United States v. Morris

• Decision Date: 21 July 1971
• Docket Number: No. 20711.,20711.
• Citation: 445 F.2d 1233
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. James Franklin MORRIS, Jr., Appellant.

445 F.2d 1233 (1971)

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. James Franklin MORRIS, Jr., Appellant.

No. 20711.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

July 21, 1971.

Robert A. Warder, Rapid City, S. D., for appellant.

William F. Clayton, U. S. Atty., Thomas P. Ranney, Asst. U. S. Atty., Sioux Falls, S. D., for appellee.

Before MATTHES, Chief Judge, GIBSON, Circuit Judge, and HENLEY, District Judge.^*

MATTHES, Chief Judge.

This case is before us on appeal by James Franklin Morris, Jr. from judgment of conviction entered on a jury verdict finding him guilty under a two-count indictment of unlawfully and knowingly possessing, passing and uttering two counterfeit $100 Federal Reserve Notes in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 472.¹

The sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the jury's verdict is not an issue; indeed there is no suggestion in appellant's brief that he did not commit the offenses as charged. For that matter, such a contention would be futile for the evidence of guilt is strong and overwhelming. We forego a detailed statement of the facts. The following brief résumé will suffice.

Appellant with three associates, two males and one female, left Little Rock, Arkansas, in April 1970, possessing counterfeit $100 Federal Reserve Notes totalling $40,000. They eventually reached the State of South Dakota. On May 11, 1970, in Rapid City, South Dakota, appellant tendered one of the $100 counterfeit notes in payment for merchandise and received the difference between the cost and the amount of the bill in genuine money. A similar transaction took place on the same day in Spearfish, South Dakota. The next day, May 12, appellant was arrested in Buffalo, Wyoming, by the Sheriff of Johnson County, Wyoming. In due time, appellant was returned to South Dakota where he was indicted, tried and found guilty. Appellant contends that he was illegally arrested in Wyoming and also asserts prejudicial error in the trial proceedings. We find no substance in any of the points presented and affirm the judgment.

I.

Although it is not entirely clear from the statement of issues presented on appeal, it seems apparent that appellant contends that he was arrested without probable cause, that the search and seizure made incidental to that arrest was invalid and that the court should have suppressed the articles seized.²

We start from the premise, as recognized by appellant, that the validity of the arrest must be determined by the law of the state where the arrest is made. United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 589, 68 S.Ct. 222, 92 L.Ed. 210 (1948); Turk v. United States, 429 F.2d 1327, 1330 (8 Cir. 1970). Under Wyoming law, a state officer may, without a warrant, arrest one whom he has reasonable or probable grounds to suspect of having committed a felony. State v. George, 32 Wyo. 223, 231 P. 683, 690 (1924).

We are firmly convinced that the Sheriff of Johnson County, Wyoming, acted upon probable cause when he arrested the appellant. This record shows without contradiction that appellant, who was wearing flashy clothing, made purchases of merchandise in places of business in Rapid City and in Spearfish, South Dakota, on May 11. By reason of the suspicious appearance of the $100 bills, Sheriff McGrath of Lawrence County, South Dakota, was alerted. After consultation with the clerks who waited upon appellant, Sheriff McGrath contacted Sheriff Turk of Johnson County, Wyoming, and conveyed to him all of the pertinent information relating to appellant's mode of dress, his size, the fact that he had gold-filled teeth, long sideburns and other distinguishing features. Sheriff McGrath informed Sheriff Turk that a state warrant was being obtained for appellant's arrest.³ Acting upon the information which Sheriff Turk had received from a reliable source, to-wit, Sheriff McGrath, who had in turn obtained reliable information from the clerks who had ample time to view appellant when he passed the counterfeit notes, Sheriff Turk made the arrest on the late afternoon of May 12.

The facts pertinent to the arrest take this case outside the reach of Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306 (1971), where the Supreme Court found an arrest warrant invalid, because the complaint consisted of nothing more than the sheriff's conclusion that the individuals named therein perpetrated the offense described in the complaint. In Whiteley, the court also held that the arresting officer did not possess sufficient factual information to support a finding of probable cause for arrest without a warrant, where the officer had learned through a radio bulletin the description of the suspects, and the sheriff who issued the bulletin had acted on an informer's tip but where the record was devoid of any information which would support either the reliability of the informer or the informer's conclusion that the men were connected with the crime. Here, as noted, the officer issuing the bulletin, namely, Sheriff McGrath, was acting upon reliable information received from known and reliable persons.

We therefore conclude upon the authority of numerous decisions by this court (e. g., United States v. Wahlquist, 438 F.2d 219 (8th Cir.), cert. denied 402 U.S. 1010, 91 S.Ct. 2195, 29 L.Ed.2d 432 (1971); United States v. Mitchell, 425 F.2d 1353 (8th Cir.), cert. denied 400 U.S. 853, 91 S.Ct. 85, 27 L.Ed.2d 90 (1970); United States v. Lugo-Baez, 412 F.2d 435 (8th Cir. 1969), cert. denied 397 U.S. 966, 90 S.Ct. 1000, 25 L. Ed.2d 257 (1970)), that the Wyoming Sheriff acted upon probable cause in arresting appellant and that the search and seizure are immune from attack.

Neither do we find any basis for reversing on the ground of a violation of Rule 5(a) or Rule 40(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure which provide that the arrested person shall be taken without unnecessary delay before the nearest available commissioner. This issue has been the subject of consideration in any cases. The requirements of the foregoing rules and the teachings of the Supreme Court in McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819 (1943) and Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957) are designed to frustrate law-enforcing officers from detaining the arrested person for an unnecessary period of time to enable the officer to extract a confession from the arrested individual. But this salutary principle is not applicable where the person under arrest is in the custody and under the control of local and not federal officers, unless, of course, the state officers are acting at the direction of or in concert with the federal officers, or there is collaboration between the federal and state authorities. See Grooms v. United States, 429 F.2d 839, 842-843 (8th Cir. 1970), and the numerous cases there cited. Here the teachings of McNabb and Mallory do not apply because the initial action was instituted by the South Dakota Sheriff without knowledge on the part of any government officers, and the arrest was made by the Wyoming state official again without knowledge by federal officials. A Secret Service Agent of the United States Government did not enter the picture until May 14, two days after the arrest. There is evidence to show that on the same day that the federal officer questioned appellant, he was taken before a United States Commissioner in Wyoming. In short, we find no rational basis for holding that the appellant's rights were in any respect prejudiced by the proceedings which occurred between his arrest by the Sheriff and the time that he was taken before a commissioner.

II

During the trial, the district judge interrogated witnesses. Appellant did not object or take exceptions to the court's action but now claims that the court's intervention constituted plain error. We disagree. It is true that Judge Bogue did on occasion interrogate the witnesses. A number of his inquiries occurred in hearings conducted out of the presence of the jury. In any event, we detect nothing offensive or prejudicial in the court's interrogation. It is manifest that the judge was probing for the purpose of ferreting out the truth of what occurred.⁴

III

Neither do we find any substance in the contention that the court erred in permitting the witnesses to make an in-court identification of the appellant. The court, out of an abundance of caution, conducted a pre-trial hearing for the purpose of determining whether the procedures promulgated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L. Ed.2d 1149 (1967); Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 18 L. Ed.2d 1178 (1967), and Stovall v. Denno, 388...