State v. Williams

448 So. 2d 659
Supreme Court of Louisiana·Decided February 27, 1984·No. 82-KA-2249·Published·Cited by 68 cases

Opinion

448 So.2d 659 (1984)

STATE of Louisiana
v.
Roy Lee WILLIAMS.

No. 82-KA-2249.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

February 27, 1984.
Rehearing Denied March 23, 1984.

*661 William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Paul J. Carmouche, Dist. Atty., Scott Crickton, Carey *662 T. Schimpf, C.M. Estopinal, Asst. Dist. Attys., for plaintiff-appellee.

Timothy Fischer, Donald Minor, Asst. Indigent Defender, for defendant-appellant.

MARCUS, Justice.

Roy Lee Williams was charged by bill of information with aggravated burglary in violation of La.R.S. 14:60. After trial by jury, he was found guilty as charged and sentenced to serve twenty years at hard labor with credit for time served. On appeal, defendant relies on seven assignments of error for reversal of his conviction and sentence.[1]

About 2:00 a.m. on December 24, 1980, Gussie Lipson was awakened in her bedroom by a man standing over her with his hands around her mouth and neck. Her screams aroused her son, Ashley Lipson, who was visiting her from out of town. He ran to the lighted hallway and came face to face with the intruder who swung at him, grazing his cheek, and then fled and escaped from the house. The police were able to lift a fresh fingerprint from the inside of the aluminum screen window which had been bent back to allow entry. Among the items taken was Mrs. Lipson's purse which contained gold jewelry, a billfold with over five hundred dollars cash and car keys. Ten months later, new information led the police to successfully match the latent fingerprint taken from the Lipson home with defendant's prints on file. Defendant was arrested on November 4, 1981. The following day he made an inculpatory statement. Mr. Lipson picked defendant's photograph out of a lineup later that month and at trial made an in-court identification of defendant as the burglar.

ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NO. 1

Defendant contends the trial judge erred in denying his motion to suppress his inculpatory statement.

Defendant was arrested on November 4, 1981 by Officer Danny Parker pursuant to an arrest warrant obtained by him two days earlier. Officer Parker's affidavit for the warrant recited that he had received an anonymous telephone call on October 30, 1981 advising him that Roy Lee Williams had burglarized the house at the Lipson's address, that he then pulled the incident report from December 24, 1980 and requested a comparison of the latent prints taken from the point of entry at the Lipson home with those on file for Williams, that a match with Williams' right middle finger was obtained, and that the complainant Gussie Lipson had stated that the suspect broke into her home and committed a theft and a battery.

The day following his arrest, after again being advised of his rights, defendant made an inculpatory statement. Defendant filed a motion to suppress this statement which, after a hearing, was denied by the trial judge.

La.Code Crim.P. art. 202 provides that a warrant of arrest shall be issued when

(1) The person making the complaint executes an affidavit specifying, to his best knowledge and belief, the nature, date, and place of the offense, and the name and surname of the offender if known, and of the person injured if there be any; and
(2) The magistrate has probable cause to believe that an offense was committed and that the person against whom the complaint was made committed it.

Probable cause for an arrest exists when the facts and circumstances known to the police and of which the police have reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient to justify a man of average caution in the belief that the person to be arrested has committed a crime. The magistrate's independent judgment that probable cause exists for the issuance of an arrest warrant may be based on the facts and circumstances *663 asserted in the affidavit as well as those asserted verbally by the officer at the time the warrant is obtained. The fact that a better showing of probable cause could be made by the affiants does not detract from the showing of probable cause that is made. State v. Rodrigue, 437 So.2d 830 (La.1983). Minor inaccuracies in these assertions may not affect the validity of the warrant. However, if intentional misrepresentations designed to deceive the issuing magistrate are made by the affiants seeking to obtain the warrant, the warrant must be quashed. Alternatively, if unintentional misstatements are included, these misstatements must be excised and the remainder used to determine whether or not probable cause for the issuance of a warrant is set forth. State v. Rey, 351 So.2d 489 (La.1977). Similarly, when the affiant omits material facts without an intent to deceive, the reviewing court must add the omitted facts to those originally included and retest the sufficiency of the showing of probable cause. State v. Lehnen, 403 So.2d 683 (La.1981).

Defendant asserts affiant Parker knew the identity of the anonymous tipster. Defendant points out that Officer Parker revealed at trial that about two hours after the phone call on October 30, 1981 a confidential informant Irving Johnson turned over the car keys taken in the burglary to Officer Parker and stated that he had been one of the lookouts when defendant burglarized the Lipson home. However, Officer Parker repeatedly testified that he never learned the identity of the anonymous caller and specifically that he still did not know if Irving Johnson was that caller. The trial judge considered the evidence clear that the anonymous caller's identity and Irving Johnson were separate and distinct matters. The record supports this conclusion. Hence, we find no misrepresentation was made in the affidavit in this regard. Also, defendant asserts that the affidavit's final recitation that "complainant stated to affiant that the suspect broke into complainant's home ..." mistakenly implies that Gussie Lipson identified defendant as the man who burglarized her home, when in fact she has never done so. It is evident from the testimony that Officer Parker simply used the neutral word "suspect" in summarizing the incident report in order to detail the crime. We consider it unlikely the magistrate in context thought Mrs. Lipson had actually identified defendant herself originally because the whole first paragraph sets out the investigative process by which defendant was linked by fingerprint to the crime. Moreover, even if the affidavit does misrepresent that Mrs. Lipson identified defendant, if this misrepresentation is excised, the fingerprint match alone supplies probable cause for defendant's arrest. Finally, defendant asserts that Officer Parker knew that defendant had worked as a yard man for Mrs. Lipson, which could account for the fingerprint on the metal screen at the point of entry, and that this material omission should be added to the affidavit's facts to negate probable cause. However, the record clearly shows that Officer Parker did not learn of defendant's minimal work for the Lipsons done over three years prior to the burglary until weeks after the arrest, and, in any case, both sides' expert testimony agreed the latent fingerprint could not have been over a month old. Thus, the absence of this fact from the affidavit was neither an omission nor material.

In sum, the affidavit recited sufficient facts to establish probable cause for the issuance of the arrest warrant. Hence, the trial judge did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress.

Assignment of Error No. 1 is without merit.

ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NO.

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State v. Williams, 448 So. 2d 659 (La. 1984).

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