Court Opinion

ID: 9423851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:09:21.013544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:46.439032
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Black,
whom Mr. Justice Harlan joins, dissenting.
The Court here summarily reverses the jury’s conviction of petitioner, Pete Recznik, for violating the city’s laws against keeping a gambling house and having possession of gambling tables and other gambling devices. The Court simply grants certiorari and reverses, giving the City of Lorain no opportunity at all to argue its case before us. I dissent from such a hasty, ill-considered reversal. To reverse the conviction, this Court holds that it was error for the trial court to deny Recznik’s motion to suppress evidence obtained in part by a search without a warrant of the gambling establishment. Having read the entire 388 pages of testimony, I think that they show beyond doubt that there was no unlawful search and seizure and I think that an argument would reveal that fact to this Court. This is made clear by the per curiam opinion’s reliance on an order of July 7, 1965, refusing, prior to trial, to suppress the evidence. This Court bases its reversal on its disagreement with the pretrial finding that petitioner’s gambling house was a “public establishment.” The Court states that this finding “has no support in the record.” While I think that the testimony contains far more than enough evidence to support a finding that the so-called “apart*171ment” was maintained as a public gambling house, and not as a private residence, it happens that this was only an alternative ground for the trial court’s refusal to suppress at this pretrial hearing. The other ground was this:
“The Court upon consideration overrules defendant’s motion for the following reasons, to wit: That no evidence of any illegal search or seizure was presented. Defendant merely presented oral and written arguments in support of his motion.”
The fact that no sworn evidence was presented to support the motion to suppress was, of course, sufficient to dispose of the pretrial motion as the court did. That this first pretrial motion is not now relied on by petitioner is shown by his statement to the court at the beginning of the trial to this effect:
“Mr. Gordon: On the motion to suppress the evidence in this case, the Court is to consider the evidence in the main case that will be presented to the Jury at this time and make its decision later.”
At the end of the city’s evidence the motion to suppress was made again and denied; it was again made and denied at the conclusion of all the evidence. So it is not to the first pretrial motion to suppress of July 7, 1965, that we must look but to the whole record. That record, in my judgment, shows that the petitioner, who owned the premises which he permitted to be used as a gambling establishment, not only did not object to the officers going into the building but also actually invited them.
As the Court says, the building into which the officers entered belongs to the petitioner, Pete Recznik. He is evidently a well-known gambler around town since he testified that he had been in and out of jail for around a quarter of a century, as had John Micjan whom the *172petitioner asserted was his upstairs “tenant” in the private “apartment” which was filled with dice, game tables, and other gambling devices. In fact, Micjan had come to the “apartment” straight from the jail only a month or two before.
The arrest took place in the following factual context. While Police Officer Kochan was cruising around the streets someone told him that gambling was going on at Recznik’s building. He and his partner decided to go up and look around in the area of the building. Now, of course, this street information they had received would not alone have been enough to give probable cause either for a search warrant or an arrest. Nor did the officers treat it as enough. It was enough, however, for the officers to investigate, which they did. They went to the building about midnight and saw signs of extraordinary activities around it. While the bottom floor was dark, the upstairs, where the gambling paraphernalia were located, was well lighted. They saw about 40 to 50 automobiles parked in the front and rear of the building. They observed men coming in cars, getting out, going up the back stairs, and entering the upstairs rooms without any difficulty whatever. They observed someone upstairs peeping at them through Venetian blinds and shortly thereafter petitioner Recznik came out and talked with them. Recznik did not then or at any time order the officers not to come up. Instead, according to petitioner Recznik’s own testimony, he told Officer Kochan that they were having a party upstairs and, addressing the officer directly, said: “If you want to come up you can come up.” Again, Recznik testified: “I told him the first time, we had a party, that he was invited up. He says, 'I will be back later.’ ”
After these invitations the officers went away and came back about 1 a. m., finding the place still lighted and filled with people. The officers walked up the *173back steps, where they had seen the others walking in and out. They opened the door which they testified was unlocked. They saw many people there. Recznik testified that they pulled the screen door off its hinges. The officers denied it and obviously neither the jury that convicted nor the judge that refused to suppress the evidence believed Recznik. Once inside, the officers met Recznik. Recznik testified as follows in response to questions from the prosecuting attorney:
“Q. There has been a lot of talk about a warrant. Did you ask him to see a warrant?
“A. No, I didn’t say nothing.
“Q. Did you tell him to stay out?
“A. No. Absolutely not.
“Q. Did you say, ‘You can’t come in here?’
“A. No.
“Q. You just said, ‘What do you want?’
“A. I said, ‘What do you want.’
“Q. Did you tell him ‘You can’t search this place?’
“A. Absolutely not. Why would I tell him that?”
Officer Kochan testified that he saw dice and other gambling devices and that when Recznik opened the door to another room he, Kochan, looked over Recznik’s shoulder and saw many people gambling on a large dice table upon which was money and a green table covering. Micjan explained the presence of the money and dice table in this illuminating way: The money, $213, he had found on the street in a purse; the large dice table had been brought to him by strangers and left in his “apartment.” The moment Kochan (who had been invited by Recznik to come to the “party”) saw all these gambling paraphernalia, saw the people with money in their hands crying out in gambler’s language “I fade you,” *174he stated that all there were under arrest. That was his duty. Ohio law provides that an officer seeing a person committing a misdemeanor has a duty to arrest. Since the arrest was legal, the officer then had the authority to search the remainder of the building without a warrant. This he did. And when the case got to the jury it promptly convicted.
There is no case decided by this Court that calls for a reversal here on the ground that the officer lacked probable cause to arrest for the misdemeanors he actually saw committed. One who will take the time to read this entire record as I have will find, I think, that this gambling establishment was so notorious in Lorain that it is not at all surprising that strangers to the police were urging them to do something about it. I wonder if in addition to having its just conviction reversed the City of Lorain will be compelled to return to their guilty owners the dice, dice tables, and other gambling devices that the officers took away as contraband. I regret very much that this Court, by its hasty, summary reversal, is providing its critics with such choice ammunition for their attacks.
I would deny certiorari. If, however, four members of the Court are determined to grant certiorari, I would set the case down for argument in the conventional fashion and the normal way.