State v. Baker

547 P.2d 1055, 26 Ariz. App. 255, 1976 Ariz. App. LEXIS 828
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedMarch 30, 1976
Docket2 CA-CR 635
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 547 P.2d 1055 (State v. Baker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Baker, 547 P.2d 1055, 26 Ariz. App. 255, 1976 Ariz. App. LEXIS 828 (Ark. Ct. App. 1976).

Opinions

OPINION.

KRUCKER, Judge.

This was a criminal prosecution for two counts of armed kidnapping and one count of committing a lewd and lascivious act in an unnatural manner. After a pretrial hearing, the court denied appellant’s motion to suppress a tear gas gun seized pursuant to a warrantless search of his car on March 22, 1974. At appellant’s first trial the jury was unable to agree on a verdict- and the court declared a mistrial. At his second trial, appellant was convicted on all counts. He was placed on ten years’ probation for the armed kidnapping conviction and five years’ probation for the lewd and lascivious conviction, the periods to run concurrently.

Appellant has now perfected this appeal. He contends (1) the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the gun seized from his car; (2) A.R.S. § 13-652 (lewd and lascivious conduct) is unconstitutional because it is vague, overbroad, infringes the right of privacy and violates the right to freedom of expression; (3) the trial court erred -in denying his motions for directed verdict and new trial because the evidence was insufficient to warrant a conviction; and (4) the trial court erred in failing to declare a mistrial because of a prejudicial statement made by a prosecution witness.

Early in the morning of March 12, 1974, the victim and her common-law husband were driving home with their infant son after visiting friends. At the intersection of Grant and Tyndall their car ran out of gas and they pulled into a parking lot. Because their child was ill, the victim determined to hitchhike home with him rather than wait for a tow truck. At that moment, a man, allegedly appellant, pulled up in his car and offered to drive the victim and her child home. The victim accepted.

They arrived at the victim’s home. As the victim started to open the car door, the man drew a gun and ordered her to stay. He drove the car around the block, stopped, and forced the victim to perform fellatio on him. Afterwards, he drove back to the victim’s home and permitted her to leave with her child.

The victim later described her assailant to the police and assisted in making a composite drawing of him. She and her common-law husband, who was an auto [257]*257mechanic, described the car as a tan, 1963 Chevrolet with a crumpled right front fender and no tail lights.

On March 22, 1974, Officer Olson of the Tucson Police Department, who had recently read a police bulletin on the armed kidnapping, noticed appellant standing next to a 1964 Chevrolet at the intersection of Grant and Stone. The hood was raised and the car was protruding into the street. Another motorist had stopped in front of appellant’s car to render assistance, and appellant was standing to the left of it holding jump cables. Officer Olson recog.nized appellant as someone he had stopped twice before for faulty equipment, and also noted that appellant and his car seemed to fit the description he had seen in the police bulletin. He radioed for Officer Jennings, who had taken the original report from the victim, and then got out to speak with appellant.

Officer Olson requested identification and asked appellant if he had ever fixed his tail lights. Appellant said he had not. Because Officer Olson knew from the police bulletin that the assailant had used a gun, he patted appellant down. He found no weapons. After reading appellant his Miranda rights, Officer Olson asked him to step off the road and speak to Officer Jennings, who had just arrived. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, Officer Olson testified:

“ . . . then while Officer Jennings was talking to Mr. Baker, I decided to search the driver’s seat area of his vehicle for any weapons.
Q. At this point, had Mr. Baker been placed under arrest ?
A. No, not at all.
Q. And did you search the driver’s seat area of the vehicle ?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Did you find anything at that location?
A. Yes, on the front seat, there is sort of like a serape type blanket. It extended for most of the portion of the front seat and then extended past the driver’s side and on down into the floor area between the door and the seat. And underneath that blanket, I uncovered a .22 calibre tear gas gun and about a six inch long hunting knife.”

Officer Olson then took the gun back to where Officer Jennings was questioning appellant and told him he was under arrest for carrying concealed weapons.

Officer Olson admitted at the suppression hearing that the police bulletin he had seen mentioned nothing concerning the presence of a gun in the suspected assailant’s vehicle. He also stated that no search warrant had been obtained and that the car door was closed when he started to search. According to his testimony, he first searched under the driver’s seat and then under the serape about halfway over toward the passenger’s side. After appellant had been arrested for carrying concealed weapons, Officer Olson also searched the glove compartment.

In a 3-2 decision, our Supreme Court recently held that A.R.S. § 13-652, which prohibits the commission of lewd and lascivious acts in an unnatural manner, is constitutional. State v. Bateman and Callaway, filed March 10, 1976, 113 Ariz. 107, 547 P.2d 6. The appellants in Bateman and Callaway raised all the arguments made in the case at bench and the Supreme Court rejected each and every one. ,We are bound by the Supreme Court decision and must therefore sustain A.R.S. § 13-652 against appellant’s challenge.

Before the trial appellant’s counsel made a timely motion to suppress. After a hearing the trial court denied it. Later, at the trial, appellant’s counsel stated he had “no objection” when the prosecutor offered the tear gas gun into evidence. Appellee now contends that appellant thereby waived any claim of error in the refusal to grant his motion to suppress. We reject that contention.

[258]*258As the court stated in State v. Michaels, 60 Wash.2d 638, 374 P.2d 989 (1962):

“In this case . . . the trial court had all the facts before it when the pretrial [suppression] motions were made, and the ruling which it made on the last of them [a denial] was final in its terms. To have objected to the introduction of the evidence after this definitive ruling would have been a useless act, and this the law does not require. We find in the record of this case no evidence of a waiver of the objection.” 374 P.2d at 990.

Appellant’s counsel sufficiently preserved the issue for appeal by formally moving to suppress the gun and then following through with the suppression hearing. We will not require defense counsel to waste the trial court’s time with futile objections to the introduction of evidence when a motion to suppress has already been made and denied. Accord, Waldron v. United States, 95 U.S.App.D.C.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
547 P.2d 1055, 26 Ariz. App. 255, 1976 Ariz. App. LEXIS 828, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-baker-arizctapp-1976.