People v. Jones

221 N.E.2d 29, 75 Ill. App. 2d 332, 1966 Ill. App. LEXIS 1047
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided October 3, 1966·No. Gen. 50,267·Published·Cited by 10 cases

Opinion

MR. JUSTICE BURMAN

delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendant, Grant Jones, was indicted in July of 1964 for the unlawful possession of narcotic drugs. Defendant moved to suppress heroin recovered from his person at the time of his arrest, and after a preliminary hearing that motion was denied. In a bench trial, the court found the defendant guilty and sentenced him to a term of two to three years in the penitentiary.

In this appeal, defendant makes the following contentions: (1) His arrest was invalid, and the motion to suppress wrongfully denied, because the arrest was made on the basis of an unverified tip from an informer whose reliability was not shown by the State; (2) the court’s refusal to permit identification of the informer during the preliminary hearing was a violation of defendant’s right to cross-examine a material witness; (3) the court erred in permitting a police officer to testify in the preliminary hearing as to what he had been told by the informer at the scene of the arrest; (4) a statutory provision prohibited the introduction into evidence of information divulged by the informer, either in testimony by the informer himself or by the hearsay testimony of the police officers; (5) possession of heroin by the defendant was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt; and (6) defendant, as a narcotic addict, did not possess the legal capacity requisite for criminal responsibility for the act of possessing narcotics.

The testimony at the hearing on the motion to dismiss, which was more extensive than that in the case in chief, was briefly as follows. Two Chicago police officers, John Campbell and Howard Anthony, testified that at about 11 p. m. on July 2, 1964, at 39th and State Streets in Chicago, they had a conversation about the defendant with a paid informer who was also a narcotics addict. Officer Campbell testified that he had spoken to this informer concerning narcotics about ten or twelve times in the past, and that the information he supplied had led to arrests and convictions and had been, “very reliable.” The officers testified the informer told them the defendant and a man named “Blood,” with whom they were familiar, were selling narcotics at 35th Street and Indiana Avenue. “He stated that narcotics addicts would give Blood the money and Grant Jones would go with Blood and get the narcotics and bring . . . the narcotics back to the addicts.” The informer and Officers Campbell and Anthony then proceeded to 35th Street and Indiana Avenue. The informer walked across the street and toward a group of persons standing on the corner. Shortly thereafter, a group of five or six persons, including the defendant and Blood, moved away from the larger group and northward on Indiana Avenue. The testimony of the officers is in conflict as to whether the informer was in this group. The group stopped, and the officers, who had observed all this from a doorway across the street, saw something exchanged. The informer then came across the street, and told Officer Campbell, “. . . that Blood and Jones had just took the money from the three addicts, . . . and that Blood and Jones is going to cop, that is, going to get the narcotics. And Jones would bring it back.” Jones and Blood then left the group and walked to a building at 3365 S. Indiana Avenue. Jones emerged from the building about ten or fifteen minutes later, and proceeded south on Indiana Avenue. Officer Campbell testified that after Jones had walked past him and Officer Anthony, he called out, “Jones, what have you got in your hand?” Campbell testified Jones’ hand was closed at the time, and he could see nothing. He further testified that Jones stopped, looked around at Campbell, and then dropped two tinfoil packages to the pavement. He was arrested, and a third package was recovered from his hand.

The defendant testified that as he was leaving the building he was approached by a man whom he did not know, but who he later learned was Officer Campbell, holding a drawn pistol. When Campbell asked him what he was holding in his hand, he answered that he didn’t have anything in his hand, whereupon Campbell struck him on the wrist with the pistol. Something dropped from his hand when he was struck, defendant testified; and he was instructed, “. . . to pick up two packages of narcotics, or three packages of narcotics up off the sidewalk.” The defendant did not know Campbell was a police officer until he was joined by another man whom defendant knew to be a police officer.

Defendant’s first contention is that the motion to suppress was wrongfully denied because the arrest was made on the basis of an unverified tip from an informer whose reliability was not shown by the State. We note, at the outset, that if Officer Campbell’s version of the arrest is believed, the defendant dropped two packages of narcotics on the sidewalk in plain sight of the officer before there had been any arrest or search. Under such circumstances, the police had probable cause to arrest and search the defendant, and there is no merit in the motion to suppress.

Defendant’s version of the arrest, however, is that the contents of his closed hand were forcibly removed by a police officer using a drawn pistol, all of which was denied by the officers. If such was the case, it was incumbent upon the State to show probable cause for the arrest and search. In the recent case of People v. McClellan, 34 Ill2d 572, 218 NE2d 97, our Supreme Court in reversing a conviction for the unlawful possession of narcotics stated the standard for probable cause as follows:

Probable cause for an arrest may, of course, be based upon information supplied by an informant, if the reliability of the informant has been previously established (People v. Durr, 28 Ill2d 308) or independently corroborated. People v. McFadden, 32 Ill2d 101 (34 Ill2d at 574).

The court pointed out that the past reliability of the informer in that case had not been shown because he was not known to the officers. They further observed that there was no independent corroboration of the tip by the presence of other factors predicted by the informer, inasmuch as the tip had been no more than, “That dude is dirty.”

In the case at bar, however, the record reveals the presence of both of these indications of the reliability of the tip. Officer Campbell testified that he did some undercover work with the informer on some of the previous investigations and that tips from this informer had led in the past to many arrests and convictions, and had been, “very reliable.” Furthermore, the narcotics purchase transaction described to the officers by the informant in the tip, including the respective roles of the defendant and of Blood, seemed to correspond with the activities the officers testified they observed at 35th Street and Indiana Avenue. Both of these factors clothed the tip with reliability, and therefore constituted probable cause for the arrest and accompanying search. We therefore hold that under either version of the arrest and search, the court was correct in denying the motion to suppress.

Defendant contends that the court erroneously permitted Officer Campbell to testify as to what he was told by the informer at the scene of the arrest.

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People v. Jones, 221 N.E.2d 29, 75 Ill. App. 2d 332, 1966 Ill. App. LEXIS 1047 (Ill. Ct. App. 1966).

221 N.E.2d 29 (People v. Jones) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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