People v. Torres

233 N.E.2d 282, 21 N.Y.2d 49, 286 N.Y.S.2d 264, 1967 N.Y. LEXIS 1043
CourtNew York Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 7, 1967
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 233 N.E.2d 282 (People v. Torres) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Torres, 233 N.E.2d 282, 21 N.Y.2d 49, 286 N.Y.S.2d 264, 1967 N.Y. LEXIS 1043 (N.Y. 1967).

Opinion

Breitel, J.

Defendant appeals from a judgment of the Appellate Term, First Department, unanimously affirming a judgment of conviction under section 975 of the former Penal Law (possession of policy slips) after a nonjury trial in Criminal Court of the City of New York, Bronx County. Defendant was sentenced to a fine of $300 or 20 days and 10 days in the workhouse.

Two issues are presented: The sufficiency of proof to establish guilt; and the admissibility of defendant’s statement to a police officer. The officer presented himself at defendant’s apartment with a search warrant. After the officer exhibited the warrant and explained its purpose, but before the officer asked any questions, defendant volunteered to him the whereabouts of the seized contraband which grounds the conviction. Defendant contends that his statement is inadmissible because he was in ‘ ‘ custody ’ ’ when it was made and had not been given ‘ ‘ full warnings of [his] constitutional rights ” (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S, 436, 445).

At trial (which was held on August 16,1966, after the date of the Miranda decision), Officer Ivan Marfisi testified that he had [51]*51gone to defendant’s apartment on May 26, 1966 equipped with a warrant to search both defendant and the apartment premises. Officer Marfisi had identified himself to defendant, exhibited the warrant, and ‘ ‘ explained to him what it was. ’ ’ Before the officer Pad said anything else, defendant, according to the officer, then stated, “ The booklets are in the closet in the room, on top. You are going to find them anyway.” Prior to the introduction of this testimony, counsel for defendant objected to the introduction of any statements made by defendant after the warrant had been exhibited on the ground that “custodial interrogation” had started at that point. In response to a question on the voir dire, the officer agreed that once he had entered the apartment he would have “ prevented [defendant] from leaving the premises ”. The trial court denied defendant’s motion, holding that any conversations with the defendant after the exhibition of the warrant but prior to arrest were admissible, without the Miranda warnings, because events were still at the “ inquisitorial stage.”

Continuing, the officer testified that defendant had led him to the designated closet where he found paper bags containing 4 “ series ” of mutuel horse race policy (“ Bolipol ”), each series containing 91 booklets. The officer, who was conceded to be an expert on horse race policy, gave his opinion that some of the slips from the booklets had been ‘ ‘ played ’ ’ although there was no record of that fact. On cross-examination, he explained that possession of this quantity of books indicated that defendant was a “ banker.” Pointing out that 9 books were missing from each series, which come in lots of 100, he concluded that defendant ‘ ‘ banker ’ ’ had sold these to a “ seller ’ ’ who would have then retailed them to “ players ”. There was no record of the sale from defendant ‘ ‘ banker ’ ’ to the ‘ ‘ seller ’ ’ because, according to the officer, “ A banker will not keep a portion. A banker will give the complete booklet to the seller ”.

Contending that the “ possession of unplayed boli-pol ” does not constitute a violation of section 975 of the former Penal Law, defendant argues that the officer’s conclusion that certain of the booklets had been played “ was an inference upon an inference and therefore improper. ’ ’ The expert opinion of the officer was proper because it was based on facts in evidence, the number of booklets seized, coupled with the observation that all of the series were incomplete (see People v. Crossland, 9 N Y 2d 464, [52]*52466-467). From these facts, the officer could conclude that the defendant was a hanker and, in the absence of any other explanation, that the missing booklets had been sold to a seller.

But there is a more fundamental ground for rejecting defendant’s contention on this issue; specifically, his argument that only the possession of “played” slips violates section 975. Such a limited construction of the statute is contradicted by its language: “Any person other than a public officer, who shall knowingly, have possession of any writing, paper, or document representing or being a record of any chance, share or interest in numbers, sold, given away, drawn, or selected, or to be drawn or selected, or in what is commonly called ‘ policy ’ or ‘ the numbers game, ’ or in the nature of a bet, wager or insurance upon the drawing or selection of, the drawn or selected, numbers of any public or private lottery, or any paper, print, writing, policy slip, or article of any kind, such as is commonly used in carrying on, promoting or playing the game commonly called policy ’ shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, except that a person possessing only records of not more than ten of his own bets, wagers, or plays shall not be so guilty. Proof of the possession of any writing, paper, document, print, slip or article of the kind mentioned herein is presumptive evidence of possession thereof knowingly. ’ ’

While the first part of the statute could be read to limit offending “ paper [s], or document[s] ” to those which are records of bets already placed, the omnibus phrase, ‘ ‘ or any paper, print, writing, policy slip, or article of any kind ’ ’ used in policy, has a broader sweep. It embraces all the paraphernalia commonly used for “policy”; and possession of such items, whether or not they record the fact that a bet has been placed, is presumptive evidence of violation of the statute (see People v. Kravitz, 287 N. Y. 475, 477-478, revg. 262 App. Div. 911, 912 [violation of § 975 grounded on possession of unsold lottery slips]; Ann. Possession of Gambling Device as Crime, 162 ALR 1188, 1189-1191; cf. People v. Lalli, 5 N Y 2d 536, 539; but see, contra, People v. Rodriguez, 49 Misc 2d 324). Hence, even if the officer’s testimony was insufficient to establish that the missing booklets had been played, defendant’s possession of the remaining booklets— articles used in playing “ policy ” — established that the statute was violated.

[53]*53The remaining question is whether defendant’s statement to the officer disclosing the whereabouts of the booklets was properly admitted. It will be recalled that the statement was made after the warrant had been exhibited by the officer but before he had asked any questions of defendant, let alone informed him of the so-called “Miranda rights.”

Both the parties and the trial court considered that the resolution of this issue turned on whether defendant was in ‘ ‘ custodial interrogation ” when he made his admission to the officer (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 444, supra). Defendant argues that once the officer entered the apartment and exhibited the warrant, defendant was “deprived of his freedom in [a] significant way ” — a conclusion said to be reinforced by the policeman’s testimony as to his state of mind, namely, that he would have restrained defendant from leaving—a subjective test. On the other hand, the District Attorney contends (and the trial court agreed) that defendant was not in custody because: he had not been arrested; the police investigation had not reached the “ accusatorial stage”; and the confrontation took place in defendant’s apartment, rather than in an “ incommunicado police-dominated atmosphere ” {id., p. 456).

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Bluebook (online)
233 N.E.2d 282, 21 N.Y.2d 49, 286 N.Y.S.2d 264, 1967 N.Y. LEXIS 1043, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-torres-ny-1967.