Young v. State, 218

• Decision Date: 10 March 1964
• Docket Number: No. 218,218
• Citation: 234 Md. 125,198 A.2d 91
• Parties: Robert YOUNG v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 125

234 Md. 125

198 A.2d 91

Robert YOUNG v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 218.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 10, 1964.

Bruce C. Williams, Severna Park, for appellant.

Robert S. Bourbon, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas B. Finan, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, and Marvin H. Anderson and Julian B. Stevens, Jr., State's Atty. and Deputy State's Atty., respectively, for Anne Arundel County, Annapolis, on the brief), for appellee.

Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, HORNEY, MARBURY and SYBERT, JJ.

HORNEY, Judge.

We are confronted in this case with a question as to whether or not a police officer acted lawfully when he arrested the defendant without a warrant, and confiscated articles of property from an alleged accomplice, which were admitted as evidence against the defendant on his trial for larceny.

There is no dispute as to the facts concerning the arrest and seizure. In the evening of December 7, 1962, a security officer at a department store in Glen Burnie was notified by a store guard that 'he had observed two suspects in the parking lot checking a number of cars [and] trying the door handles.' The 'suspects' were described simply as 'two colored males.'

Remembering that he had earlier seen a county police officer (who was off duty at the time) shopping in the store, the security officer had him paged. When the police officer appeared, the security officer relayed to him the report he had received from the guard, and, together, they went out to the sidewalk in front of the store, where the police officer saw two colored men 'walking through the [rows of] cars.' The defendant Robert Young, was walking thirty to fifty feet ahead of Joseph Anderson, who seemed to be following the defendant and had both arms full of 'articles, packages [and] clothing.' The defendant walked up to his car, a Buick, opened the trunk, and then, seeing the officers, 'slammed the trunk lid back down and began walking off rapidly.' Anderson just stood at the rear of the Buick holding the packages.

The security officer went to Anderson and the police officer went after the defendant, caught up with him, and, showing him his badge, told him he was under arrest (according to the police officer he arrested the defendant 'for suspicion of larceny, investigation actually') and instructed him 'to come back to the car where [the other man] was.' From there both Anderson and the defendant (along with the parcels) were taken to an office in the store for questioning.

Under questioning, the defendant 'denied any knowledge of the packages,' but Anderson stated that he and the defendant had broken into a car on the parking lot and taken the parcels from it, and offered to point out the vehicle to his interrogators. He led them to a station wagon, the right wing-window of which had been broken and pried open. Other packages were lying on the parking lot along side of the station wagon. The owner of the station wagon, having been located, identified the parcels as his, and a list of the articles and their values was made of those Anderson was carrying, and, presumably, also those found beside the station wagon. The total value, according to the list, was $179.10. There is nothing in the record to indicate the value of such of the articles Anderson had in his possession when the defendant was arrested.

Neither Anderson nor the defendant took the stand to testify in their own behalf, but the defendant objected to the admissibility of the list and value of the stolen articles as evidence against him.

The defendant, tried by the court without a jury, was convicted of felonious larceny and sentenced to two years in prison. On appeal, the questions presented are: (i) whether his arrest was lawful; (ii) whether the evidence used to convict him was legally obtained; and (iii) whether the evidence was sufficient to convict him of larceny.

(i) and (ii)

The contention of the defendant is that, if the arrest was unlawful, then the articles of property seized as a result of the arrest were illegally obtained and should not have been used as evidence against him. We agree. For, if in fact the arrest of the defendant was not lawful, it is clear that the articles seized by the police (or a list thereof and their values) were inadmissible as evidence over the objection of the defendant. Belton v. State, 228 Md. 17, 178 A.2d 409 (1962); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).

Was the arrest of the defendant unlawful? We think it was.

Since the police officer did not have a warrant when he arrested the defendant, the applicable rule is, as stated in Mulcahy v. State, 221 Md. 413, 421-422, 158 A.2d 80 (1960), that the officer lacked authority to make the arrest unless he had reasonable grounds or probable cause to believe that a felony had been or was being committed and that the person arrested had committed or was committing the offense. See also Edwardsen v. State, 231 Md. 332, 336, 190 A.2d 84 (1963), and Bowler v. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary, 219 F.Supp. 25, 27 (D.Md. 1963). As was pointed out in Mulcahy and Edwardsen, reasonable grounds or probable cause exists when the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the officer, or of which he had reasonably trustworthy information, are sufficient to warrant a reasonably cautious man believing that a felony had been committed.

The only information that the police officer had before going to the parking lot was that the suspects were 'two colored males' and that they were 'trying the door handles' of automobiles parked on the lot, which, at most, was a misdemeanor. There is no reason to doubt the reliability of the information the police officer had received, but it is apparent that the description of the men and their actions were too indefinite and uncertain for the police officer to have had probable cause to believe that the men he subsequently saw in the lot were the same persons that had been reported to him by the guard: the record shows that he did not. When he was asked on cross-examination whether he knew that the two men he saw on the lot 'were the same men the guard at the door was talking about,' he frankly replied 'no sir.' Moreover, when the police officer went out to the parking lot to see for himself what was going on, the only additional knowledge he acquired was that a colored man--walking through the rows of parked cars followed by another colored man carrying packages in both arms--went to one of the automobiles, opened the trunk, slammed it shut and walked away rapidly. But this additional knowledge, even when coupled with the information he already had, was not enough in our opinion to lead a reasonably cautious man to believe that a larceny was being or had been committed, the essential elements of which, as stated in Putinski v. State, 223 Md. 1, 3, 161 A.2d 117, 119 (1960), are the 'fraudulent taking and carrying away of a thing without a claim of right, with the intention of converting it to a use other than that of the owner without his consent.' Compare the circumstances in this case with those in such cases as Price v. State, 227 Md. 28, 175 A.2d 11 (1961); Williams v. State, 226 Md. 614, 174 A.2d 719 (1961), cert. den. 369 U.S. 855, 82 S.Ct. 943, 8 L.Ed.2d 13 (1962); and Edwards v. State, 196 Md. 233, 76 A.2d 132 (1950), in all of which it was held that the police had reasonable grounds or probable cause to make the arrests. See also Shorey v. State, 227 Md. 385, 177 A.2d 245 (1962). Here, however, the police officer did not know that a felony had been committed at the time of the arrest and what he saw did not amount to a misdemeanor.

Although it was said in Price v. State, supra, 227 Md. at p. 33, 175 A.2d at p. 13, that 'flight, though not conclusive, is usually evidence of guilt'--see also Tasco v. State, 223 Md. 503, 165 A.2d 456 (1960) and Clay v. State, 211 Md. 577, 128 A.2d 634 (1957)--There must exist other apparent circumstances upon which to base a reasonable assumption of guilt which was lacking here. In addition to this, in the cases last cited, the defendants literally ran from the police or scene of the crime, while in the present case the defendant just walked away rapidly.

At the trial, the police officer described the actions of the defendant 'as being suspicious.' The phrase seems to accurately sum up the activity the officer had observed, which, not improbably, and indeed, reasonably, could have been the actions of an innocent person. In any event, there 'must be more than mere suspicion' to support a reasonable belief of guilt. Price v. State, supra, 277 Md. p. 33, 175 A.2d p. 14; Braxton v. State, Md., 197 A.2d 841 (1964). See also Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949); 5 Am.Jur.2d, Arrest, § 45; and 4 Wharton's Criminal Law and Procedure (Anderson ed. 1957), § 1612.

We hold that the...