Welch v. State
| Decision Date | 16 May 1925 |
| Docket Number | A-4766. |
| Citation | 236 P. 68,30 Okla.Crim. 330 |
| Parties | WELCH v. STATE. |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
Syllabus by the Court.
Section 2471, Comp. Okl. Stat. 1921, provides that an arrest may be made without a warrant (1) when the person arrested has committed a felony, although not in the officer's presence; (2) when a felony has been committed and the officer has reasonable cause for believing that the person arrested committed it; and (3) on a charge made, on reasonable cause, of the commission of a felony by the person arrested.
Where personal property is said to have been stolen, it is not incumbent upon a peace officer to first ascertain whether the person in whose possession it is found claims ownership in the property.
If a constable or other peace officer arrest a person without a warrant he is not bound to show in his justification a felony actually committed to render the arrest lawful, but if he suspects one on his own knowledge of facts, or upon facts communicated to him by others, and thereupon he has reasonable ground to believe that the accused has been guilty of a felony, the arrest is not unlawful.
If the facts are such that a reasonably prudent man would have believed accused guilty, and would have acted upon that belief, a police officer is justified in making an arrest without a warrant, although subsequent events prove that no offense had been committed.
To justify an arrest without a warrant, the officer must not act upon facts indicative of guilt when at the same time he has knowledge of other facts indicative of innocence. In such a case the reasonable grounds should be deduced from a consideration of all the facts known to the officer.
The written return to the execution of a search warrant is ordinarily the best evidence of what the executing officers did. The refusal of the court to permit the defendant to show this by the written return, under the circumstances here, was error.
An accused person is not to be subjected to any more restraint than is necessary for his arrest and detention.
Jurors who have formed or expressed an opinion based upon common rumor or newspaper reports are not necessarily disqualified.
Where a jury panel is challenged on the ground that no negroes were drawn on the panel, and the jury commissioners testify that they selected the jurors from the tax rolls of the county without any discrimination against negroes, and the showing is not specifically controverted, the trial court commits no error in overruling the motion to suppress the panel.
Appeal from District Court, Muskogee County; Guy F. Nelson, Judge.
John L Welch was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, and he appeals. Reversed and remanded on rehearing. Original opinion withdrawn.
W. H Twine, H. T. Walker and C. W. Wesley, all of Muskogee, for plaintiff in error.
Geo. F Short, Atty. Gen., and N.W. Gore, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The amended information in this case charges that the plaintiff in error, John Welch, a negro, willfully and unlawfully, with a premeditated design to effect the death of Homer Teaff shot the said Homer Teaff with a pistol and a rifle and struck him on the head with a cotton hoe, crushing his skull, from which mortal wounds so inflicted by the defendant Homer Teaff died, done with the felonious intent to kill and murder Homer Teaff.
The evidence shows: That one Frank L. Hendricks, a negro cotton farmer, lived on Brushy Mountain in Muskogee county, adjoining the cotton farm and premises occupied by the defendant and his wife, negroes about 58 and 30 years of age respectively, and that Hendricks had recently been in possession of both farms. That growing out of some business transactions the two men became bitter enemies. That a short time prior to this homicide the home of the defendant on these leased premises was burned while the defendant was in Muskogee, under circumstances indicating that the burning was done to conceal a robbery. After the fire benevolent neighbors and friends gave the defendant some galvanized sheet iron, from which he constructed a temporary shack home; they also gave to him and his wife some quilts, counterpanes, cooking utensils, and other articles. On and prior to the 27th day of June, 1922, the defendant and his wife had been chopping cotton on his premises, and while doing so they fastened the windows and locked the door of their tin shack.
On the 27th day of June this neighbor, Hendricks, made an affidavit for a search warrant, as follows:
Upon this showing, on this same day, the judge of the city court issued a search warrant, directed to the sheriff, a part of which reads as follows:
"You are therefore commanded, in the daytime, to make immediate search of the person of John L. Welch, or in the premises situated [236 P. 70] at 9 miles southeast of Muskogee, on Brushy Mountain road, for the following described property: One 32 Winchester rifle, eyeglasses, one pair black slippers, two feather pillows, two quilts, one hair brush, one comb, one pair scissors, one spool white thread No. 50, and if you find the same, or any part thereof, to bring it forthwith before me at Muskogee."
The return on the search warrant is as follows:
The defendant sought to introduce this return in the manner following:
The refusal of the court to permit this return to go to the jury is assigned as error. This assignment will be treated later in this opinion.
Under authority of this search warrant, on the day it was issued, two deputy sheriffs, W. O. Manley and the deceased, Homer Teaff, went to the shack home of the defendant, while the defendant and his wife were in a field about a quarter of a mile distant chopping cotton, and in the absence of the defendant and his wife, according to the testimony of Manley, they broke into the shack and seized certain articles which they carried to the house of Hendricks, where Hendricks and his wife identified portions of the property seized as their property, whereupon these officers delivered and turned over to the Hendricks this property which they claimed. They then retraced their steps and proceeded to the cotton field for the purpose of apprehending and arresting the defendant and his wife.
From this point on the recital of the facts and circumstances by different ones of the state's witnesses is confusing. Manley, the surviving deputy sheriff, testified in part as follows:
If the search and seizure were made as above outlined and the testimony of this surviving officer is true, these two officers were justified in making this arrest without a warrant, under the provisions of section 2471, Comp. Stat. 1921, a portion of which provides that an arrest may be made without a warrant (1) when the person arrested has committed a felony, although not in the officer's presence; (2) when a felony has been committed and the officer has reasonable cause for believing that the person arrested committed it; and (3) on a charge made, upon reasonable cause, of the commission of a felony by the person arrested.
Where personal property is said to have been stolen, it is not incumbent upon a peace officer to first...
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