Commonwealth v. Soychak

289 A.2d 119, 221 Pa. Super. 458, 1972 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1555
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 24, 1972
DocketAppeals, 93 to 97
StatusPublished
Cited by62 cases

This text of 289 A.2d 119 (Commonwealth v. Soychak) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Soychak, 289 A.2d 119, 221 Pa. Super. 458, 1972 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1555 (Pa. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinions

Opinion by

Jacobs, J.,

The present appeal concerns the admissibility of gambling evidence obtained from a police surveillance and raid of defendants’ premises. The evidence was suppressed by the lower court following a hearing and the Commmonwealth now appeals.

The chain of circumstances leading to the present appeal began with a tip from a confidential informant. The informant advised the police that gambling operations were being conducted at the ABC Billiard Club. Acting on this information, police officers placed the club under surveillance for an hour, from 11:00 p.m. to midnight, during which time they observed various males entering and leaving the premises. The officers [460]*460later went to the rear of the building in which the club is located. The club occupies the second floor, which only extends over the front half of the first floor. Consequently, one of the officers was able to climb onto the first-floor roof over the rear half of the building and thereby obtain access to a louvered exhaust fan serving the club’s bathroom. Peering through the louvers in the fan he observed a dice game being conducted in the club’s billiard room adjoining the bathroom. The fan louvers were blown open by the fan sufficiently far to afford the officer a view of the bathroom and the adjoining billiard room, but he also lifted the louvers with his hand to get a better view.

On the basis of the above facts a search warrant was obtained. The affidavit supporting the search warrant included the following information: (1) a gambling establishment was alleged to be in operation on the described premises of the ABC Billiard Club; acquisition of this information was attributed to a confidential informant; (2) the “stickman” and “doorman” were identified, also through the statements of the confidential informant; (3) the information from the informant was said to be based on the informant’s own personal knowledge, he having observed gambling, and actually gambled, on the premises in question; (4) the information from the informant was alleged to have proved reliable in the past; two convictions and three pending prosecutions for gambling, all the result of the informant’s information, were set out in detail; (5) the results of the one-hour police surveillance were described; during this one-hour period various males were said to have entered the premises and two males from the premises were seen setting garbage on the street; (6) finally, the affidavit described the police officer’s observation through the exhaust fan of gambling in the club’s billiard room.

[461]*461After obtaining the search warrant, the police officers proceeded to execute it. While two officers again observed the billiard room through the exhaust fan, other officers entered the building through the front door. As they began climbing the steps leading to the club, they noticed a man standing in the club’s doorway at the top of the stairs. When the policemen identified themselves the man slammed the door. The police officers then identified themselves again and began beating on the door with axes and sledgehammers. After about ten minutes one of the defendants opened the door and the police officers entered.

During this time the troopers who were still on the rear roof observed the defendants through the exhaust fan. One of the troopers testified at the suppression hearing that he watched the defendants running around the room while the police were trying to open the front door. One of the defendants put billiard balls on the table on which they had been playing dice. Another defendant ran into the bathroom and flushed dice down the commode.

The items which the police confiscated as a result of the raid were a deck of cards, two curtain rods with tape on both ends, the exhaust fan, and the two reinforced doors that barred access to the club. This evidence, along with the testimony concerning the observations through the exhaust fan, was suppressed by the lower court. For the reasons that follow we affirm the lower court order with regard to the initial exhaust fan observations, but reverse with respect to the subsequent exhaust fan observations and the physical evidence seized.

Primarily, three issues are raised by this appeal. The issues concern the propriety of the initial police observations through the exhaust fan, the validity of the search warrant, and the admissibility of the evi[462]*462dence obtained in the course of the subsequent police raid. These issues will be considered seriatim.

With respect to the propriety of the initial exhaust fan observations, the test is whether the police officer unreasonably violated defendants’ justifiable expectation of privacy. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). The Supreme Court in Katz held that the absence of a physical intrusion does not per se demonstrate that a police surveillance was reasonable; even a non-trespassory surveillance can be unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional. As we intimated in Commonwealth v. Hernley, 216 Pa. Superior Ct. 177, 263 A. 2d 904 (1970), the presence or absence of an accompanying trespass is merely a factor to consider in determining the reasonableness of a visual intrusion. In the instant case the police officer’s observations were effected by trespassing upon the roof of the building and manipulating the louvers of the billiard club’s exhaust fan. This physical trespass accompanying the officer’s visual observation is, therefore, a relevant consideration in determining the propriety of his conduct.

Another consideration which we found significant in Hernley, supra, is the reasonableness of the suspect’s expectation of privacy. The suspects in Hernley had failed to curtain their windows, and accordingly we found that, absent such obvious action, their expectation of privacy was neither justifiable nor reasonable. In contrast, a reasonable expectation of privacy has been found to exist in cases wherein the suspects have drawn their curtains but in so doing have failed to completely block the view of police investigators. See, e.g., Pate v. Municipal Court, 11 Cal. App. 3d 721, 89 Cal. Rptr. 893 (1970); and People v. Myles, 6 Cal. App. 3d 788, 86 Cal. Rptr. 274 (1970), wherein the suspects were found, under the circumstances, to have exhibited [463]*463a reasonable expectation of privacy which was violated by unreasonable governmental intrusion.

In the present case the suspects could not have permanently closed the louvers on their exhaust fan without being deprived of the use of the fan. Hence, their failure to so close the louvers does not negate the existence of an expectation of privacy. And the defendants have in fact affirmatively demonstrated an expectation of privacy by their use of louvers which closed when the fan was not operating, their use of two reinforced doors, and their employment of a “doorman”. This expectation of privacy may be considered reasonable with regard to the observations through the club’s bathroom fan because a bathroom is a room ordinarily considered private and because a view of the particular bathroom in question was only accessible to a person standing on the roof.

Thus, we find that the defendants exhibited a reasonable expectation of privacy.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
289 A.2d 119, 221 Pa. Super. 458, 1972 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1555, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-soychak-pasuperct-1972.