State v. Holroyd

Decision Date15 March 1965
Docket NumberNo. A--58,A--58
Citation208 A.2d 146,44 N.J. 259
PartiesSTATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. James HOLROYD, Eugene D. Elwell and Donald Murray, Defendants-Appellants.
CourtNew Jersey Supreme Court

John A. Yacovelle, Jr., Camden, N.J., for appellants (Samuel P. Orlando, Camden, attorney).

Norman Heine, Camden County Pros., for respondent.

The opinion of the court was delivered

PER CURIAM.

The defendants, James Holroyd, Eugene D. Elwell, and Donald Murray, were tried before a jury in Camden County and convicted for conspiracy to obstruct the due administration of the Motor Vehicle Traffic Laws. After the trial judge denied their motion for a new trial, they appealed. We certified the matter on our own motion before argument in the Appellate Division.

The indictment charged that between January 1, 1959 and June 29, 1961, the defendants as police officers of the Borough of Barrington unlawfully agreed to dispose of certain motor vehicle traffic offense cases by downgrading the tickets originally issued by the arresting officer from operating offenses (e.g., speeding) to standing offenses (e.g., illegal parking), and that in furtherance of such illegal agreement parts of 'fines' paid by the traffic offenders were unlawfully diverted. The overt acts specifically set out in the indictment concerned a speeding ticket issued by the defendant Holroyd to one Robert Wright on September 15, 1959.

At the trial Wright testified that he had been given a speeding ticket on September 15, 1959, for driving 41 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour zone. On October 14, 1959 Wright left his copy of the ticket and a $15 check at the Borough Hall. On October 16, 1959 the check was deposited in the borough account. The magistrate of the borough's municipal court, when shown the Wright ticket, testified that it had been issued by defendant Holroyd and identified a receipt for $5 for a parking violation, dated January 8, 1960, as having been issued by defendant Murray. The magistrate further testified that defendant Elwell was the violations clerk in 1959 and that defendant Murray was violations clerk during 1960. The functions of the violations clerk were to keep a record showing the disposition of all tickets issued, and to accept fines and give receipts.

The official documents of the borough were introduced in evidence. With regard to the Wright ticket, they showed: Wright had been issued a ticket for speeding on September 15, 1959, and the ticket had been visibly altered from speeding to illegal parking. An entry in the traffic docket, dated January 8, 1960, showed a plea of guilty to illegal parking by Wright and the imposition and collection of a $5 fine. The records did not indicate a receipt of the $15 Wright check, dated October 14, 1959, and the records did not account for the $10 difference between the $15 payment and the $5 receipt.

The State introduced in evidence two statements made by each defendant. The first statement was given to Deputy Attorney General Budd M. Rigg on November 2, 1961, and the second was given to Camden County Assistant Prosecutor Sidney Kaplan on September 28, 1962.

In his statements, Elwell admitted that he altered a number of tickets he had issued because of hardship on the violator or because of friendship or at the request of fellow police officers. He also said that in addition to his duties as a patrolman, he had served as violations clerk during the year 1959. As violations clerk, after a speeding summons had been altered to parking, he would enter it in the docket book as a parking violation. He admitted endorsing the $15 Wright check but had no explanation for his failure to account for its receipt in the court's records. In his statements, Murray admitted altering tickets and consenting that tickets be altered because of hardship on the violators or friendship for them. In addition to his job as patrolman, he served as violations clerk for 1960. With reference to the Wright ticket, he acknowledged that as violations clerk he had received $5 for illegal parking and had made out a receipt accordingly. In his statements, Holroyd admitted that he had participated in the practice of altering tickets from speeding to illegal parking. He admitted that he had issued Wright's speeding ticket but could not recall whether he was the officer who had physically altered it. However, he stated that it was the practice that a ticket would not be altered without the issuing officer's consent.

All the defendants testified in their own behalf, and gave testimony generally consistent with that introduced through their statements.

On this appeal the defendants contend that the trial court erred in admitting their statements into evidence without holding a hearing to determine whether the statements were voluntarily made. Before the statements were introduced into evidence, the trial judge excused the jury and held a hearing to determine their admissibility. At that hearing the defendants objected to the admissibility of the statements on the ground that they had been coerced by Mr. Rigg's warning to them that if they failed to answer, proceedings might be instituted against them to have them removed from the...

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6 cases
  • State v. Leonardis
    • United States
    • New Jersey Supreme Court
    • 31 d2 Maio d2 1977
    ...that certain types of conduct constitute substantive crimes. State v. Naglee, 44 N.J. 209, 226, 207 A.2d 689 (1965); State v. Holroyd, 44 N.J. 259, 265, 208 A.2d 146 (1965). But we have held that: "(t)he fact that the Legislature has acted to provide a remedy does The court's power to fashi......
  • Theobald v. Angelos
    • United States
    • New Jersey Supreme Court
    • 15 d1 Março d1 1965
    ... ... (Ct.App.1959), where in a case involving New Jersey law the Court of Appeals reached the same conclusions on a review of the decisions in our State. We denied certification in Hoeller, 38 N.J. 362, 184 A.2d 868 (1962). We add that in Hoeller the Appellate Division declined to follow Smootz v ... ...
  • Garrity v. State of New Jersey, 13
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • 16 d1 Janeiro d1 1967
    ... ...           The petitioners were at all material times policemen in the boroughs of Bellmawr and Barrington, New Jersey. Garrity was Bellmawr's chief of police and Virtue one of its police officers; Holroyd, Elwell, and Murray were police officers in Barrington. Another defendant below, Mrs. Naglee, the clerk of Bellmawr's municipal court, has since died. In June 1961 the New Jersey Supreme Court sua sponte directed the State's Attorney General to investigate reports of traffic ticket fixing in ... ...
  • State v. Smith
    • United States
    • New Jersey County Court
    • 21 d5 Janeiro d5 1977
    ...in the legislative and not the judicial branch of government. State v. Woodruff, 68 N.J.L. 89, 52 A. 294 (Sup.Ct.1902); State v. Holroyd, 44 N.J. 259, 208 A.2d 146 (1959). 1 Indeed, a statute is not presumed to make any change in the common law beyond that expressed or fairly implied in its......
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