Blager v. State

⁶⁶⁵ Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. At the trial of the appellant on an indictment for the violation of the law relating to lotteries (Code, art. 27, secs. 336-350), he objected to the admission in evidence of certain lottery slips on the ground that they were taken from his possession by illegal search and seizure, contrary to section 4A of article 35 of the Code, as enacted by chapter 194 of the-Acts of 1929. The objection was overruled, and the trial resulted in a verdict and judgment convicting the appellant of the offense charged. The appellant, being suspected of conducting illegal lottery operations, was accosted, as he alighted from an automobile, by a police officer, in plain clothes, who, having noticed a package in the appellant’s overcoat pocket, said to him: “I am Sergeant Smith and I want those lottery tickets that you have on you.” In reply the appellant said: “There they are in my coat pocket.

Take them.” After removing the package, which in fact contained lottery tickets, the sergeant asked the appellant whether he had any more, and received an affirmative answer, accompanied by the production and delivery of two other small packages. The possession of the lottery slips being a misdemeanor, under the statute, the appellant was placed under arrest. The officer then entered the appellant’s house, in front of which the arrest was made, and discovered in one of the rooms three men, several adding machines, a bag containing lottery slips, and a package of money. Before leaving the house for the police station, the appellant asked his wife to bring him another coat from upstairs, but the sergeant said: “Mr. Blager, now this is the top. coat that you have had on and I want to say to you that if you are not going to take it with you I am going to take it myself to the station.

I feel that you have some more lottery tickets-in that coat.” Blager then said to his wife: “Well, don’t bother. I will put that coat on.” The officer said: “Well, if you have any more slips in there I would like to have them.” Whereupon Blager handed him two more packages of lottery tickets. Other lottery papers were found in a closed compartment in the rear of Blager’s automobile., but these, and ⁶⁶⁶ also the adding machines, lottery slips, and money discovered in the house, other than the packages there produced by Blager himself, were excluded by the trial court on the ground that they were taken in pursuance of a search illegally made without a warrant. The lottery tickets which Blager invited the sergeant to remove from his pocket, or which he gave to the officer under the circumstances described, were admitted in evidence because they were considered to have been voluntarily delivered.

In this view we concur. The arrest of the appellant was lawful. Upon the admission that he was violating the law by having lottery tickets in his