State v. Wallace

207 N.W.2d 855, 59 Wis. 2d 66, 1973 Wisc. LEXIS 1410
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedJune 5, 1973
DocketState 32
StatusPublished
Cited by44 cases

This text of 207 N.W.2d 855 (State v. Wallace) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Wallace, 207 N.W.2d 855, 59 Wis. 2d 66, 1973 Wisc. LEXIS 1410 (Wis. 1973).

Opinion

Hanley, J.

Four issues are presented on this appeal:

1. Did defendant’s statement flow from an invalid arrest made without warrant or probable cause and, if so, was it error for the trial court to admit it into evidence regardless of whether or not it was voluntarily made;

2. Was the period of defendant’s detention prior to his being taken to a magistrate unreasonable;

3. Under all of the circumstances of this case, was the statement admitted into evidence freely and voluntarily given; and

4. Was it prejudicial error for the trial court to have permitted the jury to view the pictures of the victim’s body?

Confession as flowing from an invalid arrest.

Defendant contends that it was error for the trial court to have admitted the statements made to Manían on the grounds that they were “constitutionally tainted” by an invalid arrest without warrant and without probable cause with principal reliance placed on Wong Sun v. United States (1963), 371 U. S. 471, 83 Sup. Ct. 407, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441, and its “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine.

Defendant’s argument is predicated on the fact that on May 27, 1970, the Milwaukee police department had *72 its original 1965 warrant for the abandonment of a child dismissed on the ground that it had not been issued by a neutral and detached magistrate and another one substituted in its place. This second warrant, which is the one presented to the defendant in Denver, and the one upon which his extradition was founded, was also subsequently dismissed on June 16, 1970, as not being sufficient.

Since there was no valid warrant on abandonment and no warrant on the murder charge, the Milwaukee detectives must establish that they had probable cause to arrest the defendant on a charge of murder. Absent a showing of independent probable cause for his arrest for murder, any confession made flowed directly from the invalid arrest and therefore was “tainted” by it and consequently should have been excluded.

During the course of the Goodchild hearing, defense counsel attempted to examine both Detective Jones and Assistant District Attorney Manían concerning their reasons for suspecting the defendant of the crime in the first instance. The trial court sustained the objections of the state to such questions on the ground that a Good-child hearing is only concerned with the essential circumstances surrounding a confession and because a determination on the issue of probable cause for the arrest on murder had already been determined favorably to the state, or was certainly by this point in the proceedings deemed waived. However, at the close of the hearing and with the complete transcripts of several prior proceedings, all conducted before different judges, in front of him, the trial court concluded that while the defendant had preserved his right to challenge the validity of the arrest as it related to “tainting” the subsequent confession, the actual validity of the arrest for murder had not been reconciled.

After the question had been briefed and argued by counsel, the trial court nevertheless found probable cause *73 for defendant’s arrest on murder. The trial court never alluded to whether the quantum of evidence possessed by Russ and Jones at the time of the arrest was sufficient to “ *. . . lead a reasonable police officer to believe that the defendant probably committed a crime’ ” as stated in State v. Doyle (1968), 40 Wis. 2d 461, 466, 162 N. W. 2d 60, being content to base his ruling on the fact that the officers had adequately informed the defendant of the charges against him. As to the standard followed by the trial court, it was in error and upon the basis of the record before it, it should have allowed defendant to examine the arresting officers concerning the factors which led them to believe that there was probable cause to arrest defendant.

Upon an independent review of the record by this court, however, it is clear that the police did have probable cause to arrest the defendant for murder, and any error on the part of the trial court in not permitting the defendant to examine witnesses on the question of probable cause was harmless. During the course of the trial, the court ruled that Deborah Ivy could not make an in-court identification because on the date of the murder in 1963 she was only twelve years old and at that time was only in his presence for approximately five minutes and at that she did not have a chance to see his full face. The court was also persuaded by the fact that any in-court identification might be “constitutionally tainted” by the fact that in 1963 she picked a photograph of the defendant out of about 100 other photographs shown to her by the police and which apparently had been periodically reshown to her by the police over the course of the past seven years on at least four occasions, including the evening of the lineup, with conflicting testimony as to whether she was shown them before or after she viewed the defendant in the show-up.

Subsequently, the state attempted to introduce the photograph into evidence, and at that point, another *74 hearing outside the presence of the jury was conducted concerning it. Captain Russ testified that on several occasions he had shown photographs of possible suspects to both Deborah Ivy and the other children present when Portia left with the man and that the defendant’s picture was brought along on one such occasion because the police were interested in talking to him about his whereabouts on the night of the crime as they were looking for individuals who were known to frequent the Hillside Housing Project and the Haymarket Square area and who might have been familar with Portia Bufford. He further testified that Deborah Ivy selected the defendant’s photograph from among a group of 10 shown to her on that date and she confirmed this during her voir dire.

Although the trial court ruled that no photographic identification could be made in the presence of the jury, on essentially the same grounds that he had earlier excluded Deborah Ivy’s in-court identification, this ruling would in no way diminish the facts which were known to Captain Russ in 1963 and in 1970 at the time of defendant’s arrest; namely, that an eyewitness had selected the defendant’s photograph out of a group of over 150 photographs shown to her on several different occasions.

Therefore, although the trial court did err in not allowing the defendant to examine witnesses concerning the probable cause for defendant’s arrest, in light of these facts later adduced, the error was harmless. There being probable cause for his arrest established, this court need not reach the question of whether the statements made were in fact “tainted” since Wong Sun, supra, presumes that the arrest has no foundation in probable cause. That is not the situation in the instant case.

Period of detention.

Defendant contends that the period of his detention prior to being taken before a magistrate was unreason *75

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Bluebook (online)
207 N.W.2d 855, 59 Wis. 2d 66, 1973 Wisc. LEXIS 1410, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-wallace-wis-1973.