DocketNumber： 70077
Judges： Pope, Been, Beasley
Filed Date： 5/22/1985
Status： Precedential
Modified Date： 11/8/2024
David Lee Moore brings this appeal from his convictions of robbery and aggravated assault. Held:
1. Appellant first challenges the legality of his arrest without a warrant. The testimony of Atlanta Police Officer McDonald shows that while he was on foot patrol near the Greyhound Bus Depot in downtown Atlanta, he was approached by a Greyhound employee who told him that a man had been shot in the back parking lot of the bus depot. The shooting victim, Seydel, had observed a purse snatching from his car and, while still in his car, had pursued the thief to the bus depot. As Seydel exited the car in an attempt to apprehend the thief, the thief shot him in the leg and fled. Shortly after the officer arrived at the scene of the shooting, the purse snatching victim, Marr, and her companion, Haggins, also arrived. The thief was described to the officer as “a tall, black male, slim, no facial hair, not a whole lot of hair on the top of his head. ...” This admittedly sketchy description was supplemented by a burgandy cap, which the thief had dropped during flight, handed to Officer McDonald by Haggins. The officer recognized the cap as belonging to appellant, because he had arrested appellant two or three times during the preceding year and had searched the cap on those occasions. The officer specifically recognized the “band around the inside of the hat, the white tag inside the hat that said medium, and the buckle in back of the hat.” He had only seen one cap like it before, and appellant was wearing it.
Officer McDonald testified that his first priority upon arriving at the scene of the shooting was to tend to the victim rather than pursue the perpetrator, who had already fled the scene. After an ambulance had arrived for the victim, the officer immediately began trying to locate appellant. He put a “lookout” for appellant and began to check the area around the bus depot. The officer knew appellant to frequent this area and, in fact, had spoken with him there a few days earlier. At that time appellant had told the officer that he had purchased a bus ticket out of town and planned to leave the following week. Officer McDonald inquired of several habitués of the area in question as to whether they recognized the burgandy cap as appellant’s and whether they had seen appellant in the vicinity that day. Several persons interviewed by the officer responded affirmatively to both inquiries. The officer noted that appellant’s presence in the area during the morning hours of the day in question was unusual as he did not usually see appellant in the area until afternoon or evening. The subject crimes occurred shortly before noon. The location of appellant’s residence was ascertained to be a hotel approximately one and one-half miles from the bus depot. Officer McDonald and three other officers
“An officer has authority to arrest anyone of whom he has a reasonable suspicion that he has committed a felony, without waiting first to procure a warrant. What constitutes reasonable grounds of suspicion is generally to be determined under the facts of the individual case. It is well settled that an arrest may be made upon hearsay evidence; and indeed, the reasonable cause necessary to support an arrest cannot demand the same strictness of proof as the accused’s guilt upon a trial, unless the powers of peace officers are to be so cut down that they cannot possibly perform their duties. It is the function of the court to determine if the facts upon which the officer acted would warrant a man of reasonable caution to believe that an offense had been committed. Moreover, the reasonable cause necessary to support an arrest does not demand the same strictness of proof as proof of guilt upon the trial. Probable cause exists when the facts and circumstances within the officer’s knowledge are sufficient in themselves to warrant a belief by a man of reasonable caution that a crime has been committed.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Chaney v. State, 133 Ga. App. 913, 916 (213 SE2d 68) (1975). Applying these rules to the testimony set forth above, we find ample evidence of probable cause for appellant’s arrest in this case. See, e.g., Waller v. State, 134 Ga. App. 886 (1) (216 SE2d 637) (1975). See also Reese v. State, 145 Ga. App. 453 (1) (243 SE2d 650) (1978). Moreover, we view the evidence of appellant’s previously announced intention to leave town at an unspecified time during the week in which the subject crimes were perpetrated as authorizing appellant’s warrantless arrest under the clause “likely to be failure of justice for want of a judicial officer to issue a warrant” of OCGA § 17-4-20. (a). See Cornelius v. State, 165 Ga. App. 794 (302 SE2d 710) (1983). In any event, since in this case the constitutional requirement of probable cause was met, the arrest was valid whether or not OCGA § 17-4-20 (a) was violated. Quick v. State, 166 Ga. App. 492 (2) (304 SE2d 916) (1983). Finally, because appellant has been indicted and convicted, an illegal arrest is not, in and of itself, a ground for reversal. Anderson v. State, 152 Ga. App. 268 (1) (262 SE2d 560) (1979). Appellant’s first enumeration of error has no merit.
2. Appellant’s second enumeration of error raises several arguments challenging the corporal and photographic identification procedures as tainted and impermissibly suggestive. We find none persuasive. Our review of the record discloses that the pre-indictment lineup in this case was neither unnecessarily suggestive nor conducive to irreparable mistaken identification. See King v. State, 168 Ga. App. 291 (1) (308 SE2d 612) (1983). See also Jamison v. State, 164 Ga.
3. We find that the trial court’s refusal to give appellant’s requests to charge on identification and on the credibility of witnesses was not error, because the substance of each request was fully and fairly included in the general charge. See Irwin v. State, 244 Ga. 850 (4) (262 SE2d 99) (1979); Ramsey v. State, 145 Ga. App. 60 (9) (243 SE2d 555), revd. on other grounds, 241 Ga. 426 (246 SE2d 190) (1978). It is no longer necessary to give the exact language of requests to charge when the same principles are fairly given to the jury in the general charge of the trial court. Shirley v. State, 245 Ga. 616 (3) (266 SE2d 218), cert. den., Shirley v. Georgia, 449 U. S. 879 (1980).
Judgment affirmed.