Paula v. State
| Decision Date | 29 June 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 6447,6447 |
| Citation | 188 So.2d 388 |
| Parties | Arthur L. PAULA, alias Art Russo, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Thomas W. Perkins, of Edmund, Perkins, Kirkland & McDaniel, Lake Alfred, for appellant.
Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and William D. Roth, Asst. Atty. Gen., Lakeland, for appellee.
Appellant Arthur L. Paula was informed against in the Polk County Criminal Court of Record, charging him in the first count with driving an automobile without having a driver's license, and in the second and third counts with violations of the State lottery laws. The second count charged that he unlawfully conducted a lottery, a felony, while the third count charged possession of implements and devices for conducting the lottery, a misdemeanor. Upon trial before the Court without a jury, he was acquitted on the first count and convicted on the second and third counts, resulting in a sentence of one year in the State Prison on the second count, and being placed on probation on the third count.
The evidence relied upon by the State at the trial consisted of certain articles and paraphernalia found and seized at the home of defendant as a result of a search made therein by deputy sheriffs pursuant to the authority of a search warrant issued by the County Judge for Polk County, Florida. The only contention made in this Court, as well as in the trial Court, is that the affidavit, upon which the search warrant was based and issued, was legally insufficient in its statement of facts to show probable cause. It is conceded that disposition of this case upon appeal rests upon a finding as to validity of the search warrant.
The affidavit for the warrant was made on December 11, 1964, before the County Judge by James C. Bowen, who for eight years had been a deputy sheriff in Polk County, in charge of the Vice Squad, and recited the following facts: that the had reason to believe and did believe that defendant was operating and conducting a lottery at a described location on Lake Bonny Drive in Lakeland, Florida, and had in his possession on said premises certain implements, tickets, books, machines and other paraphernalia commonly used in conducting and carrying on such lotteries, gambling and unlawful games of chance; that on November 1, 1964, the affiant had received information from a reliable and trustworthy informant, whose confidential information had previously proven to be true, that defendant was so engaged in the lottery business in Polk County, Florida, and had recently been 'checking up his lottery operations', which information your affiant had verified from investigation; that on November 25, 1964 the affiant had received from the informer a large paper bag containing numerous lottery tickets and names of known lottery writers in Polk County, which had come from a house and outside receptacles at 1536 Arthur Boulevard in Lakeland, where defendant had been living until November 23, 1964; that on November 28, 1964, the affiant had followed a known lottery operator to the defendant's new premises on Lake Bonny Drive in Lakeland, where he saw a known lottery operator enter said building with a small package in his hand; that on December 5, 1964, the affiant had personally observed a known lottery operator drive up in the driveway of said premises and had seen the defendant come to the car and receive a small package from the said lottery operator and place such package 'in the front of his trousers', the defendant then re-entering the building and the lottery operator leaving in his car; that such was one of the ways and methods that lottery tickets are transferred and transported.
Defendant filed motion to quash the search warrant and to suppress the evidence, which motion was heard before the trial, and upon sworn evidence taken thereon, was denied. At the trial the same evidence was adduced in somewhat more detail, resulting in the same ruling by the trial Court, which also found and adjudged defendant guilty on the lottery counts aforesaid.
Defendant contends generally that the affidavit for the search warrant is legally insufficient because it is based to some extent upon hearsay...
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Carter v. State
...has been issued charging any criminal offense and has been placed in the hands of any peace officer for execution.' In Paula v. State, Fla.App.1966, 188 So.2d 388, this Court "Probable cause' is the same, whether it is the basis of an affidavit for a search warrant or whether as the basis f......
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Suiero v. State
...record on appeal. See Bailey v. State, Fla.App.1965, 173 So.2d 708; see also 2 Fla.Jur., Appeals §§ 207, 224.2 See also Paula v. State, Fla.App.1966, 188 So.2d 388, and State v. Lewis, Fla.App.1969, 225 So.2d ...
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