DiMarco v. Green

254 F. Supp. 776, 8 Ohio Misc. 257
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedJune 17, 1966
DocketNo. C 65-231
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 254 F. Supp. 776 (DiMarco v. Green) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
DiMarco v. Green, 254 F. Supp. 776, 8 Ohio Misc. 257 (N.D. Ohio 1966).

Opinion

Young, District Judge.

This is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to secure the petitioner’s release from the Marion Correctional Institution.

[258]*258On October 2, 1963, petitioner was sentenced by the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, to serve a term of one to five years in the Ohio Penitentiary, after he was found guilty by a jury upon a charge of possession of burglar tools.

Previously, on January 3, 1955, petitioner was convicted of burglary and safe tampering, and armed robbery and carrying concealed weapons, and sentenced to ten to twenty-five years in the Ohio Reformatory. He was confined therein, released on parole, returned as a parole violator, and again confined until January 11, 1962, when he was again released on parole. He was on parole on February 22, 1963, when the events happened which led to the sentence imposed on October 2, 1963.

On October 25, 1963, the Ohio Pardon and Parole Commission, finding that petitioner was confined in the Ohio Penitentiary, declared him a parole violator.

The conviction and sentence of October 2, 1963, arose out of the following circumstances:

Between one and two o’clock in the morning of February 22, 1963, a bitterly cold and wintry morning, a group of police officers were watching the automobile of a man named Waleh, which was parked outside a tavern in the Collingwood area of Cleveland. The record of petitioner’s trial showed that the man Waleh was regarded by the police as a “hoodlum,” and that it was the practice of the police to arrest and incarcerate “hoodlums” periodically, in the hope that after the arrest it would be possible to establish that the “hoodlums” had committed some crime which was discovered about the time of their arrest. (R. 43.) If no such crime or connection appeared, the “hoodlums” would be released in a day or so. (R. 44.)

While watching Waleh’s car, a small automobile drove up and stopped in front of it. A man named Frank DiSanto got out of the car, leaving the lights on and the motor running, and went into a tavern. DiSanto was known to the police, having been imprisoned some ten years previously on a felony charge. The police also observed the petitioner in the car, and recognized him.

They proceeded to the car, opened the door, told petitioner they were arresting him for violation of parole, and proceeded to search the car. Two crowbars, a large screwdriver, and a [259]*259pair of vise-grip pliers were found in the car. An electric drill and an extension cord were found in the luggage carrier. Some considerable time later, a loaded pistol was found under the front seat of the car by an attendant in a storage garage, who reported this fact to the police. All of these articles were admitted in evidence over petitioner’s objection.

Petitioner denied any knowledge of the articles in the car. His story was that he had come to the area from his home on the other side of the city to collect money due him for some work he had done; that the man who paid him had first agreed to drive him home, and then said he could not; that Frank DiSanto, with whom he had a slight acquaintance, was standing nearby, and offered to borrow a car to drive petitioner home; that DiSanto did borrow the car, started to drive him home, and had stopped to get some cigarettes, which he was in the process of doing when the police approached.

The record showed that DiSanto, aware of the local police customs, and not desiring to be incarcerated or to cause trouble for the petitioner, took to his heels through the rear door of the tavern when he saw the police coming.

At the trial of the case, the petitioner moved for the suppression as evidence of the articles found in the car on the ground that they were the product of an illegal search. After a full hearing, the Court of Common Pleas overruled this motion, setting forth its reasons in considerable detail. Exceptions were properly preserved to the court’s ruling, but it was affirmed on appeal to the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed petitioner’s appeal to that court.

It is fair to say that the constitutional questions involved in this matter have been presented to and determined by the state courts. For all practical purposes, the petitioner has exhausted his state remedies.

The first question to be resolved in this matter is whether this court is required to grant petitioner a plenary hearing upon his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

The decision of the Supreme Court in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963), governs the determination of this question. Under the rules laid down in that case, it is clear that no plenary hearing is required. The facts concerning the obtaining of the evidence which petitioner sought to suppress are al[260]*260most entirely undisputed. The difficulty seems to have occurred in the ruling of the state court upon these facts.

The trial court says

“* * # but there does not have to be an arrest where the circumstances and the facts are sufficiently clear to police officers in the community who have a particular job to watch known places where they suspect or believe, as a prudent police officer would expect to, that elements of the type engaged in crime are congregating, and considering all of the circumstances involved, they had a right and a reasonable right to examine the automobile, which they did as they opened up the door.” (B. 193.)

The Supreme Court has held that “although the district judge may, where the state court has reliably found the relevant facts, defer to the state court’s findings of fact, he may not defer to its findings of law.” Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293, 318 (1963). With all respect to the judge of the state court, my old friend and classmate, I cannot accept his conclusions of law. It • is fair to say that the law on this point was perhaps not so clear at the time of the hearing in the state court as it is now, Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364 (1964), and Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89 (1964), having been decided since the state court’s ruling. In any event, the dispute here is so clearly one of law, rather than of fact, that no plenary hearing is required. The petitioner’s rights can be determined upon the record of the proceedings in the state court, which are before this court in a complete transcript of the trial.

The first main issue which must be considered in this matter is whether the denial of petitioner’s motion to suppress the evidence of the various objects found in the automobile in which he was riding deprived him of his constitutional right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The respondent contends that the search of the car in which petitioner was seated was in connection with a lawful arrest of the petitioner, and was therefore not within the constitutional interdiction of unreasonable searches and seizures. Thus the first main issue breaks down into two questions, first, was the arrest of the petitioner lawful, and, second, was the search and seizure incidental to the arrest.

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254 F. Supp. 776, 8 Ohio Misc. 257, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dimarco-v-green-ohnd-1966.