Walker v. State, 55140
| Decision Date | 16 February 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 3,No. 55140,55140,3 |
| Parties | Joanne K. C. WALKER v. The STATE |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Keenan, Wilkerson & Cox, Don C. Keenan, Gerald E. Wilkerson, Atlanta, for appellant.
Lewis R. Slaton, Dist. Atty., Joseph J. Drolet, Donald J. Stein, A. Thomas Jones, Asst. Dist. Attys., Atlanta, for appellee.
Walker appeals her conviction for criminal trespass and possession of cocaine, enumerating error on the court's refusal (1) to grant a writ of habeas corpus following her preliminary hearing, (2) to grant her motion to suppress evidence, and (3) to direct a verdict in her favor. We find no error and affirm.
An Atlanta police officer arrested the appellant inside the Peachtree Plaza Hotel on charges of prostitution. At that time security personnel acting as agents for the Hotel photographed the appellant, warning her that her photograph would be on file and if she were again found on the Hotel's premises she would be subject to arrest for criminal trespass. At a later date, a Hotel security guard spotted the appellant, verified her identity with the file photograph, then approached her and, after obtaining verbal verification of her identity, told her she was being arrested. Atlanta police officers were called to the scene and took custody of the appellant. As they escorted her from the hotel, she attempted to pass certain of her personal belongings to an acquaintance standing nearby, but this transaction was prevented. After she was placed in a patrol car, her purse and makeup kit were removed from her possession, and a search of the makeup kit revealed a vial containing cocaine.
1. The appellant was arrested, bound over after a preliminary hearing, indicted, tried, and convicted. Her preindictment application for a writ of habeas corpus was based upon alleged errors in her preliminary hearing. It is now well settled that errors, if any, in a preliminary hearing will not, in and of themselves, afford grounds for relief when the defendant is subsequently indicted by a grand jury. Baldwin v. Sapp, 238 Ga. 597, 234 S.E.2d 513 (1977); Day v. State, 237 Ga. 538, 228 S.E.2d 913 (1976).
2. An analysis of the arrest and search here shows that the arrest was lawful and the search was properly incident to the lawful arrest. The evidence shows clearly that the arrest was made by the Hotel security guard, a private citizen, and not, as the appellant contends, by the Atlanta police officer who subsequently appeared on the scene. Whether this arrest...
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