Spikes v. State

481 N.E.2d 1304, 1985 Ind. LEXIS 935
Indiana Supreme Court·Decided August 26, 1985·No. No. 282S68·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

ON REMAND BY ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

No. 84-5085

PIVARNIK, Justice.

This cause has been remanded to us by the United States Supreme Court. The case originally came to this Court on a direct appeal by Defendant-Appellant Larry Bernard Spikes in which we affirmed Appellant's convictions of class B felony burglary, class A felony rape and class A felony criminal deviant conduct. - See Spikes v. State, (1984) Ind., 460 N.E.2d 954 (DeBruler, J., concurring in result with separate opinion]. Appellant then petitioned [1305] this Court to rehear his cause on the basis of our Issue II which was whether the trial court erred by denying Appellant's Motion to Suppress his fingerprints which were taken from him at the police station prior to his arrest. The Petition for Rehearing was denied on May 10, 1984. Appellant then petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. On April 1, 1985, the United States Supreme Court, - U.S. --, 105 S.Ct. 1861, 85 L.Ed.2d 155, granted Appellant's Petition for Writ of Certiorari, vacated this Court's opinion cited above and remanded the cause to this Court "for further consideration in light of Hayes v. Florida", (1985) 410 U.S. --, 105 S.Ct. 1643, 84 L.Ed.2d 705. Hayes was handed down by the United States Supreme Court on March 20, 1985, and concerned the same issue apparent in Appellant's case. We issue this opinion in response to and in compliance with the remand order of the United States Supreme Court. Said order, in certified form, was received by us sometime after June 10, 1985.

The facts in Hayes, supra, are without conflict and were simply stated as follows:

"... Although they had little specific information to tie petitioner Hayes to the crime, after police interviewed him along with 80 to 40 other men who generally fit the description of the assailant, the investigators came to consider petitioner a principal suspect. They decided to visit petitioner's home to obtain his fingerprints or, if he was uncooperative, to arrest him. They did not seek a warrant authorizing this procedure.
Arriving at petitioner's house, the officers spoke to petitioner on his front porch, When he expressed reluctance voluntarily to accompany them to the station for fingerprinting, one of the investigators explained that they would therefore arrest him. Petitioner, in the words of the investigator, then 'blurted out' that he would rather go with the officers to the station than be arrested. App. 20. While the officers were on the front porch, they also seized a pair of herringbone pattern tennis shoes in plain view."

Hayes, 470 U.S. at --, 105 S.Ct. at 1645, 84 L.Ed.2d at 708.

Before trial, Petitioner Hayes moved to suppress the fingerprint evidence obtained by police claiming it was the fruit of an illegal detention. The trial court denied his motion and admitted the evidence without expressing a reason for its ruling. In affirming his conviction, the Florida District Court of Appeals declined to find consent reasoning that in view of the threatened arrest it was "at best, highly questionable" that Hayes voluntarily accompanied the officers to the station. The Florida Court of Appeals also found that the officers did not have probable cause to arrest Hayes until after they had obtained his fingerprints. The Florida Court of Appeals, however, affirmed the trial court while finding no consent by Hayes to be taken to the station and no probable cause to arrest. The Florida Court of Appeals therefore held that the police could transport Petitioner Hayes to the station house and take his fingerprints on the sole basis of their reasonable suspicion that he was involved in a crime.

Florida's decision in Hayes was based on Terry v. Ohio, (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889. Terry, however, was confined to a temporary seizure or confrontation of a person, even though in a place where he had a right to be and the police were without probable cause or judicial authority, if the police observed such person either involved in criminal activity or appearing to give reasonable suspicion to the police that he was involved in crime. The United States Supreme Court followed Terry with another case which involved not only stopping the suspect on the street or in his home for a temporary investigation, but also involved transporting him to the police station for further investigation. Davis v. Mississippi, (1969) 894 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1894, 22 L.Ed.2d 676. In Davis, the police were in the course of investigating a rape and Davis was one of many picked up by the police and brought to the police station for further investigation. The police had no specific reason to suspect Davis in particular other than the fact that [1306] he was a black man like the other suspects and apparently met the general description of the perpetrator. He was taken to the police station without his consent where he was fingerprinted and briefly questioned before being released. The facts were not in conflict that the police took Davis to the station and fingerprinted him without probable cause for his arrest, without a warrant from any court and without Davis' consent to being taken to the station house. The United States Supreme Court reaffirmed Davis in Hayes and reversed Hayes' con-vietion.

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