People v. Zeigler

100 N.W.2d 456, 358 Mich. 355
Michigan Supreme Court·Decided January 4, 1960·No. Docket 50, Calendar 46,933·Published·Cited by 94 cases

Opinions

Dethmers, C. J.

This is appeal from conviction on' a criminal charge of possession of policy or pool [358] books and other wagering memoranda. Admissibility of evidence, in turn dependent upon the validity of a search and seizure, is the question presented.

Defendant was driving an automobile on a public highway. He was stopped by 2 police officers for failing to stop at a stop sign for a through highway. He was arrested and one of the officers issued him a summons for the traffic violation. The officers asked if he had any contraband in his car. He said, “No, go ahead and search the car.” The car was searched but no contraband was found. Defendant was asked if he had contraband on his person, and he handed 1 of the officers 40 National Basketball Forecast cards, now labelled exhibit 1, which he had had in his outside overcoat pocket. The other officer asked defendant if he could search defendant’s person. The officer testified that he did not recall that defendant answered. The officer then made a move toward defendant, reached into defendant’s inside coat pocket and removed a memorandum book, now marked exhibit 2, which listed bets or wagers. Defendant “was reluctant to give the book up,” “didn’t want to let it go” and “made a motion to pull it back.” The officers removed from defendant’s wallet certain newspaper clippings containing the results of basketball games. These are marked exhibit 3. These 3 exhibits were received into evidence over defendant’s objection at the preliminary examination. After he was bound over for trial, he moved to suppress this evidence. The motion was denied. At trial the exhibits were received into evidence over objection. On appeal he claims error in denial of his motion to suppress and in receiving the exhibits into evidence.

The people agree with defendant that search of an automobile by an officer without a search warrant [359] is unlawful if not based on probable cause to believe that a crime has been or is being committed and that evidence thereof is to be found in it. Both quote in that connection from People v. Miller, 245 Mich 115, 118:

“In applying the test to modern conditions, this Court has held that an officer,.charged with .enforcement of the law, may search an automobile on the-highway or in a public place when, from the exercise1 of his own senses or acting upon information received from sources apparently reliable, a prudent and careful person, having due regard for the rights of others, would be induced to the honest belief that a felony was being committed in such automobile.”

But it is not enough for an officer to testify that he had acted upon information received from sources which, in his judgment, were apparently reliable.1 The Miller Case makes it clear that testimony of the officer’s determination of the reliability of the source of his information, without disclosing that source to the court, does not suffice to establish the exist-' ence of probable cause. Having stressed (p 117) that “the officer did not give the source of his orig-' inal information nor identify his informant” this Court went on (p 118) to say, in Miller, that “anonymous information does not meet the test,” citing People v. Guertins, 224 Mich 8, and reversed the conviction on the ground that it rested on “evidence obtained by illegal search.”

What about probable cause in the case at bar? The only showing before the circuit court on the motion to suppress consisted of the testimony presented at the preliminary examination. Amplifying testimony later taken at trial cannot be considered. We are limited to that taken at the examination. People v. Miller, supra. With respect to all such testimony concerning complaints or tips about de[360] fendant received by the officers before the arrest, it must be said, as in Miller, that “the officer did not give the source of his information nor identify his informant.” In fact, when defendant’s counsel questioned the officer, at the preliminary examination, as to the source of his information, he replied that it was confidential, and the examining magistrate sustained the prosecuting attorney’s objections to defense counsel’s further questioning on the subject. As said in Miller, then, the anonymous information did not meet the test. There was no other information, free from the infirmity of being anonymous, disclosed to the court by the officer on which a claim of probable cause for the search could be planted. Probable cause was not established.

• It is for good reason, then, that the people, while not expressly conceding that the search and seizure in this case cannot be upheld on the ground of probable cause, nowhere contend, in their belief or otherwise, that it can be so upheld. In their brief they say:

“Nor, do we argue with counsel when he says that anonymous information fails to meet the test. People v. Guertins, 224 Mich 8. We believe, and it is our claim that the record will bear us out, that here we .have a motorist who was observed in a traffic violation, was issued a summons, identified by the officers as one against whom they had received reliable and confidential information, whereupon the simple question was asked of him whether he had any contraband in his car or on his person. Without hesistancy the defendant promptly handed over 40 National Basketball Forecast cards. The record fails to show that this was merely submissive search as defendant would contend. The reasonable conclusion is that the defendant acted freely and voluntarily when he told the officers to conduct the search and when he handed the cards to Detective Menzies. He told the officers he had more cards at his home in Kalamazoo, [361] and permitted Ms mother and sister, accompanied by a Kalamazoo detective to go to Ms home and obtain them. Defendant then, in detail, explained how the cards were played, even to obtaining the results of games on TV and in newspapers. By consenting to the search, defendant waived his constitutional rights

From this, it is clear that the people predicate their claim of admissibility of the questioned evidence upon defendant’s alleged waiver of constitutional rights, and not at all on the grounds that there had been a valid search and seizure based on probable cause.

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People v. Zeigler, 100 N.W.2d 456, 358 Mich. 355 (Mich. 1960).

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