delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellant was found guilty by a jury in the Circuit Court tor Baltimore County of possession and control of narcotics (cannabis), and was sentenced by the court to five years under the jurisdiction of the Department of Correction. On this appeal he contends that the trial court erred when it denied his pretrial motion to suppress evidence seized at the time of his arrest, and in admitting such evidence over his objection at the trial.
*251 I
The Motion To Suppress Evidence
Appellant moved to suppress as evidence in the case approximately eight pounds of cannabis (marihuana) and other related tangible items seized at the time of his arrest, as well as certain incriminatory admissions which he made to the police shortly after his arrest. The motion was based on the ground that appellant had been unlawfully arrested and that the warrantless search of his room and person, and the taking of his oral statements were illegal as comprising the fruits of an illegal arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
A hearing was held on appellant’s motion out of the presence of the jury, at which time Lieutenant Thomas Mitchell of the Baltimore County Police Bureau, Narcotics Squad, testified that at 9:30 p.m. on August 2, 1967, he “received information” while at his home from Detective Kratsch of the Baltimore City Narcotics Squad, as the rеsult of -which he went to the Penn Motel in Baltimore County, arriving there at 10 :00 p.m-.; 1 that he there checked the register “which verified some of the information that I had received from the City”; that he ascertained that appellant was registered in room #222 and that while he did not know him, he had his description as being a white male, twenty to twenty-two years old, 5' 8", 140 pounds, long brown hair and bearded; that he went to his room, knocked on the door and, after failing to receive an answer, he left and kept the room under surveillance; that fifteen minutes later, a person answering appellant’s description, and two other men, entered room #222; that after waiting approximately fifteen minutes, he (Lieutenant Mitchell) and two other police officers, knocked on the door of appellant’s room; that in response to an inquiry from within the room as to “who was there,” he (Mitchell) said “Tommy Carroll”; that one of the occupants of the room, later identified as Richard Mainolfi, then opened *252 the door about eight to ten inches, at which time he (Mitchell) “flashed” his identification card at Mainolfi, observing at the same time that the room was “a one bedroom affair,” that a man was lying on a bed smoking a cigarette, “his hands cupped around his face in such fashion where you would smoke a marihuana cigarette,” that three сigarettes were beside him on the bed “rolled as a marihuana cigarette,” and that the room was “full of smoke” which he (Mitchell) knew from his experience to be marihuana smoke; that Mainolfi tried to slam the door shut but he (Mitchell) put his “foot in the door” and his “face in the opening,” and also “put some pressure on the door;” that thereafter Mainolfi “permitted us entry”; and that they then seized from within the room a number of marihuana cigarette butts, a briefcase containing three blocks of marihuana kilo and another block of marihuana then being processed.
Lieutenant Mitchell had neither a search warrant nor an arrest warrant when he went to the motel. He testified on cross-examination that his purpose in stating that he was Tommy Carroll was “to get them to open the door.” 2 He further testified that he felt he had sufficient cause to enter the room based on “the information and the specific way it was received by Detective Kratsch, and the description of the subject and the subject was there”; that he had “the information and the detail of the information how it was secured from Detective Kratsch, whom I’m very familiar with and with whom I have worked on a lot of occasions, and he gave me this information”; and that he knew that Kratsch’s information had been obtained from an informer of whose reliability he (Mitchell) had no knowledge.
The court denied appellant’s motion to suppress, holding that the evidence indicated that Mitchell “had received from Officer Kratsch information that the defendant was involved in transr portation and possession of marihuana,” and that it was with “that information at hand” that Mitchell went to the motel, having theretofore been provided with appellant’s detailed description. The court ruled, alternately, that even if Lieutenant Mitchell did not have probable cause to arrest at the time he went *253 to the motel, he thereafter acquired probable cause when the door was opened and he could see that marihuana was possessed by the occupants of the room.
The constitutional validity of the search and seizure manifestly depends upon the constitutional validity of appellant’s arrest. And whether an arrest for a felony without a warrant is constitutionally valid necessarily turns upon whether, at the moment the arrest was made, the arresting officer or the police acting as a team had probable cause to make it — whether at that moment the facts and circumstances within their knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information were sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that the accused had committed or was сommitting a felony.
3
McCray v. Illinois,
Thus, in Draper v. United States, supra, the Supreme Court held that in testing the sufficiency of probable cause for a warrаntless arrest, the arresting officer may rely upon information received through an informant, rather than upon his direct observations, so long as the informer’s statement is reasonably corroborated by other matters within the officer’s knowledge. In that case, a “special employee” of the Bureau of Narcotics (in reality a paid government informer), who had previously given reliable information, told federal agents that the defendant, whom he described, was peddling narcotics, and that he would be at a designated place on a designated date with a tan zipper bag and would be carrying narcotics. The defendant, being observed by federal agents under conditions which accorded precisely with this information, was arrested and the arrest was upheld solely upon the informant’s detailed statement that the defendant was peddling narcotics, as corroborated by the fact that the informant’s description of the defendant’s appearance, and of where he would be at a particular time — matters in themselves totally innocuous — agreed with the arresting officer’s observations (thus providing a substantial basis for crediting the hearsay).
In Beck v. Ohio, supra, the defendant was arrested without a warrant for violating the gambling laws. By pre-trial motion the defendant moved to suppress evidence seized frоm his person at the time of his arrest. To establish the legality of the arrest the State called the arresting officer as its sole witness. He testified that he had “a police picture” of the defendant and *255 “knew what he looked like,” that he knew the defendant had “a record in connection with clearing house and scheme of chance,” that he had “information,” that he had “heard reports,” that “someone specifically did relate that information,” and that he “knew who that person was.” The Supreme Court, in concluding that the State failed to establish probable cause for the arrest, held that there was “nowhere in the record any indication of what ‘information’ or ‘reports’ the officer had received, or, * * * from what source the ‘information’ and ‘reports’ had come”; that all the trial court was told “was that the officers knew what the petitioner looked like and knew that he had a previous record of arrests or convictions for violations of the clearing house law,” but that the record did not contain “a single objective fact to support a belief by the officers that the petitioner was engaged in criminal activity at the time they arrested him.” The court concluded that on the record before it, the State failed to make the required showing of “what the informer actuаlly said, and why the officer thought the information was credible.”
In McCray v. Illinois, supra, the defendant was arrested on the street without a warrant for possessing narcotics. A motion to suppress the evidence having been filed, it was incumbent upon the State to establish probable cause for the arrest. To this end the two arresting officers each testified in considerable detail that they had talked with an informant on the morning of the arrest who had told them that defendant was then selling narcotics at a particular place and at a particular time; that the informant pointed out the defendant to the officers; and that when the defendant saw the police car, hе hurriedly walked away. The officers testified that they had been acquainted with the informant for over a year, that he had supplied them with information about narcotics activities over fifteen times, and that this information had proved accurate and resulted in numerous arrests and convictions, which the officers specifically delineated in open court. In upholding the legality of the arrest, the court found that each of the officers had testified with specificity as to what the informer actually said and why the officers thought the information was credible.
In capsule form then the correct rule is as stated in
Hwnd
*256
ley v. State,
Applying these рrinciples to the evidence introduced at the hearing on the appellant’s motion to suppress, we hold that the State failed to show probable cause for the arrest prior to the time that the officers knocked on the door to appellant’s room. All that the evidence shows is that lieutenant Mitchell received undisclosed and unspecified information from a reliable police officer, as a result of which he immediately went to the Penn Motel, ascertained that appellant, whose description he somehow had, was registered there, and observed him and two others enter his room at the motel. There was nо evidence to show that Lieutenant Mitchell had been informed by anyone or that he had any personal information on his own, that appellant had committed or was committing a crime, or even that he was suspected of committing a crime. It is, of course, possible that the police, acting as a team, had probable cause to make the arrest prior to the time that they knocked on appellant’s door. See
Jones v. State,
We agree, however, with the alternative conclusion reached by the trial judge at the conclusion of the hearing on the motion to suppress, namely that Lieutenant Mitchell had probable cause to arrest appellant when the door to his room was opened
*257
and the officer, without making an entry, instantly observed that the room was full of marihuana smoke, that there wrere marihuana cigarettes in plain sight on the bed, and that one of the occupants of the room was smoking a cigarette in the distinctive fashion of a marihuana smoker. As heretofore indicatеd, the legality of the arrest is measured by the existence of probable cause at the time it is made and we think it clear that in the situation in which Lieutenant Mitchell found himself when the door to the room was opened, he had at that moment probable cause to believe that a felony was then being committed. That the smell of distinctive odors can constitute evidence of crime and of probable cause is well settled.
United States v. Ventresca,
Appellant places reliance on
Johnson v. United States,
II
The Evidence of Probable Cause to Arrest Adduced at Trial'
At the trial, Tommy Carroll testified that on August 2, 1967 at approximately 3:30 p.m. he drove appellant to the Penn Motel and that the appellant then had a suitcase with him and said it contained marihuana.
Lieutenant Mitchell testified to the same facts that he testified to at the hearing on the motion to suppress, but with these *259 additions: (a) that Officer Kratsch told him that an informant had told Kratsch that appellant was at the motel “with 20 pounds of marihuana;” (b) that he knew Kratsch wouldn’t call him at his home on a matter requiring him to leаve “unless it was positive information,” and that he (Mitchell) knew from his long acquaintance with Kratsch that there would be “something to” Kratsch’s information; (c) that he used Tommy Carroll’s name “on information received” from Officer Kratsch and he did so to gain entrance into the room knowing that if he announced his true identity, the occupants wouldn’t have let him in; and (d) that when he (Mitchell) went to appellant’s door he had a uniformed police officer with him “so when he did open the door there would be no mistake that we were police.” Mitchell testified that he did not know the informer’s name until after the arrest was made. The informer, a young juvenile, was identified by name at thе trial.
The trial judge, in overruling appellant’s trial objection to the admission of the incriminating marihuana evidence found in the motel room, stated that the arrest was lawful because Kratsch was himself a reliable informer; that he in turn had received the information from a named informer, and that it was not essential for the State to show other than that Kratsch was a reliable person and that the information furnished by him to Lieutenant Mitchell in other cases had been reliable.
Without question, the observations of fellow law enforcement officers constitute a reliable basis in the assessment of whether probable caus;fe to arrest exists.
United States v. Ventresca, supra; Rugendorf v. United
States,
supra.
Equally well settled is thе proposition that probable cause to arrest may be based on information collectively within the knowledge of the police.
Farrow v. State, supra.
In
People v. Horowitz,
In Draper and McCray, the informer was himself the source of the information that a crime was being committed by the person to be arrested, and the informer’s reliability was clearly established by the evidence. Here, the true source of the information was not Officer Kratsch. Insofar as the record shows, he was but a conduit of the information, and while his reliability was established, the reliability of his informer was not. The State’s failure to establish the reliability of Kratsch’s informant is unexplained in the record. Under these circumstances, we entertain considerable doubt that, even with the additional evidence adduced at the trial itself, the arrest can be justified as one based on the existence of probable cause prior to the time that Lieutenant Mitchell knocked on the door to appellant’s room. 5
We hold, however,- that the evidence, both at the suppression hearing and at the trial itself, did demonstrate the existence of probable cause for Lieutenant Mitchell to make the arrest at the time that the door was opened to appellant’s room and, consequently, the arrest being lawful, the search and seizure made incident thereto were likewise lawful, and the incriminating evidence was properly introduced. In so concluding, we have considered appellant’s 'argument that the trial court erred in per
*261
mittiug Lieutenant Mitchell to testify that it was marihuana smoke that he smelled in appellant’s room. We think the record shows that Lieutenant Mitchell was an experienced police officer with a substantial background in the field of narcotics and was qualified to express an opinion that the smoke he smelled and observed emanated from the burning of marihuana. See
Sherrod v. State,
Ill
Admissibility oj Appellant’s Incriminating Admissions
The evidence adduced both at the hearing on the motion to suppress and at the trial before the jury showed that immediately following his arrest, the police gave appellant the specific four-fold warning required under
Miranda v. Arizona,
Appellant contends that after the Miranda warnings were read to him, he was not afforded an opportunity to make a phone call to an attorney before the officers questioned him in the police car. He further contends that he was under the influence of narcotics when questioned and that his incriminating statements were therefore involuntarily made and should not have been admitted in evidence at the trial. These objections were made both at the suppression hearing and at the trial and, although only obliquely mentioned, the broader objection was in substance made that there was no waiver of his Miranda *262 rights prior to the time that the officers questioned him in the police car.
As there is no evidence in the case to show that appellant was under the influence of narcotics when arrested, or that he made any request to call an attorney before being questioned in the police car, we And no basis for excluding the incriminating admissions on these grounds. But questioning appellant in a police car under the circumstances here involved clearly constitutes “custodial interrogation” within the meaning of
Miranda (Myers v. State,
The record before us discloses that appellant was twenty years of age and a high school graduate. As heretofore indicated, there was nо evidence that he was under the influence of narcotics or that his intellectual endowments were in any way impaired at the time of his interrogation. There was no evidence that he was subjected to physical coercion during his interrogation or that he was subjected to any psychological coercion at any time beyond the fact that the police “needled” him after his arrest. Appellant had been caught red-handed by the police, knew that the incriminating evidence had been seized from his motel room, and undoubtedly appreciated the magnitude of his predicament. He was subjected to interrogation in a poliсe car rather than in the more compulsive atmosphere of the station house. And from the testimony, the trier of fact could find that appellant understood the import of the Miranda warnings and knew that he had a right to remain silent and to have counsel present during any police interrogation.
Despite the fact that the testimony does not show an express waiver of appellant’s right to remain silent and to counsel, we hold that the totality of the circumstances — the attendant facts of the case — are such as implicitly show that appellant voluntarily and intelligently relinquished these rights when he made his incriminating admissions. See
United States v. Hayes, supra; Brozan v. State, supra; Scott v. State,
IV
The Court’s Instructions to the Jury
Appellant contends that the trial judge erred in three particulars in his instructions to the jury. As we have by our opinion heretofore approved the substance of two of the challenged instructions, we need not further discuss them. The remaining objection is based on appellant’s argument that the trial judge erred *264 in instructing the jury that probable cause to make an arrest is made out if “the police team working on a particular case had accumulated sufficient information to furnish probable cause for a reasonable man to believе that the alleged crime had been committed, and that there was probable cause to believe that the defendant was involved therein, there was sufficient cause for an arrest;” [and that] “It is the sufficiency of the information which the police organization working as a team of which the arresting officer is a part which is determinative.” The basis of appellant’s exception made at the conclusion of the court’s instruction was that “there is no evidence of the police team working in that literal sense.”
Appellant now expands on the reason for his exception by maintaining that the legality of the “police team” cоncept of probable cause depends upon a satisfactory evidentiary showing of the details of the informer’s statement, and that such details were not in evidence in this case. In effect then, appellant does not contend that the court misstated the law in its instructions, but rather that the challenged instruction had no application to the evidence adduced at the trial.
Maryland Rule 756 f provides that a party having an objection to any portion of any instruction given, or to any omission therefrom, shall before the jury retires to consider its verdict, make such objection “stating distinctly the portion, or omission, or failure to instruct to which he objects and the ground of his objection.” We think it apparent that the ground of appellant’s objection made at the conclusion of the court’s instructions was not sufficiently distinctive to warrant review on appeal. We nevertheless note that the challenged instruction was given in the context of “what information” the arresting officers had “the moment they entered the room”; that the court defined probable cause as existing “where the facts and circumstances within the police officer’s knowledge and of which he had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense had been or is being committed”; and that the court qualified its instruction by telling the jury that “Common rumor, reports, suspicions, even though strong, are not sufficient to support an arrest and a search and seizure.” Considering the *265 challenged instruction in this light, we think that even if over-broad, no real prejudice resulted to appellant, and accordingly we find no reversible error.
V
Sufficiency of the Evidence to Go to the Jury
Appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal at the conclusion of the case. We disagree. In order to overturn a judgment entered on the verdict of a jury for insufficiency of the evidence, it is necessary that there was no legally sufficient evidence, or inferences drawable therefrom, on which the jury could find an accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Quinn v. State, 1 M'd. App. 373. The record before us discloses no such deficiency of evidence.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
. The court sustained appellant’s objection to Lieutenant Mitchell relating the substance of the information that he had received from Detective Kratsch. For reasons hereinafter set forth, the court’s ruling in this regard was erroneous.
. No evidence was adduced at the suppression hearing to shed light on the identity of Tommy Carroll.
. Where the arrest is made for a misdemeanor, the test to determine the legality of the arrest is whether the misdemeanor was committed in the officer’s presence.
Robinson v. State,
.
The Supreme Court made it crystal clear in
McCray v. Illinois, supra,
that there is no requirement, constitutional or otherwise, which compels disclosure of the informant’s identity on a hearing to determine the question of probable cause for an arrest or search. Cf.
Roviaro v. United States,
. Having failed to establish such probable cause at the suppression hearing, a question arises as to whether the State should be afforded another opportunity to do so at the trial before the jury. As we find probable cause to arrest to exist for other reasons, we need not consider the question on this appeal.