People v. Martin

• Decision Date: 09 December 1955
• Docket Number: Cr. 5767
• Citation: 45 Cal.2d 755,290 P.2d 855
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. James MARTIN, Defendant and Respondent.

Page 855

290 P.2d 855

45 Cal.2d 755

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Appellant, v.James MARTIN, Defendant and Respondent.

Cr. 5767.

Supreme Court of California, In Bank.

Dec. 9, 1955.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Deputy Atty. Gen., S. Ernest Roll, Dist. Atty., Jere J. Sullivan and Lewis Watnick, Deputy Dist. Attys., Los Angeles, for appellant.

John J. Bradley and Max Solomon, Los Angeles, for respondent.

A. L. Wirin and Fred Okrand, Los Angeles, as amici curiae on behalf of respondent.

TRAYNOR, Justice.

By information defendant was charged with two counts of horse-race bookmaking, Penal Code § 337a(1) and two counts of keeping and occupying premises for the purposes of such bookmaing.Penal Code § 337a(2).The trial court granted defendant's motion to set the information aside(seePenal Code § 995) on the ground that all of the evidence against him had been obtained by illegal searches and seizures in violation of his constitutional rights.The People appeal.

Two of the counts were based on defendant's activities that were discovered by the arresting officers on April 20, 1955, at an office on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles.About 11:30 in the morning three police officers went to the premises, a small one-story office building.One testified that on arriving, 'I went to the front door of the office at this address and I looked through the door through a mail chute into the door into the small office.At first I didn't see anything.The room appeared to be empty.I knocked on the door and nobody answered.Nobody came to the door or answered; so I looked through again and I could see the defendant inside the room.He was on the telephone standing off to the left from the door using the telephone, at which time I knocked again and identified myself, and the defendant came and opened the door and let the three of us in.'Inside the room the officers found two small tables, two telephones, two blackboards, a box of chalk, a wet rag, and a scratch sheet for the day.Part of one of the blackboards was wet as if it had just been wiped.There were also two two-by-twelve planks on the floor near the door.The officers stayed in the room for approximately an hour and answered the telephones, which rang frequently.Telephone callers, who identified themselves by numbers, called in bets on various races during this period.As an expert on the practice of bookmakers in Los Angeles County, one of the officers testified that in his opinion the room was a relay spot, a place where either betters or the handbooks that take bets from betters telephone their bets.At a relay spot the bets are either recorded temporarily until they can be telephoned on to a 'phone spot or office' or are passed on directly to the phone spot by mechanically relaying the telephone calls.

The other two counts were based on defendant's activities that were discovered by the arresting officers six days later at another small office building on Ventura Boulevard.The same three officers went to the premises about 11:30 in the morning.While they were looking the place over, a woman came from a house in the rear, questioned them, and they identified themselves.After talking to her the officers looked through the rear window of the building.One of them testified: 'In the inside I could see two two-by-twelve planks barricading the door.I could see a blackboard laying on the floor, a box of chalk on it, a wet rag or a rag.I opened the window.I smelled cigarette smoke in the room.I could see what turned out to be the defendant moving around inside the room.I identified myself, called for the defendant to open the door, which he didn't do, so I entered through the window.* * * In the front room I found the defendant, two telephones on a card table, a pile of warm ashes in the corner.'While the officers were present the phones rang frequently, and although many of the callers hung up when the officers answered, one attempted to place bets.It was the officer's opinion that this room was also a relay spot.

At the time of the first arrest defendant told the officers that a man had offered him $2 to go in and watch the place in case any salesmen came around, and at the time of the second arrest defendant told the officers that a man on Ventura Boulevard had offered him a day's wages to sit in the place.The officers did not have a search warrant on either occasion.

The Attorney General contends that since defendant disclamed any interest in the premises searched and the property seized, his constitutional rights could not have been violated and that therefore he has no standing to challenge the legality of the searches and seizures.(See, Casey v. United States, 9 Cir., 191 F.2d 1, 3;Mello v. United States, 3 Cir., 66 F.2d 135, 136;Connolly v. Medalie, 2 Cir., 58 F.2d 629, 630.)We cannot agree with this contention.

It is true that in Goldstein v. United States, 316 U.S. 114, 62 S.Ct. 1000, 86 L.Ed. 1312, the United States Supreme Court recognized that the rule is well established in the lower federal courts that only those whose constitutional rights have been violated may object to the introduction of illegally obtained evidence against them.In the light of that rule it held that the federal wire-tapping statute should not be interpreted as forbidding the use of wire-tap evidence against a person not a party to the conversaion.It was careful to point out, however, that it had never decided that the rule applied in the lower federal courts with respect to unconstitutionally obtained evidence was correct.There are several United States Supreme Court decisions cited below, however, that the logically inconsistent with the rule applied in the lower federal courts, and it is impossible to reconcile that rule with the reasons that compel the exclusion of the evidence.

Thus, the rule of the lower federal courts is based on the theory that the evidence is excluded to provide a remedy for a wrong done to the defendant, and that accordingly, if the defendant has not been wronged he is entitled to no remedy.Connolly v. Medalie, supra, 58 F.2d 629, 630.In adopting the exclusionary rule, however, this court recognized that it could not be justified on that theory, People v. Cahan, 44 Cal.2d 434, 443, 282 P.2d 905, and based its decision on the ground that 'other remedies have completely failed to secure compliance with the constitutional provisions on the part of police officers with the attendant result that the courts under the old rule have been constantly required to participate in, and in effect condone, the lawless activities of law enforcement officers.'44 Cal.2d at page 445, 282 P.2d at page 911.This result occurs whenever the government is allowed to profit by its own wrong by basing a conviction on illegally obtained evidence, and if law enforcement officers are allowed to evade the exclusionary rule by obtaining evidence in violation of the rights of third parties, its deterrent effect is to that extent nullified.Moreover, such a limitation virtually invites law enforcement officers to violate the rights of third parties and to trade the escape of a criminal whose rights are violated for the conviction of others by the use of the evidence illegally obtained against them.

The United States Supreme Court has clearly recognized that the purpose of the exclusionary rule is not to provide redress or punishment for a past wrong, but to deter lawless enforcement of the law.'The Government cannot violate the Fourth Amendment * * * and use the fruits of such unlawful conduct to secure a conviction.(Citation.)Nor can the Government make indirect use of such evidence for its case (citation), or support a conviction on evidence obtained through leads from the unlawfully obtained evidence.(Citation.)All these methods are outlawed, and convictions obtained by means of them are invalidated, because they encourage the kind of society that is obnoxious to free men.'Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 64-65, 74 S.Ct. 354, 356, 98 L.Ed. 503;see also, United States v. Mitchell, 322 U.S. 65, 70-71, 64 S.Ct. 896, 88 L.Ed. 1140.In McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 456, 69 S.Ct. 191, 93 L.Ed. 153, it gave effect to this policy by reversing the conviction of both defendants although only the rights of one had been violated.It pointed out that had the evidence been returned to the defendant from whom it was illegally taken, it would not have been available for use against the other defendant, and held therefore that its admission was prejudicial as to both.(See also, Anderson v. United States, 318 U.S. 350, 356-357, 63 S.Ct. 599, 87 L.Ed. 829;Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 392, 40 S.Ct....