Williams v. State
| Decision Date | 23 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 64484,64484 |
| Citation | 295 S.E.2d 361,163 Ga.App. 866 |
| Parties | WILLIAMS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Wallace C. Clayton, Melodie H. Clayton, Austell, for appellant.
Thomas J. Charron, Dist. Atty., Joe Chambers, Asst. Dist. Atty., Marietta, for appellee.
Michael Paul Williams was convicted of criminal attempt to commit theft by extortion and causing a false public alarm. He was sentenced to five years consecutively on each count, the last five on probation. He brings this appeal enumerating five alleged errors. Held:
1. At about 2:00 to 3:00 a. m. on the morning of June 20, 1981 the druggist at Bells Ferry Pharmacy (the only pharmacy open 24 hours a day in the Marietta area) received a telephone call from a person whose voice the druggist concluded was that of a white male. This man stated that a bomb was planted in the drug store and would be detonated remotely by the caller if the druggist did not collect together all the drugs of three certain kinds and deliver those drugs to a designated drop (a point a few hundred feet from the appellant's then current residence). Within the next hour and a half, the same person called three more times, continuing to threaten to bomb the store if the drugs were not delivered as demanded, and assuring the druggist the extorter knew how to do what he threatened. Also, the extorter discussed how the bomb would be disarmed and removed from the store. The deadline set for detonation of the bomb twice passed without any explosion.
Meantime, the druggist notified the police. The police captain in charge of the night watch arrived at the drug store in time to listen in on the last conversation between the druggist and the caller. Additionally, a part-time cashier for the drug store (as well as an employee at the police station) momentarily overheard one of the conversations between the druggist and the caller. The druggist spoke to the caller for a period in excess of twenty minutes during the time from 2:00 until 4:00 a. m. The police captain overheard a ten-minute conversation at about 3:30 a. m., and the cashier overheard less than a minute of conversation at about 3:00 a. m. Attempts to have the telephone company trace the call were unsuccessful. After the last call at about 3:30 a. m., the druggist wanted to take the drugs to the designated drop off point. However, the police captain obtained a delay pending another call so that another trace effort could be made.
At about 4:00 a. m. while waiting for a call, the druggist and the captain were standing at the door of the pharmacy looking out upon a deserted shopping center parking lot. Both observed a car drive from the area of an adjoining highway slowly across the parking lot. At the front door of the drug store, the car more or less stopped and the driver looked through the door and seemingly saw the druggist and presumably the police officer. The car then proceeded on out of the parking lot away from the area. The police captain thought it was unusual for a car to drive through the parking area (instead of on an adjacent roadway) so slowly and then drive away after the driver apparently observed the police officers. This, in connection with the bomb threat and the extorter's promise to remove the bomb upon delivery of the drugs, prompted the captain to direct one of his patrol officers to follow and investigate the passing vehicle. About a minute later, the captain was asked to come to the place where the car had been stopped and continue the investigation. In another minute (altogether about two minutes after the car passed the drug store), the captain arrived at the stopped vehicle. He asked the driver to identify himself and to explain his activity of driving through the parking area at 4:00 a. m. and not coming in, inasmuch as the drug store was the only nearby business that was open at that time of the morning. The driver gave an explanation in effect that he thought the store was closed, but had been looking for some pain reliever. While the driver was making the explanation, the captain recognized the speaker voice as that of the person who had made the bomb threat and attempted to extort the drugs.
The driver (appellant Williams) was taken to the police station. There the captain personally prepared a list of statements and questions which he had heard the caller make on the phone. The captain then composed a taped voice lineup by having the appellant Williams and five police officers read the same words from the list and recording the words. Thereafter, the druggist and the cashier were given the opportunity to listen to the tape recording and each unequivocally and correctly identified the same voice (number 4) as the voice that had made the threatening calls to the drug store. In each instance, this was the voice of appellant Williams.
2. In his first enumeration of error, Williams argues that there existed no grounds of probable cause for his detention and arrest. In the absence of probable cause for his arrest, he asserts the voice identification procedures that followed thereafter were tainted and inadmissible. Thus, Williams argues the trial court erred in failing to suppress the identification evidence.
Because acts of peace officers in detaining and questioning a citizen are necessarily a curtailment of his right to go about his business unmolested, and because investigation and questioning are necessary elements of crime prevention and detection, the exigencies of the situation as they reasonably appear at the time must dictate the extent of intrusion into constitutionally protected areas. Momentary detention and questioning are permissible if based upon specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, justify a reasonable course of inquiry not based on mere inclination, caprice or harassment. An authorized officer may stop an automobile and conduct a limited investigative inquiry of its occupants, without probable cause, if he has reasonable grounds for such action; a founded suspicion is all that is necessary, some basis from which the court can determine that the detention was not arbitrary or harassing. Brooks v. State, 129 Ga.App. 109, 111, 198 S.E.2d 892. The Fourth Amendment does not require a policeman who lacks the precise level of information necessary for...
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