United States v. Ruffin
| Decision Date | 23 January 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 15764,15803.,15764 |
| Citation | 389 F.2d 76 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Wilbert RUFFIN and Raymond Leon Belle, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
David H. Bremer, Harold G. Baker, Jr., E. St. Louis, Ill., for appellants.
Carl W. Feickert, U. S. Atty., Joel A. Kunin, Asst. U. S. Atty., E. St. Louis, Ill., for appellee. Arthur J. Ginsburg, Asst. U. S. Atty., of counsel.
Before SCHNACKENBERG, CASTLE and KILEY, Circuit Judges.
The defendants-appellants, Wilbert Ruffin and Raymond Leon Belle, prosecute these appeals from the respective judgment of conviction and sentence entered as to each following a jury trial on a two-count indictment charging them jointly with the unlawful interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle, and with the unlawful receipt and concealment of the vehicle, moving in interstate commerce, with knowledge that it had been stolen, in violation of 18 U.S. C.A. § 2312 and § 2313. Both of the defendants were convicted on each of the counts. Ruffin was sentenced to five years imprisonment on each count, the sentences to run concurrently. Bell received four-year concurrent sentences.
The defendants predicate the existence of error requiring reversal on the ground, inter alia, that the critical evidence upon which their convictions are based emanates from and is the product of an illegal arrest, made without probable cause. Pre-trial motions to suppress, denied by the District Court, objections interposed during the trial, and motions for acquittal and for a new trial, preserved the issue for appellate review.
The defendants did not testify. The evidence concerning the arrest of the defendants, including that adduced at the hearing on the motion to suppress as well as the testimony at the subsequent trial, establishes the following facts.
The arrest was made without a warrant by Sergeant Edward R. Wiegers, a member of the East St. Louis, Illinois, Police Department, employed on off-duty hours as a private security officer at the Holiday Inn Motel in East St. Louis. During the course of his duties he patrolled the area around the motel. While so employed on November 24, 1964, at approximately 2:15 A.M. he observed a white 1960 model Chevrolet automobile pull into the motel parking lot. It parked on the lot, facing outward away from the motel, against a curb or retaining wall adjacent to the street, with its lights out and the motor running. As Wiegers approached the vehicle he observed the defendant Ruffin running between two parked cars, parked facing the motel and in close proximity thereto, toward the Chevrolet. Wiegers pulled the automobile he was driving behind the parked Chevrolet in a position to block its movement. After identifying himself as a police officer, Wiegers asked Ruffin what he was doing and what his business was on the parking lot. Ruffin informed him that he had come onto the lot because he had to urinate. Wiegers told Ruffin to get back in the Chevrolet, informed defendant Belle that he was a police officer, and instructed Belle, who had remained seated in the Chevrolet, to remain in the vehicle. Wiegers investigated the area between the parked cars from which Ruffin had come but found no evidence that Ruffin had urinated. Wiegers asked the defendants their names and addresses and inquired as to whom the automobile belonged. Belle replied that it belonged to his brother-in-law, Henry Johnson. While talking with Belle, Wiegers noticed a large amount of clothing strewn about on the back seat and floor of the Chevrolet. About that time one of the porters at the motel came out to empty some trash. Wiegers instructed him to call the police station for a police crew. The defendants were detained in the Chevrolet, blocked between the curb and Wiegers' car, where Wieger had instructed them to remain, to await arrival of the police crew. Wiegers testified that after observing the clothing he had placed the defendants under arrest "merely for investigation".
Several minutes later two city police officers arrived in a squad car. Wiegers asked the officers to obtain an issuance report on the Missouri license plate displayed on the Chevrolet. A few minutes thereafter, about 2:25 A.M., the East St. Louis police dispatcher advised that the license plate had been reported "stolen or lost" to the St. Louis Police Department. On receipt of this information, the defendants were ordered to get into the squad car. They refused, a scuffle ensued, and the defendants were handcuffed, placed in the squad car, and taken to the police station.1 Wiegers removed the clothing from the Chevrolet and took the clothing to the police station. The Chevrolet was towed to a garage.
The record reflects that it was subsequently ascertained that the Chevrolet, which was titled in Missouri, belonged to a Mr. Samuel Long. The vehicle had been left parked in front of his St. Louis residence on Sunday afternoon, November 22, 1964. The next morning Mrs. Long discovered that it was missing.
The government contends, first, that under the circumstances here disclosed Wiegers' arrest of the defendants, although made without a warrant, was legal because it was based on probable cause or reasonable grounds.2 The government further contends that if the arrest was unlawful, nevertheless, the convictions of the defendants are not the result of evidence which was "tainted fruit of the poisonous tree".
In connection with its first contention the government urges that Wiegers on observing the clothing strewn in the back of the Chevrolet had reasonable grounds for believing that it had been stolen from some automobile of a guest parked on the motel parking lot, and to arrest the defendants on this premise. The government points to the early morning hour, the fact that the defendants parked with the vehicle's lights out but with the motor running, Belle's remaining behind the wheel of the car, Ruffin's running from between the parked cars of guests of the motel, and Ruffin's apparently false statement as to the reason for the defendants' presence on the lot. But there are other factors equally pertinent. The defendants were detained in the Chevrolet, which was blocked at the curb, to await the arrival of the police crew which was summoned. At the point of such detention — when Wiegers interrupted the two men and restricted their liberty of movement — they were under arrest both from an objective standpoint on the facts of this case (Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 103, 80 S.Ct. 168, 4 L.Ed.2d 134), and according to the...
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