Muller v. State

218 So. 2d 698, 44 Ala. App. 637, 1968 Ala. App. LEXIS 546
CourtAlabama Court of Appeals
DecidedOctober 8, 1968
Docket1 Div. 288
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 218 So. 2d 698 (Muller v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alabama Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Muller v. State, 218 So. 2d 698, 44 Ala. App. 637, 1968 Ala. App. LEXIS 546 (Ala. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinions

JOHNSON, Judge.

Appellant was indicted by the Grand Jury of Mobile County, Alabama, for the offense [639]*639of robbery. He was tried by a jury which found him guilty as charged and fixed his punishment at ten years in the penitentiary. From this judgment, appellant now appeals to this court.

Bonito J. Herman, witness for the State, testified that “between 3 :30 and quarter to 4:00” on February 3, 1967, a man walked into his place of business; that the man was holding a shopping bag in his left hand; and that he put it in the witness’s hand and told him to “go to the cash drawer and put only paper money in it.” The witness further stated that the robber then told him to go to the safe; that he (the witness) opened the safe and said, “I don’t believe there’s anything here;” and that the robber then jerked out the drawers in the safe and turned them upside down and in the bottom drawer there was $319.00 which he took. Herman described the robber as follows:

“Well he was dressed in black. He had a jacket, a black, kind of silky sort of a jacket with a hood over it and a kind of a Halloween mask representing some kind of an animal’s head. He had black trousers, black shoes. He even had black gloves on. The gloves looked like they were ladie’s gloves, not men’s gloves. And in his hand, in his right hand he had a very short snum [sic] nosed pistol.”

Herman further testified that the robber locked two ladies and himself in the bathroom; that he (the witness) heard the bell over the door ring and knew that the robber had left the premises; and that he looked out of the window and saw him turn toward Jackson Street and disappear. Herman stated that an immediate complaint was made to the police and a description given them of the robber.

Milton Andry, a passing motorist, testified that on the afternoon in question he was driving North on Jackson Street and that:

“[W]e noticed a man running around a building with a sort of a jacket with a dark hood over his head and carrying a bag and we noticed he got in a car and as he got in the car he started pulling this hood thing off and a young lady was driving the automobile and she motioned to a car behind us to let her into the flow of traffic.”

Andry also testified that the woman driving the automobile was a blonde. He further stated that he wrote the license number down and gave it to a policeman along with the description of the automobile, which he described on cross-examination as being a red Corvair.

Officer Siegfried Barnes of the Mobile Police Department testified that at about 3:50 P.M. on the date in question, Milton Andry gave him a slip of paper containing Alabama license tag No. 2 A 613 and the description of an automobile, which information he subsequently transmitted over his radio on the police communication system. Barnes also stated that he received this information from Andry about ten minutes after he received information over the police radio of a robbery on St. Francis Street.

Lt. Williams of the Mobile Police Department testified that he heard a report on the police radio of the description of a vehicle and the tag number of the car allegedly rtsed in the hold-up; that he was familiar with both the tag number and the automobile; and that he knew that it had been driven on numerous occasions by Bart Muller. Williams stated that he knew Muller’s address and that he directed police to it.

Officer Berkey of the Mobile Police Department testified that he went to the address to which Lt. Williams directed him over the police radio; and that upon arriving there he saw a 1962 red Corvair automobile bearing Alabama license tag No. 2 A 613.

Officer Ralph Jordan testified that he was directed to go to the same residence; that he went to the front door and knocked ; that a young blonde female, later identified as Diana Crosby, answered the door; [640]*640that he asked her to bring everyone in the house downstairs and that she returned a few minutes later with appellant; and that he then informed them that they were under arrest. Jordan stated that, over the protest of appellant, appellant’s room was then searched by the police who found a .38 caliber snub-nosed pistol containing six shells, a box containing a pair of girl’s white dungarees which had a roll of bills in each pocket totalling $480.00, a red and white shopping bag, and a black jacket with a hood on it.

Appellant contends that the trial court erred in permitting the introduction into evidence of those items seized as a result of the search conducted at the time of his arrest; that there were no compelling reasons sufficient to justify a search in the absence of a search warrant; and that it would have been a “simple matter” for the police to have requested a search warrant.

In the oft’ cited opinion of Duncan v. State, 278 Ala. 145, 176 So.2d 840, our Supreme Court stated in part:

“When police officers want to search a person’s home they must have either a search warrant or a knowing, voluntary permission, unless the search is incidental to a lawful arrest * * * ” (Emphasis added.)

In Wilson v. State, 43 Ala.App. 596, 197 So.2d 283, we stated:

“The law is well settled that to be admissible at trial, evidence seized without a search warrant must be the product of a search incident to a lawful arrest.”

Tit. 15, Sec. 154, Code of Alabama, 1940, states:

“An officer may also arrest any person, without warrant, on any day and at any time, for any public offense committed, or a breach of the peace threatened in his presence; or when a felony has been committed, though not in his presence, by the person arrested, or when a felony has been committed, and he has reasonable cause to believe that the person arrested committed it; or when he has reasonable cause to believe that the person arrested has committed a felony, although it may afterwards appear that a felony had not in fact been committed; or on a charge made, upon reasonable cause, that the person arrested has committed a felony.”

In the instant case, the officers had no warrant of arrest. Therefore, in order for the arrest of appellant to have been a lawful one, reasonable cause must be shown to have existed to believe that appellant committed the offense.

As the court stated in Berry v. State, 27 Ala.App. 507, 175 So. 407:

“[A]n officer * * * under the statute cannot justify an arrest upon the ground that he had reasonable cause to believe the person arrested had committed a felony, unless he has information of facts derived from credible sources, or from persons reasonably presumed to know them, which, if submitted to the judge or the magistrate having jurisdiction, would require the issue of a warrant of arrest. Cunningham v. Baker, 104 Ala. 160, 171, 16 So. 68, 53 Am.St.Rep. 27; Gibson v. State, 193 Ala. 12, 69 So. 533.”

Here, the information within the knowledge of the police officers at the time of appellant’s arrest clearly furnished grounds for a reasonable cause for believing that appellant had committed the robbery in question. It was much more than a mere suspicion. Berry, supra; Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441.

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Muller v. State
218 So. 2d 704 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1969)
Muller v. State
218 So. 2d 698 (Alabama Court of Appeals, 1968)

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Bluebook (online)
218 So. 2d 698, 44 Ala. App. 637, 1968 Ala. App. LEXIS 546, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/muller-v-state-alactapp-1968.