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39 Ala. App. 286

97 So.2d 825

Weldon v. State

Alabama Court of Appeals

Decided August 13, 1957

Alabama Court of Appeals · decided 1957-08-13

Relies on Gambill v. Schmuck · 16 Ala. App. 315 - Rhodes v. McWilson · 17 Ala. App. 181 - Warsham v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1957-08-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently July 1988

16 state decisions

801957196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1On Rehearing.

¶2In his brief in support of the State’s application for rehearing, the Attorney General argues that the Sheriff having made an affidavit in connection with the search warrant that he had probable cause for believing liquor was in appellant’s house, taken in connection with what the Sheriff observed, was sufficient for the Sheriff to know that a misdemeanor was being committed in his presence.

¶3We have already concluded that the Sheriff’s observations from outside the house, and under the Sheriff’s own testimony, failed to establish positively that a crime was being committed in his presence, regardless of the reasonable suspicion that appellant’s conduct may have created.

¶4We cannot see that the fact that the Sheriff had previously made an affidavit that he had probable cause for believing that prohibited liquor was in appellant’s house in anywise proves that a misdemeanor was being committed in the Sheriff’s presence. By its own terms the affidavit shows only probable cause for believing, not positive knowledge.

¶5The offense for which this appellant was arrested being a misdemeanor, neither actual belief in the guilt of the appellant, nor reasonable grounds to suspect guilt constitutes a basis for arrest without a warrant. Rhodes v. McWilson, 16 Ala.App. 315, 77 So. 465; Warsham v. State, 17 Ala.App. 181, 84 So. 885; Gambill v. Schmuck, 131 Ala. 321, 31 So. 604.

¶6Application overruled.

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