Schaffer v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 03 December 1963
• Docket Number: No. 33,34.,33
• Citation: 224 F. Supp. 184
• Parties: Charles E. SCHAFFER, Petitioner, v. Raymond W. ANDERSON, Respondent. Raymond CHALMERS, Petitioner, v. Raymond W. ANDERSON, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Delaware

224 F. Supp. 184

Charles E. SCHAFFER, Petitioner, v. Raymond W. ANDERSON, Respondent.

Raymond CHALMERS, Petitioner, v. Raymond W. ANDERSON, Respondent.

Nos. 33, 34.

United States District Court D. Delaware.

December 3, 1963.

Harold Leshem and H. B. Rubenstein, Wilmington, Del., for petitioner Schaffer.

David Snellenburg, II, of Killoran & Van Brunt, Wilmington, Del., for petitioner Chalmers.

W. Laird Stabler, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen., Wilmington, Del., for respondent.

LAYTON, District Judge.

These petitions for habeas corpus draw into question the legality of the admission into evidence of a $20 bill produced by one of the petitioners pursuant to a demand by a police detective during the course of a routine questioning. This $20 bill constituted significant evidence at the trial of petitioners resulting in their conviction for burglary.

The facts preceding petitioners' detention, interrogation and subsequent arrest are these: On October 1, 1961, between 6:15 P.M. and 11:20 P.M., the home of Dr. Edwin Fluevog was burglarized and a single $20 bill taken from a desk drawer. At 12:20 A.M., on October 2nd, police officers who were on a routine patrol, and who then had no knowledge of the Fluevog burglary, saw petitioners walking along a back road about two miles from Dr. Fluevog's home. The petitioners were dressed in black; their pant legs were wet up to the knees and grass and particles of mud were on their cuffs. The troopers stopped their car and questioned the petitioners. Schaffer stated that they were hitchhiking from Philadelphia to Norfolk along Route 13, that they had been left off on a back road away from that route and that their pants were wet and dirty because they had been run off another nearby back road two or three times. This explanation was of doubtful credibility. Nevertheless, the officers decided to take petitioners to Route 13, and after a routine "frisking", asked them into the car. On the way to Route 13, the officers asked the petitioners for identification. When the petitioners said they had no wallets or any other form of identification with them, the officers' suspicions were aroused and they decided to take the petitioners to troop headquarters and detain them there in order to investigate the truth of their story.

After their arrival at troop headquarters, Detective Fugate, who had just been assigned to investigate the burglary, noticed petitioners sitting on a bench and preliminarily questioned them. Shortly after 1:00 A.M., he directed Schaffer to the criminal investigation room and politely asked him to sit in a chair. In this connection, Fugate testified that Schaffer was "very jovial all the time." Schaffer then repeated his highly unlikely story about being dropped off on the back road while hitchhiking along Route 13. At this point, Fugate asked him to empty the contents of his pockets. Fugate testified that Schaffer did so "voluntarily." Among other things, there was a single $20 bill. Fugate returned it to Schaffer. Thereafter, he began to question Chalmers alone.¹ Shortly before 2:40 A.M., he was advised by another officer that a $20 bill had been taken in the Fluevog burglary and it might be identified by its serial number. At 2:40 A.M., Fugate returned to Schaffer and asked him if he had the $20 bill in his possession. Schaffer said yes and when Fugate asked if he could see it, Schaffer again gave it to him. The serial number checked out and Schaffer was then arrested within two minutes.

11 Delaware Code § 1902 provides that "a peace officer may stop any person abroad who he has reasonable ground to suspect * * * has committed or is about to commit a crime, and may demand of him his name, address, business abroad, and where he is going." If the person's answers are not satisfactory, he "may be detained and further questioned and investigated." This detention may not exceed two hours after which the person "shall be released or be arrested and charged with a crime."

When the testimony during the trial in the Delaware Superior Court revealed precisely when the ultimate seizure of the $20 bill had occurred, counsel made a motion to suppress its introduction into evidence on the grounds (1) that the seizure had occurred while the petitioners were in custody twenty minutes after the two-hour period of detention had expired and before they were arrested and (2) that the seizure was not incident to a lawful arrest. The trial judge conceded that the seizure was prima facie illegal but refused to exclude the evidence because he thought that it might have been surrendered voluntarily in which case the otherwise improper seizure would have been vitiated. Accordingly, by analogy with the Delaware practice pertaining to the admission of confessions, he heard legal argument on the admissibility of the bill, determined that he was unable as a matter of law to say that the production of the bill was involuntary, and along with the other issues submitted the issue of the voluntariness of the surrender of the bill to the jury. The jury convicted. On appeal, the Delaware Supreme Court reviewed the record carefully, particularly the question of the voluntariness of the production of the $20 bill, and affirmed. Schaffer v. State, Del., 184 A.2d 689 (1962), cert. denied, 374 U.S. 834, 83 S. Ct. 1882, 10 L.Ed.2d 1056 (1963).

A proper disposition of these petitions hinges on whether or not Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed.2d 1081 (1961) is applicable. That case held that the admission of evidence in state, as well as federal, trials had to meet federal constitutional standards pertaining to unreasonable searches and seizures. While the commission of the offense in this case preceded Mapp, nevertheless, it is my conclusion after an examination of Commonwealth v. Spofford, 343 Mass. 703, 180 N.E.2d 673 (1962); State v. Valentin, 36 N.J. 41, 174 A.2d 737 (196...