Ray v. United States

288 A.2d 239, 1972 D.C. App. LEXIS 353
CourtDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals
DecidedMarch 6, 1972
DocketNo. 6027
StatusPublished

This text of 288 A.2d 239 (Ray v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District of Columbia Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ray v. United States, 288 A.2d 239, 1972 D.C. App. LEXIS 353 (D.C. 1972).

Opinion

PAIR, Associate Judge:

Appellant was convicted on two counts of an indictment charging violations of the lottery laws.1 On appeal he claims error in the denial of his pre-trial motion and, at trial, his renewed motion to suppress evidence seized during the execution of a search warrant. The principal contention is that the affidavit in support of the warrant was deficient in three respects — (1) it contained information obtained in violation of appellant’s fourth amendment right to privacy, (2) it was issued on stale information, and (3) the averments were insufficient to establish probable cause. For the reasons to be presently stated, we affirm.

The affidavit was presented to a magistrate2 by Officer Clark (the affiant) on February 11, 1971. Some seven pages in length, the affidavit described 17 places, buildings and automobiles it was desired to search, including the premises in question, the “2nd (second) floor front bedroom” (hereinafter referred to as “the Room”) at 3520-13th Street, N.W. Insofar as it related to appellant, the affidavit disclosed that on January 7, 1971, information was received at the Office of the Fourth District Vice Squad that the Room was being used in a bookmaking operation. On previous occasions, the informant had furnished information which resulted in the conviction of “more than ten persons for violations of the lottery laws of the District of Columbia.” Five of those persons were named and their addresses given. The specific information furnished by the informant was that, on several occasions while visiting a friend who rented a room adjoining the Room at 3520-13th Street, N.W., he heard a man’s “voice reading number digits over the telephone” and heard also the sound of an adding machine.

On January 8, 1971, Officer Winkey and the informant were admitted to the adjoining room by its occupant, the friend of the informant. The officer heard the ring of a telephone, the voice of a man who answered and the same voice “calling off number bets,” and he heard also the sound of what he believed to be an adding machine. When a man left the Room and premises, Officer Winkey followed and observed the tag number of his automobile, and traffic records disclosed that the automobile was registered to appellant. Upon inquiry at the Criminal Records Division, it was disclosed that charges of operating a lottery3 and possession of numbers’ slips 4 were pending against appellant.

On January 19, 1971, Officer Winkey was informed by the same informant that three days prior thereto he had visited his friend at 3520-13th Street, N.W., and had overheard the reading of numbers’ bets and the sound of an adding machine. Accompanied by the informant, Officer Winkey then returned to the adjoining room and the officer himself again overheard a male voice calling off numbers’ bets and the sound of an adding machine.5

During the course of the investigation, Officer Clark observed appellant on January 18th and 21st make stops of about five minutes each at premises which he had under surveillance for violations of the lottery laws.

On February 2, 1971, appellant was observed by Officer Winkey to visit four of the locations which were the subjects of [241]*241the search warrant and to emerge a short time thereafter either carrying a brown paper bag or with a large bulge under his coat. Appellant then returned to the Room. During this period telephone calls were made to each of the premises visited by appellant and numbers’ information was obtained.

Observations similar to those made on February 2nd were made on February 4th and 5th and, on each occasion, appellant went to the Room and spent most of the afternoon there before returning home.

The search warrant was issued on February 11th and executed on February 12th. Seized upon execution of the warrant was a duffle bag belonging to appellant which contained numbers’ slips and run down tapes showing activity of $1,875.66. Appellant’s fingerprints and his palm prints were found on the lottery slips which, by his motion, it was sought to suppress.

Appellant contends first that the affidavit in support of the search warrant was based, at least in part, upon information obtained during invasions of his fourth amendment right of privacy. More specifically, what appellant seems to claim is that he had a constitutionally protected right to immunity from the listening ear of the police officer as he (appellant) operated, in the Room, an adding machine and engaged in conversations relative to lottery operations.

It is well settled now that the right of privacy is conditioned upon a reasonable expectation that what is done or said will not be seen or heard, “[f]or the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 511, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). See also Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966), where the Court quoted with approval from the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Brennan in Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427, 83 S.Ct. 1381, 10 L.Ed.2d 462 (1963), which reads:

The risk of being overheard by an eavesdropper or betrayed by an informer . . . is probably inherent in the conditions of human society. It is the kind of risk we necessarily assume whenever we speak. [385 U.S. at 303, 87 S.Ct. at 414.]

Accordingly, the facts and circumstances surrounding any interception of oral communications are crucial in this area of fourth amendment considerations.

The question presented therefore is whether, under the circumstances then obtaining, appellant had a reasonable expectation that his conversations and the sound of the adding machine would not be overheard.

In United States v. Llanes, 398 F.2d 880 (2d Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1032, 89 S.Ct. 647, 21 L.Ed.2d 576 (1969), police officers, suspecting that the defendant was involved in narcotic traffic, followed him into an apartment building and observed him enter an apartment. One officer positioned himself in the hallway near the door of the apartment and overheard conversations pertaining to narcotic transactions. Another officer peered into a partially opened bathroom window and observed that a white powder was being placed in glassine envelopes. A warrantless arrest, search and seizure and conviction for violations of 21 U.S.C. §§ 173, 174 followed. Rejecting, among others, the contention that the conversations and activity were constitutionally protected because carried on in the privacy of the apartment, the court, in affirming the judgment of conviction, said “conversations carried on in a tone of voice quite audible to a person standing outside the home are conversations knowingly exposed to the public.” [398 F.2d at 884.]

To the same effect was Ponce v. Craven, 409 F.2d 621 (9th Cir. 1969), cert.

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Related

Lopez v. United States
373 U.S. 427 (Supreme Court, 1963)
Aguilar v. Texas
378 U.S. 108 (Supreme Court, 1964)
United States v. Ventresca
380 U.S. 102 (Supreme Court, 1965)
Hoffa v. United States
385 U.S. 293 (Supreme Court, 1966)
Katz v. United States
389 U.S. 347 (Supreme Court, 1967)
Spinelli v. United States
393 U.S. 410 (Supreme Court, 1969)
United States v. Harris
403 U.S. 573 (Supreme Court, 1971)
Mary D. Irby v. United States
314 F.2d 251 (D.C. Circuit, 1963)
Anthony Paul Marullo v. United States
328 F.2d 361 (Fifth Circuit, 1964)
United States v. Alberto Llanes
398 F.2d 880 (Second Circuit, 1968)
Louis D. Ponce v. Walter E. Craven, Warden
409 F.2d 621 (Ninth Circuit, 1969)
United States v. Bell
126 F. Supp. 612 (District of Columbia, 1955)
Rutledge v. United States
283 A.2d 213 (District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 1971)
Woods v. United States
240 F.2d 37 (D.C. Circuit, 1956)

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Bluebook (online)
288 A.2d 239, 1972 D.C. App. LEXIS 353, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ray-v-united-states-dc-1972.