State v. Carol

• Decision Date: 03 December 1935
• Citation: 120 Conn. 573,181 A. 714
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE v. CAROL.

181 A. 714

120 Conn. 573

STATE v. CAROL.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

December 3, 1935

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Fairfield County; Samuel C. Shaw Judge.

Monty Carol was convicted of keeping alcoholic liquor with intent to sell without a permit, and he appeals.

No error.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.

Sydney P. Simons, of Bridgeport (Henry Greenstein, of Bridgeport, on the brief), for appellant.

Richard S. Swain, Pros. Atty., of Bridgeport, for the State.

MALTBIE, Chief Justice.

The defendant was informed against for keeping intoxicating liquors with intent to sell, without having a lawful permit to do so. He pleaded not guilty and elected to be tried by the court. Just before the jury were impaneled his counsel stated to the court that in arresting the defendant the officers, without a warrant, violently broke into his home and unlawfully seized alcoholic liquor and other implements and claimed that in so doing they violated sections 8 and 9, article 1, of the Constitution of this state and article 14 of the Constitution of the United States. He orally moved that the articles seized be returned to the accused. The court denied the motion with permission to counsel to renew it after the evidence was in and the court was in possession of the facts. When in the course of the trial the articles referred to were offered in evidence, the defendant objected upon the grounds he had stated as the basis of his oral motion, but the court overruled the objection. At the conclusion of the evidence offered by the state, the defendant moved to strike out these articles as evidence against him; but this motion was denied. The defendant took an exception to each of these adverse rulings. A verdict of guilty having been returned, he also made a motion to set it aside as against the evidence, and seeks to present the same claims in support of his appeal from the denial of that motion.

In State v. Griswold, 67 Conn. 290, 34 A. 1046, 33 L.R.A. 227, this court stated, two judges dissenting, that the fact that certain articles tending to indicate the guilt of the accused had been secured by a trespass would not be a sufficient ground to exclude them when offered in evidence. In State v. Magnano, 97 Conn. 543, 546, 117 A. 550, 551, this ruling was repeated. In State v. Reynolds, 101 Conn. 224, 125 A. 636, we re-examined the question, giving to it the most careful consideration, and reaffirmed the conclusion reached in the two previous cases. The decisions we have cited determine the law of this state to be that articles offered in evidence, which are relevant to the issue of the guilt or innocence of an accused person, will not be excluded because they may have been seized in violation of the provision in our Constitution forbidding unreasonable searches and seizures; and of course the provisions in the Bill of Rights attached to the United States Constitution, Constitution U.S. Amends, 1 to 10, have their operation only upon the powers delegated to the federal government and are ineffective as regards the powers of the individual states. Pickett, Prosecuting Attorney, v. Marcucci's Liquors, 112 Conn. 169, 173, 151 A. 526.

It is true that in the present case the defendant moved to have the articles returned before the jury had been impaneled to hear the evidence, and the trial court having refused to grant the motion at the time, with permission to him to renew it, he moved at the conclusion of the evidence...