State v. Smith

392 So. 2d 454
Supreme Court of Louisiana·Decided December 15, 1980·No. 67511·Published·Cited by 16 cases

Opinion

392 So.2d 454 (1980)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Gregory SMITH.

No. 67511.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

December 15, 1980.
Rehearing Denied January 26, 1981.

*455 Dwight Doskey, Orleans Indigent Defender Program, New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Harry F. Connick, Dist. Atty., Fred P. Harper, Jr., Louise Korns, Lance Africk, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.

LEMMON, Justice.

In this appeal from a conviction of second degree murder the principal issue involves defendant's attempt to suppress the murder weapon seized incident to the allegedly unlawful arrest of Wilbert Kelly.

I.

On June 20, 1978 the body of an unidentified female was discovered in an isolated wooded area of Orleans Parish. The victim apparently had been shot repeatedly with a .45 caliber pistol and a .38 caliber pistol. A slug recovered from her body was submitted to the crime laboratory for analysis. *456 Medical opinion fixed the time of death as the nighttime hours of the evening prior to the discovery of the body.

The victim was eventually identified as Veronica Dubuchet, but apparently little other information was uncovered until an unexpected, critical clue was provided by the crime laboratory.

On July 17 the crime laboratory, in examining a .45 caliber automatic which had been recently submitted for testing, identified the pistol as the weapon which fired the slug found in Miss Dubuchet's body. The pistol had been seized by the police during the arrest of a wanted fugitive named Wilbert Kelly at the home of Bernard McGee.

This information led police to a series of interviews with several individuals who were with Miss Dubuchet on the evening of her death. Police eventually learned that defendant, in the company of several other men, took Miss Dubuchet to the lonely spot where her body was found and, as she begged for her life, shot her mercilessly with the .45 caliber automatic and then with a .38 caliber derringer until she died.

Defendant was ultimately convicted of second degree murder. After being adjudicated a habitual offender, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.

II.

Prior to trial defendant moved to suppress the .45 caliber pistol seized from McGee's home incident to Kelly's arrest, contending that the warrantless arrest was illegal under Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) and State v. Brown, 387 So.2d 567 (La. 1980). Although none of defendant's reasonable expectations of privacy were implicated by the police entry into McGee's home or their seizure of a pistol in Kelly's possession, La.Const. art. 1, § 5 (1974), as construed by this court in State v. Hebert, 351 So.2d 434 (La.1977) and State v. Culotta, 343 So.2d 977 (La.1977), permits defendant to question the legality of the police conduct leading to the seizure. Compare Rakas v. Illinois, 435 U.S. 922, 98 S.Ct. 1438, 55 L.Ed.2d 515 (1978); Rawlings v. Kentucky, ___ U.S. ___, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980); United States v. Salvucci, ___ U.S. ___, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 65 L.Ed.2d 619 (1980).

The evidence presented at the motion to suppress established that Officer Dewey Varnado on July 11, 1978 was requested to assist in the apprehension of a female probationer in connection with a probation violation. When the woman was brought to police headquarters, she offered to provide information about a wanted subject, Wilbert Kelly, in exchange for leniency. A check of the records of "wanted" subjects revealed that Kelly was being sought on charges of armed robbery and attempted murder of police officers.

When Varnado accepted the woman's offer to help locate Kelly, she dialed a telephone number and engaged in a conversation with Bernard McGee, telling McGee that she knew Kelly was at his house and that she was afraid he would get into trouble if Kelly was permitted to remain there. McGee apparently revealed that Kelly was still at his residence, and the woman covered the receiver with her hand and relayed the information to Varnado.

Varnado immediately summoned assistance and went directly to McGee's residence, arriving within a half hour. In fact, McGee was still on the phone with the woman when the officers arrived.

Three armed officers surrounded the house, while Varnado and a fifth officer approached the front door with shotguns in their hands. When McGee answered Varnado's knock at the door, Varnado told McGee they were there to apprehend Wilbert Kelly. The officers entered the house, and when McGee indicated someone was in the back room, the officers proceeded into that room and found Kelly asleep on a sofa bed, with a .45 caliber automatic on the bed. The officers ordered Kelly out of the bed and arrested him, seizing the pistol in the course of a protective search.

*457 On appeal defendant argues that the warrantless arrest of Kelly after the nonconsensual entry in McGee's house violated the dictates of the Payton decision and that suppression of the pistol seized in that arrest is required.

We observe initially that the Payton decision does not control this case. In Payton the defendant's own reasonable expectations of privacy were breached by the warrantless, nonconsensual entry into Payton's own home. In the present case the defendant had no Fourth Amendment interest violated which gave rise to a right on his part to question the validity of the seizure. His right to litigate the validity of this seizure arises only under the Louisiana Constitution.

In State v. Brown, above, this court, recognizing the parallel between the United States Supreme Court's approach to the Fourth Amendment and the proper result under the state constitution, held that a warrantless, non-consensual entry into a defendant's home for the purpose of an arrest was constitutionally invalid, unless such entry was necessitated by exigent circumstances. The court also found that the photographic lineup was a product of that illegal arrest, but nevertheless affirmed the conviction because the in-court identification was clearly free from taint of arrest.

The Brown decision clearly applied the principles of Payton to suppress evidence obtained as a result of a warrantless arrest in a defendant's home in the absence of exigent circumstances. Nevertheless, we conclude that suppression of the evidence is not required in the present case.

First, the facts of the present case presented the officers with exigent circumstances necessitating a prompt entry to secure the arrest of a dangerous felon. The officers were seeking an individual wanted for violent felonies involving danger to human life. His benefactor, McGee, had effectively been warned that he (McGee) would get into trouble if he allowed Kelly to remain hidden on his premises, and the officers wasted no time in going immediately to McGee's home. Hindsight may have revealed that their haste was unnecessary, but the officers' concern that Kelly might flee was reasonable, particularly in light of the fact that he was located on the premises of a third person.

Second, we hold that State v. Brown, above, is not to be given retroactive effect.[1]

As the United States Supreme Cour

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