Dorsey v. State

376 So. 2d 816, 1979 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1530
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Alabama
DecidedOctober 30, 1979
Docket3 Div. 89
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 376 So. 2d 816 (Dorsey v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dorsey v. State, 376 So. 2d 816, 1979 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1530 (Ala. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

LEIGH M. CLARK, Retired Circuit Judge.

In one count of an indictment appellant was charged with burglary in the second degree. In the second count, he was charged with grand larceny. A jury found him guilty under the second count. The court then dismissed the first count of the indictment, adjudged defendant guilty of grand larceny and sentenced him to imprisonment for three years.

According to the undisputed evidence, about 1:00 on the afternoon of October 19, 1978, three young black men, including appellant, entered the apartment of Eddie Chandler at 122 Duncan Drive, Montgomery, Alabama, and took several items of furniture and food therefrom. As stated in appellant’s brief, his defense was that appellant, “When he entered the apartment, thought that it belonged to” one of the other two men “and that the things he took out of the apartment” also belonged to such person, whom defendant named in his testimony on the trial. A jury issue was definitely presented as to defendant’s felonious intent, and there is no contention to the contrary.

The burglary and larceny from the apartment were witnessed by Paul Turner, who promptly called Eddie Chandler, who was at work at the time and who promptly returned to his apartment. Either Mr. Turner or Mr. Chandler gave the police a description and tag number of the automobile that had been used by the three men as the apartment was burglarized and into which the men had placed a television set, some radios, some frozen food and some other items taken from the apartment.

Within less than an hour after the burglary and larceny, Officer F. A. McCracken of the Montgomery Police Department, observed defendant coming out of a parking spot in the second block of Dexter Avenue. He saw that the automobile matched the description that he had had of the automobile that had been used in the burglary and larceny; he also noticed that it bore the same license tag. He radioed for assistance. He and another officer then stopped the automobile, which appellant was driving. According to the testimony of Officer McCracken on a hearing on a motion by defendant to suppress evidence of items found by the officers in the automobile and a motion to suppress statements made by defendant, the following occurred:

“A. We stopped it and asked all of the occupants to step out of the car. When they stepped out of the car, we was explaining to them why we were stopping them.
“Q. What exactly did you say?
[818]*818“A. That a car fitting this description with three subjects in it, that a lookout was on it for a house burglary on Duncan Drive.
“Q. Do you recall who was driving that car?
“A. Yes, Sir.
“Q. Who was that?
“A. The Defendant over there.
“Q. Joshua Dorsey?
“A. Yes, Sir.
“Q. What did you do after that, Sir?
“A. We asked the driver, Mr. Dorsey if he would mind unlocking his trunk.
“Q. Did he make any statements prior to that?
“A. No, Sir.
“Q. Did he ask why he was being stopped?
“A. Yes, Sir.
“Q. And what did you tell him?
“A. We advised him that we had a description on a car fitting the description of his car and why it was being stopped.
“Q. And why was that?
“A. For the burglary on Duncan Drive.
“Q. And what happened then after you told him that?
“A. We asked him if he would mind unlocking his trunk and he said he would not and got the keys out of the ignition and stepped to the back of the car and opened up the trunk of the car.
“Q. Okay. Was that a verbal statement that he made?
“A. That he would not mind?
“Q. Yes, Sir.
“A. Yes, Sir.
“Q. Did he make any objection?
“A. No, Sir, he did not.
“Q. Who opened the trunk, Sir?
“A. He did.
“Q. Mr. Dorsey?
“A. Yes, Sir.
“Q. Were you present at that time?
“A. Yes, Sir, I was.
“Q. And what did you find in the trunk, Sir?
“A. There was T.V.’s in the trunk, radio, food.”

In arguing that the warrantless search of the automobile was illegal, it is stated in appellant’s brief:

. . However, the only justification suggested for Mr. Dorsey’s arrest was a radio dispatch. No attempt was made to show the circumstances giving rise to the dispatch. A radio dispatch can give sufficient probable cause for an arrest or a search, if the circumstances giving rise to the dispatch are sufficient to provide probable cause in the first place. Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 28 L.Ed.2d 306, 91 S.Ct. 1031 (1971); Owens v. State, 51 Ala.App. 50, 282 So.2d 902 [402] (1973). As Mr. Justice Beatty wrote in Paschal v. State (S.Ct.Ala., 1978) 365 So.2d 681:
“ ‘If the law were otherwise, the mere suspicions insufficient to obtain a search warrant, nevertheless could be routed through a radio operator to the field and through that mechanical process gain legal credibility (365 So.2d 681, 682)’
“In this case, as in Paschal, supra, there was no evidence as to the circumstances giving rise to the dispatch. In Paschal the Supreme Court held that the evidence found must be excluded; it follows, therefore, that the trial judge erred in holding in the instant case that the dispatch justified the stopping of Mr. Dorsey’s car and the search.”

We agree with the principles of law stated in the above quotation from appellant’s brief, but we disagree with the attempted application thereof to the facts in the instant case. Specifically we do not agree with the statement:

“However, the only justification suggested for Mr. Dorsey’s arrest was the radio dispatch. No attempt was made to show the circumstances giving rise to the dispatch.”

We also disagree with the statement:

“In this case, as in Paschal, supra, there was no evidence as to the circumstances giving rise to the dispatch.”

[819]*819According to the record in the instant case, the officers stopping the automobile had detailed information as to the circumstances of the burglary and larceny that had taken place less than an hour before. They had sufficient description of the automobile that had been used in the burglary and larceny that enabled them to know beyond any reasonable doubt that it was the same automobile they located and stopped.

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Related

Minnifield v. State
390 So. 2d 1146 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama, 1980)

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Bluebook (online)
376 So. 2d 816, 1979 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 1530, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dorsey-v-state-alacrimapp-1979.