United States v. Stallings

• Decision Date: 01 August 1969
• Docket Number: No. 17285.,17285.
• Citation: 413 F.2d 200
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Eulice STALLINGS, William Earl Wilson, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

413 F.2d 200 (1969)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Eulice STALLINGS, William Earl Wilson, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 17285.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

July 8, 1969.

Rehearing Denied August 1, 1969.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Palmer K. Ward, Indianapolis, Ind., for defendants-appellants.

K. Edwin Applegate, U. S. Atty., Daniel P. Byron, Asst. U. S. Atty., Indianapolis, Ind., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before FAIRCHILD and KERNER, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, District Judge.¹

ESCHBACH, District Judge.

After a joint trial, defendant Eulice Stallings was found guilty of six offenses in violation of the federal narcotics laws, 26 U.S.C. § 4704(a) and 21 U.S.C. § 174, and defendant William Earl Wilson was found guilty of two offenses in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 4704(a). Stallings was sentenced to a term of five years as to one count and six years as to the remaining five counts; the sentences to run concurrently. Wilson was sentenced to a term of three years as to each count; the sentences to run concurrently, with only one year to be served and the remainder of the sentence to be suspended. Both defendants appeal from their conviction. We affirm.

In their joint brief, defendants contend that their rights under the Fourth Amendment were abridged by the district court's refusal to (1) grant defendant Stallings' pretrial motion to quash the search warrant and (2) grant both defendants' pretrial motion to suppress evidence allegedly seized by virtue of arrests and searches not based upon probable cause.

The testimony taken in the light most favorable to the Government, Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942), is as follows: Defendants were arrested on February 23, 1967 by Lieutenant Jones and Sergeant Ward of the Indianapolis Police Department and Agent Rankin of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. At the time the arrests were made, both Lieutenant Jones and Agent Rankin possessed considerable information about defendant Stallings' suspected narcotics activities. Jones had been in contact with an informant concerning Stallings' suspected narcotics sales. Jones had known the informant for some seven years and had previously been provided at least four tips which had resulted in successful criminal convictions. Moreover, the informant, who was a known narcotic addict, had personally purchased narcotics from Stallings during the two-month period immediately preceding the arrests. On the day prior to the day of the arrest, Stallings had told the informant that he was preparing to travel to Chicago sometime the next day (February 23) to replenish his supply of heroin and cocaine. About noon the next day, the informant advised Jones and Rankin that Stallings had in fact left for Chicago early that morning, and gave the officers both a detailed description of the automobile Stallings was driving and the information obtained from Stallings' wife that Stallings would be returning at about 6 p. m. on that same day. An independent check by police revealed that the automobile described by the informant was registered in the name of Stallings' wife, living at Stallings' address. Furthermore, a four to five-month police surveillance of Stallings' residence, in part conducted by Jones, had revealed frequent visits by known drug addicts.

Possessed of the above information, Agent Rankin obtained both an arrest warrant and a search warrant for a search of Stallings' residence on February 23, 1967, the day of arrest. At approximately 6 p. m., while Rankin, Lt. Jones and Sgt. Ward waited in a police car parked in an alley near Stallings' residence, Stallings appeared driving his automobile toward his home with an unidentified passenger. The officers approached Stallings' automobile in their marked police car. Upon seeing the officers, the passenger, later identified as Wilson, quickly reached for a coat in the back seat and, fumbling with his hands, put it on his lap in front. Both defendants hastily locked all the car doors. The defendants pulled to a stop and after the officers identified themselves, both defendants were placed under arrest and then searched. A pistol was found in Wilson's pocket, and two large plastic bags were found on Wilson's side of the automobile, which upon inspection were revealed to contain narcotics.

Immediately after the arrest, Jones and Rankin went to Stallings' residence, walked up the stairs to his upstairs apartment and opened an unlocked door. After identifying themselves to Mrs. Stallings, they produced and read the search warrant and informed Mrs. Stallings of the previous arrests. Mrs. Stallings pointed underneath a bed, which disclosed three loaded pistols and a quantity of narcotics, including heroin, cocaine, and hashish. A copy of the warrant, together with a receipt for the seized items, were left with Mrs. Stallings.

Probable Cause for Arrest of Stallings

Defendant Stallings contends that the arresting officers were without probable cause for his arrest, and therefore all evidence seized as a result of such unlawful arrest should have been suppressed. We pass, without deciding, the question of whether or not the arrest warrant and supporting affidavit were sufficient in themselves to support a finding of probable cause for arrest. Rather, we treat the arrests as based upon probable cause to believe that a felony was being committed in the arresting officers' presence and hold that in fact such probable cause for belief existed at the time of the arrest. The arrests were valid, therefore, regardless of whether or not the arrest warrant and supporting affidavit were technically valid. Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 344, 51 S.Ct. 153, 75 L.Ed. 374 (1930).

Probable cause for arrest exists where "the facts and circumstances within the arresting officers\' knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that" an offense has been or is being committed. Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 313, 79 S.Ct. 329, 333, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959).

In Draper, a federal narcotics agent had received a tip from a reliable informant that the defendant was to arrive from Chicago on either one of two morning trains. The informant had provided a detailed description of the defendant's physical attributes, the type of clothing he would be wearing, and the fact that the defendant would be carrying a tan zipper bag and would be walking in a very hasty manner. Acting on this tip, the narcotics agent met the first train due in from Chicago, saw a man alight from the train who exactly fit the description given by the informant. The man was carrying a tan zipper bag and began walking hastily toward an exit, whereupon the arrest was made and the suspected narcotics seized. The United States Supreme Court held that, based upon the above personal verifications by the agent of the informant's detailed tip, there existed probable cause and reasonable ground to believe that the defendant was committing a violation of the narcotics laws at the time he was arrested.

The record facts in the instant case supporting a finding of probable cause for arrest are strikingly similar to, and in several respects more convincing than, the facts in Draper. Here, the arresting officers were relying on an informant who not only had been proven reliable on several prior occasions, but who also had had personal contact, through purchases, conversations, and observations, with the defendant. Here the informant's tip, both as to defendant's general narcotics activities and particularly his Chicago trip, was tested and corroborated by the police in at least four separate instances: (1) By investigating the license number provided by the informant and discovering such license belonged to an automobile registered to Stallings wife; (2) by observing known addicts frequenting Stallings' residence, which suggested highly suspicious criminal activity; (3) by observing Stallings' return to his residence at the precise time and in the very car the informant had described; and (4) by observing the furtive and anxious conduct of Wilson in reaching for his coat, and of Stallings in nervously looking around, and of both of them in locking all the car doors upon seeing the officers approach. With the informant's information being thus personally verified, the arresting officers had reasonable grounds to believe that the one remaining unverified piece of the informant's information — that Stallings would be in unlawful possession of narcotics — was likewise true.

Probable Cause for Arrest of Wilson

Defendant Wilson contends that, notwithstanding any finding of probable cause for the arrest of Stallings, no probable cause was shown to exist for his arrest, since the arresting officers admittedly had no warrant for Wilson's arrest and possessed no knowledge relevant to Wilson's identity or possible narcotics activity. Defendant, however, misconceives the nature and extent of the probable cause for Stallings' arrest as it relates to Wilson's apprehension. The arresting officers, as previously demonstrated, had more than ample grounds for belief that Stallings was returning from a trip to Chicago with a large amount of narcotics, particularly heroin and cocaine, secreted somewhere on his person or in his automobile. His indicated arrival time was almost perfectly corroborated by their own visual observations of Stallings' returning automobile, and largely verified the informant's tip and their own suspicions that Stallings was observing an ordered and precise time schedule. Reasonable caution, aided by the experience and the trustworthy information already possessed by both Agent Rankin and Lt. Jones, would dictate that Stallings might well have selected a riding companion in order to provide protection for both the funds required for the purchase in Chicago and...