cause determination"); Stewart v. State , 289 Ark. 272, 711 S.W.2d 787, 788 (1986) (adopting Leon and concluding that the "conduct of Judge Bridgforth was inexcusable" because he signed blank arrest w......
-
Fairchild v. Lockhart
...3 The Supreme Court was again faced with, and avoided, the opportunity to address the subject legislation in Stewart v. State, 289 Ark. 272, 711 S.W.2d 787 (1986). In Stewart, the Court rejected the suggestion that the good-faith exception might support admission of a defendant's confession......
-
U.S. v. Koerth
...without meaningfully and critically evaluating the evidence presented at the probable cause hearing. See, e.g., Stewart v. State, 289 Ark. 272, 711 S.W.2d 787 (1986). Cf. Brown, 832 F.2d at 997; United v. Breckenridge, 782 F.2d 1317, 1321 (5th Cir.1986). Although we have difficulty understa......