Holt v. State

1960 OK CR 31, 357 P.2d 574, 1960 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 202
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedMarch 30, 1960
DocketNo. A—12778
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 1960 OK CR 31 (Holt v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Holt v. State, 1960 OK CR 31, 357 P.2d 574, 1960 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 202 (Okla. Ct. App. 1960).

Opinions

POWELL, Presiding Judge.

Joe “Red” Holt and Roberta Holt and Hugh Wall were jointly charged in the court of common pleas of Oklahoma County with unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor, were tried before a jury, the Holts found guilty and each by the jury assessed a fine of $500 and three months imprisonment in the county jail. The jury decided in favor of Wall and that ended the matter so far as he was concerned.

The record was filed in this Court on May 22, 1959 and the case being a misdemeanor, brief was due in twenty days, but brief had not been filed at the time of the setting of the case for oral argument for the September 23, 1959 docket, and was filed out of time on that day. The Attorney General within the time allowed for filing brief, filed a motion to dismiss, and the case-made failing to show that the same was served, signed and settled within extension of time for such purpose, this Court sustained the motion and prepared opinion in accordance. Within the time allowed counsel for defendant filed a petition for rehearing, alleging and showing that the Attorney General failed to mail him a copy of the State’s motion to dismiss, and the record sustained counsel. There were submitted a certified copy of the minutes of the court, and of an order extending time to serve case-made that had been omitted from the record filed in this Court, and certified by counsel as being correct.

By reason of the facts recited, this Court has ordered withdrawn its opinion of December 2, 1959. It is the policy of this Court by reason of the liberty of citizens being involved, to whenever possible decide cases on the merits.

This is the last of the appeals from conviction of unlawful possession of whiskey under prohibition.1 The facts are somewhat complicated.

Deputy Sheriff E. A. Capshaw of the Criminal Investigation Division, 'Oklahoma County Sheriff’s office, on the morning of November 17, 1958 had prepared and filed in the office of a justice of the peace, felony charges against the within defendants. He left the warrants for arrest at the sheriff’s office, as he was going to Guthrie. The defendants’ home could be passed on the way, so officer Capshaw decided to drive by and if he should see life about the house, radio others at the sheriff’s office. The evidence was that Mr. Holt spent much of his time out of the State. But as officer Capshaw was passing the Holt home at 1800 Northeast 65th Street, he saw Mr. Holt standing in the left side of the doorway of his garage with Hugh Wall, who worked for the Holts, and whom Mr. Holt so described when testifying in support of a motion to suppress. Defendant Holt further testified that there was no whiskey lying on the floor of the garage but that there was some in his wife’s Oldsmobile car and some in Hugh Wall’s car. Said he: “We had some in each one of them.” Witness admitted that his wife held a federal liquor stamp at that address. He said the doors to the Oldsmobile were closed, but a door to Hugh Wall’s car might have been open.

Of course officer Capshaw by reason of the felony charge pending and the warrants of arrest outstanding, had authority to take defendant Holt into custody.

See Loftin v. State, 60 Okl.Cr. 183, 62 P.2d 664, 665, where in paragraph 2 of the syllabus this Court said:

‘Where the officers have information that a felony has been committed, and where they have reasonable ground to believe the defendant has committed this felony, they may legally arrest him, and evidence obtained by a search of the car in which the defendant had been riding, after the defendant is arrested, is admissible against him.”

[577]*577The evidence on motion to suppress disclosed that Mr. Wall suddenly jerked down and closed the garage door as officer Cap-shaw was passing, so Capshaw stopped, backed his car up and drove to the door of the Holt garage and the officer got out, and he said that he knocked on the door. Defendant Holt said that the officer kicked on the door. At any rate, Holt opened it.

Officer Capshaw’s version is as follows:

“ * * * I then went up and knocked on the door — I didn’t kick on it, I knocked on it — and Red opened the door. He was the only one in the garage that I had seen. And I said, ‘What’s goin’ on ?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, T told that idiot that was you and you probably wouldn’t have stopped if he hadn’t jerked that door down’. And I said, ‘Well, things do happen, don’t they?’
“The door to Hugh Wall’s car was standing open, and I asked him where the other boy went, and he said, ‘Oh, he went in to drink some coffee’. He went in in quite a hurry.
“I went ahead and walked on into the garage and Red was standing at the side of Wall’s car on the east side of the garage. The door was standing open and the whiskey was in plain sight; they were transferring it from one car to the other. He said he just knew he was in trouble because he was trying to get out some orders and that is the way it was.
“I never notified him of the warrant because i knew it was on file and it was a felony warrant and I had a right to make the arrest, but I thought I would just wait until the sheriff got there with the warrants.
“Q. Did you call the sheriff’s office ? A. Yes, I called Sheriff Turner and told him to come on out. And at that time he brought Mr. Lynch and Lamb with him.
“Q. What did you do when they arrived? A. Told them the circumstances and what had happened, and that when I saw Red I went ahead and stopped. Due to the fact that we had a felony warrant.
“He said, ‘Have you told him yet what it is for?’ And I said ‘No’, and he told Frank Lynch, he says, ‘Well, go on in there and take them to jail on the burglary warrant, and we’ll look around.’
“I found approximately, I don’t remember, six or seven cases of whiskey in the two cars in the garage. I never found any more. I was there later when—
“Q. You didn’t bring them down to jail? A. No, I went on to Guthrie.
“Q. You went on out of town? A. Yes.”

While officer Capshaw failed to tell defendant Holt about the felony warrant where defendant had been charged with burglary, the officer did have a right to come to defendant’s garage where he had observed defendant, and to place Holt under arrest on the felony charge; but when the defendant opened the garage door and before he could tell him about the felony warrant the officer observed through the open door of Wall’s car packages the officers described as whiskey. The liquor was in lugs. The defendant Holt in his testimony referred to the packages as whiskey. Officer Capshaw had authority under the circumstances recited, to arrest defendant for illegal possession of intoxicating liquor, the law being violated in his presence when he was at a place where, under the recited circumstances, he had a right to be. The officer proceeded to take charge of the lugs described as whiskey and radioed the Sheriff and requested him to bring the felony warrants. He had a right to make a further search, but he was on his way to Guthrie, so he left that to the Sheriff. Awaiting the sheriff, no further search was made.

Under the above facts the court overruled the motion to suppress.

[578]

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Related

Conti v. State
540 So. 2d 934 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 1989)
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433 So. 2d 1236 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 1983)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1960 OK CR 31, 357 P.2d 574, 1960 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 202, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/holt-v-state-oklacrimapp-1960.