State v. Ciarelli
| Decision Date | 10 July 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 52325,No. 1,52325,1 |
| Citation | 416 S.W.2d 944 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. James A. CIARELLI, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Norman H. Anderson, Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, Frank P. Motherway, Sp. Asst. Atty., Gen., St. Louis, for respondent.
Robert M. Hickman, Kansas City, for appellant.
Defendant was convicted of receiving stolen property, specifically sixteen new Spalding golf clubs belonging to the Tomahawk Hills Country Club, and was sentenced by the court under the second offender's act to ten years' imprisonment.
Defendant's sole contention is that the trial court erred in overruling defendant's motion to suppress production in evidence of the golf clubs, for the reason that the clubs were obtained by unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and not as an incident of a lawful arrest.
The state proved by two convicts that on January 8, 1965, they broke into the Tomahawk Hills Country Club in Johnson County, Kansas, and stole the golf clubs in question, together with golf bags, shoes and balls, and sweaters and T-shirts. They took the loot to Kansas City, Missouri, where defendant and one Junior Bradley purchased the same from the two convicts knowing it to be stolen.
Meanwhile an investigator with the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit, Gene Overturf, was in an 'after hours' club, one which is opened after the regular taverns are closed, called 'Southside Club of Kansas City, Incorporated', located at 3807--09 Broadway, Kansas City, Missouri, on nine occasions as an undercover agent, commencing October 18, 1964, investigating alcohol tax violations. On each occasion Overturf was there defendant Ciarelli was in charge and carrying on the business of selling liquor. The club was located in an ol store building with one large room with two street entrances and two smaller rooms in the back, one containing frozen food lockers and the other room, which we will refer to as the 'locker room', containing lockers of the club members. Overturf testified that on occasions defendant would bring whiskey out of the locker room, after unlocking the door with keys obtained from a counter near the door. On the night of January 16, 1965, Ciarelli sold Overturf a point of whiskey which Ciarelli obtained from the locker room. The club was a corporation and apparently and 100 to 200 members. Ciarelli was an employee in charge of the club but was not an incorporator or a member of the board of directors. Overturf never saw anyone other than Ciarelli enter the locker room.
On January 16, 1965, Overturf filed a complaint for violation of U.S.C. Title 26, Section 5691, before the United States Commissioner at Kansas City, swearing that on or about December 19, 1964, defendant Ciarelli unlawfully carried on the business of selling retail liquor and willfully failed to pay the special tax as required by law, based on Overturf's personal knowledge, and on this the Commissioner issued a warrant of arrest for defendant.
About 2:30 a.m., January 17, 1965, Overturf and another Alcohol and Tax Unit investigator, together with two men from the United States Marshal's office, and approximately six or seven men from the Kansas City police force, went to the club premises, entered, and the federal marshals immediately put defendant under arrest on the authority of the federal arrest warrants. The Alcohol Tax men then started interviewing club patrons and also started a search for alcoholic beverages. The door to the locker room was locked. One of the investigators asked defendant if he had the keys to the room; defendant said he did and handed the keys to the witness. Upon opening the door, the Alcohol Tax investigator saw numerous lockers in the room and 'quite a bit of merchandise', including golf clubs. So the investigator called one of the men from the Kansas City police force, Detective Lieutenant Hitchcock, to the door and showed him the merchandise. It all appeared to be new, and the investigator suspected it was stolen. Lieutenant Hitchcock then entered the locker room and took charge of the property. The investigator said it was the practice of federal agents to take municipal officers with them on arrests of the nature here involved, and Hitchcock testified he had been assigned by his chief of detectives to assist the federal men in the arrest.
Lieutenant Hitchcock said the door to the locker room was open when he entered. He observed golf clubs, tied in two bundles on a couch, partly covered with a blanket with the shafts protruding and with the stickers and price tags still on the clubs. He had had reports of recent burglaries of golf shops in the area, and since these clubs were new with the price tags on them, he strongly suspected they were stolen. The two bundles of golf clubs, Exhibits 1 and 2, were positively identified by the golf professional and the Spalding salesman by registered numbers and model numbers as the golf clubs which were sold to the Tomahawk Hills Country Club and stolen in the burglary of January 8, 1965.
Lieutenant Hitchcock seized the golf clubs and other articles also in sight in the locker room, namely, new clothing piled on a nearby chair--three suits, four pairs of trousers, three sport jackets, 22 pairs of men's gloves and a shirt, together with a portable television set, a stereo set, golf balls, golf club covers and then stereo records (all the foregoing appeared to be new and unused) and a .38 Colt revolver and a pair of bolt cutters.
Defendant offered no evidence.
Since we have concluded there was not an unreasonable search and seizure here, as discussed below, we will assume without deciding that defendant did not consent to the search and seizure and that defendant has standing to question the same. See annotation, 9 A.L.R.3rd 858,--Search--Consent While in Custody, and Volume 1965, Wash.Univ.L.Quar. 488, Standing to Object to an Unlawful Search and Seizure.
Although the evidence shows that on previous occasions when the federal undercover agents were on the premises defendant was engaged in the business of selling liquor at retail (for example, the agents made purchases from him and saw him get liquor for others), the record is silent as to any activity in the club on the occasion of the arrest in the early morning hours of January 17, 1965. On that occasion the agents entered, made the arrest and started their search. There is no evidence as to what defendant or others on the premises were doing when the officers...
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