Colopietro v. State

Per Curiam. John Russell Colopietro, the appellant, was convicted under four separate indictments for larceny and under a fifth indictment for possession of barbiturates in a non-jury trial in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. He was sentenced to a term of five years under each larceny indictment and a term of one year on the barbiturate indictment, all sentences to run concurrently. On appeal he contends his arrest was illegal and barbiturates found on him at the time should not have been admitted into evidence.

He further contends that he was not advised of his right to counsel prior to his confessions of the larceny charges, and that the confessions should not have been admitted into evidence. THE ARREST The evidence shows that a police officer of Baltimore County was staked out in a vacant apartment above Colopietro’s for the purpose of serving a warrant upon one Frank Vincent Garbo for whom the officer had a warrant. When Garbo appeared at Colopietro’s apartment door and opened it the officer arrested him under the warrant and simultaneously arrested Colopietro. As gleaned from a meager record the reasons for Colopietro’s arrest consisted simply of the officer’s statement that he had reliable information from a reliable informant that prior to a burglary Colopietro had been observed in the same car that approximately a month later was connected with a second burglary.

Apparently some additional information had also been obtained from the prior tenants of the apartment in which the officer hid prior to the arrest but the record does not disclose the information. The record also does not disclose why any of the informants were considered reliable. Prior to trial Colopietro made a motion to dismiss which can be considered as a motion to suppress the barbiturates which a search after the arrest revealed on Colopietro’s person. We hold that the arrest was illegal.

The mere fact that Colopietro was observed riding in an automobile near the scene of, but prior to, a burglary a ³¹⁴ month earlier and that same automobile was involved in a subsequent crime might well be grounds for suspicion that he was some way involved in criminal activity but hardly satisfies the test that prior to an arrest for a felony an officer must have reasonable grounds to believe that a felony has been committed and that the accused had committed it. We ruled in Scott v. State, 1 Md. App. 481 , 231 A. 2d 728 and in Kist v. State, 4 Md. App. 282, 242 A. 2d 586 that a search warrant must disclose the underlying circumstances upon which the informer believed that a crime had been committed and the underlying circumstances in which the officer had a reason to believe that the information was reliable. In a somewhat similar case, Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89 , 85 S. Ct. 223 , 13 L.Ed.2d 142 the Supreme Court of the United States held that the information required to be possessed by an officer who arrested without a warrant was certainly no less than that required where an arrest warrant had been obtained. It further held that the record must clearly indicate the information on which the officer relied and that information must show that he had probable cause to believe that a felony had been committed and the accused had committed it.

Compare Draper v. United States, 358 U. S. 307 , 79 S. Ct. 329 , 3 L.Ed.2d 327 and McCray v. Illinois, 386 U. S. 300 , 87 S. Ct. 1056 , 18 L.Ed.2d 62 . The officer’s conclusion that he had reliable information from reliable informants cannot be accepted as furnishing sufficient basis for an arrest. THE CONFESSION The police testimony which was accepted by the trial judge as being accurate consisted of the fact that Colopietro was made no promises or inducements and that no threats were made against him, and that the Miranda warnings were given to him in the following manner: “Q. Now, Detective Sellman, after arresting Mr. Colopietro what did you do ? “A.