Lingner v. State

Collins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from a judgment rendered as the result of a verdict of guilty, by a jury, in a trial of appellant on the charge of unlawful possession of lottery books, lists, slips and numbers.- - Appellant contends that his arrest was unlawful and therefore two bags and the-contents thereof, seized, as a- result of the unlawful arrest, were not admissible in evidence- against him. On August 31, 1951, about 2:30 P.M., Sergeant Cohen of the Baltimore City Police Departments with another officer,- both in plain clothes, was in a private automobile in Baltimore and saw a Plymouth automobile with one man in it parked on Madison Street. Sergeant Cohen testified that another car, carrying two- colored men, approached the Plymouth, slowed' down without stopping,' and one' of the occupants, as it came alongside, handed a package into thé front window of the Plymouth. “His hand went all the way in the other car window.” Both cárs’ started away.

The officers- followed -the Plymouth, which made a right turn into Edison Highway. They went around that car, which pulled over to the curb and stopped. Sergeant Cohen got Out and walked over to the Plymouth. The driver of the car, the appellant, Lingner, spoke to the Sergeant, saying: “Hi Sergeant.” The Sergeant then identified himself as a police .officer and asked: “Where is the package that the man .just -handed you in the car?” The.

Sergeant said that appellant “reached to the floor of the car and handed it out the window, and said here it is, it doesn’t belong to me.” - The package handed out proved- to be a bag similar- to á bank depository bag, ■ with a- lock-: on- it. ⁵⁰⁵ Sergeant Cohen then looked in the car and on the floor of the car on the front right hand side was another similar package. The officer placed the man under arrest and took him and the bags to the police station. Appellant still insisted that the bags did not belong to him. He said he did not have the keys.

The officer broke the locks off both bags. In the bag which was handed him was found $414.00, 77 lottery slips, 2251 numbers representing $453.75 “in play”. The other bag contained 626 lottery slips, 5571 numbers, representing $450.21 “in play”. The officer admitted that he did not know what was in the bags until he opened them and he had seen no violation of the law in his presence, and that he put the appellant under arrest “to find out what was in the bags”.

The title to the Plymouth was listed to Ambrose Lingner. The appellant said that two colored men threw the packages on the floor of his car and he started after them to find out “why they throwed them at me”. He denied all through the case that the bags belonged to him. He said he did not hand either of the bags to the officer, but that the officer took them.

Over objection the bags were admitted in evidence. The single contention in this case by the appellant is that the two bags and the contents thereof, consisting of lottery slips and money, were not admissible in evidence. As pointed out in Baum v. State, 163 Md. 153 , 161 A. 244 , prior to the passage of Article 35, Section 5, 1939 Code, commonly known as the Bouse Act, evidence otherwise competent,