Kahn v. Flood, 587

• Decision Date: 22 February 1977
• Docket Number: D,No. 587,587
• Citation: 550 F.2d 784
• Parties: Martin KAHN and Ernest Fendt, Petitioners-Appellants, v. Walter J. FLOOD, as Warden of the Nassau Correctional Facility, and the People of the State of New York by and through the Hon. Denis Dillon, District Attorney of the County of Nassau, Respondents-Appellees. ocket 76-2138.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 784

550 F.2d 784

Martin KAHN and Ernest Fendt, Petitioners-Appellants, v. Walter J. FLOOD, as Warden of the Nassau Correctional

Facility, and the People of the State of New York by and

through the Hon. Denis Dillon, District Attorney of the

County of Nassau, Respondents-Appellees.

No. 587, Docket 76-2138.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued Jan. 17, 1977.

Decided Feb. 22, 1977.

Edwin I. Schulman, Brooklyn, N. Y. (Schulman & Laifer, Brooklyn, N. Y., on the brief), for petitioners-appellants.

Anthony J. Girese, Asst. Dist. Atty., New York City (Denis Dillon, Dist. Atty., Nassau County, William C. Donnino, Asst. Dist. Atty., Mineola, N. Y., of counsel), for respondents-appellees.

Before LUMBARD, FEINBERG and MULLIGAN, Circuit Judges.

MULLIGAN, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Hon. George C. Pratt, District Judge, entered on July 16, 1976 which dismissed the petition by Martin Kahn and Ernest Fendt for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Upon pleas of guilty, petitioners were convicted on October 7, 1974 in the County Court of Nassau County, New York of possession of gambling records in the first degree in violation of New York Penal Law § 225.20. Kahn and Fendt were sentenced respectively to 10 months and 45 days and were given fines of $2,500 and $1,000. They had reserved their rights to appeal on the suppression-of-evidence issue in their case, but their convictions were unanimously affirmed without opinion on January 28, 1976. People v. Kahn, 51 A.D.2d 595, 378 N.Y.S.2d 1014 (2d Dept.), leave to appeal denied, 39 N.Y.2d 749, 751, 384 N.Y.S.2d 1035, 349 N.E.2d 887 (1976).

Petitioners' guilty pleas followed an unsuccessful attempt to suppress gambling paraphernalia seized from the apartment where they conducted their operation. In challenging in the state courts the validity of the warrant which authorized the search, petitioners sought to show that the affidavit submitted in support of the application was false in material respects, not because of any perjury of the affiant, but because the affiant's source of information had lied to him. The state courts rejected this argument, holding that only perjury by the affiant would invalidate the warrant and the search dependent upon it. Petitioners now argue that this restriction on the scope of inquiry deprived them of "an opportunity for full and fair litigation of (their) claim in the state courts," Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 469, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 3039, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976), and that consequently they are not precluded from raising the issue anew in a federal habeas corpus proceeding. We affirm the judgment dismissing the petition.

On January 20, 1972, Sgt. John Lang of the Nassau County Police Department applied for a search warrant for apartment 1-O at 25 Park Place, Great Neck, New York. The sources of the information upon which the application was based were a confidential informant, Kahn and Fendt's past records of gambling offenses, the officer's personal observations, and a conversation with the superintendent of the apartment building, Thomas Barkley. ¹ Barkley told Lang that on the landlord's instructions, he had entered the apartment in question to determine whether the previous tenants had moved out. Upon doing so, he discovered that all furniture had been removed, but one bedroom contained four telephones, various electronic equipment, and newspaper clippings pasted on the wall. The warrant was executed, the gambling equipment seized, and petitioners were arrested and indicted for possession of gambling records and related crimes.

On October 24, 1973, after an initial suppression hearing, the validity of the warrant was upheld against an attack on the reliability of the confidential informant and the sufficiency of the warrant. The court held that the information obtained from Barkley together with Lang's personal observations were sufficient to establish probable cause, regardless of the informant's reliability. Petitioners then obtained a second hearing on December 11, 1973 at which they alleged that the superintendent had lied to the police officer. Following People v. Alfinito, 16 N.Y.2d 181, 264 N.Y.S.2d 243, 211 N.E.2d 644 (1965), the court required petitioners to demonstrate that the statements made by the affiant were perjurious. Since that standard was not satisfied, suppression was denied and petitioners' guilty pleas followed. Having exhausted state remedies, petitioners now turn to the federal courts for relief.

In Stone v. Powell, supra, the Supreme Court balanced the utility of the exclusionary rule against the costs of extending it to collateral review of Fourth Amendment claims and held that

where the State has provided an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim, a state prisoner may not be granted federal habeas corpus relief on the ground that evidence obtained in an unconstitutional search or seizure was introduced at his trial.

428 U.S. at 494, 96 S.Ct. at 3052 (footnotes omitted). Petitioners contend that they were denied a "full and fair" hearing in the state courts because of the New York rule which requires a demonstration of perjurious statement by the affiant, a rule allegedly more restrictive than that which obtains in federal court. On the contrary, it is clear that neither jurisdiction would invalidate the warrant without some showing of an affiant's knowing misstatement. ²

Mapp v. Warden, 531 F.2d 1167 (2d Cir. 1976) was an appeal from the denial of a writ of habeas corpus sought on the ground of a claimed violation of Fourth Amendment rights. Appellants challenged the validity of a search because of an inconsistency between a statement in the affidavit submitted in...