Resnick v. State

Collins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On August 13, 1943, officers of the Baltimore Police Department entered a residence at 4723 Reisterstown Road. In the house they found Louis Resnick and George Seidman, the appellants. To Seidman was handed a search warrant.

He was told to stand where he was and that a search was to be started. The officers found on the second floor, where the appellants were, run down sheets, forms and bulletins of horse racing, racing information, one hundred fifty-four bet slips containing one thousand four hundred sixty-nine race horse bets, totaling |3,624.00. The officers also while there took over the telephone seventy-five bet slips and seven hundred fifty-four race horse bets, totaling 82,144.00 in bets. Checks found in the room totaled S118.85 and cash money, 81,349.00.

Both of the appellants told the officers that they had been bookmakers there and had been in business for about a year or a little longer. As a result the two appellants, together with Irving Rothstein listed in the Baltimore City Directory, as one of the occupants of the property, and Emile M. Fisher also listed in the same directory as an occupant and listed in the Baltimore Address Telephone Directory for one of the telephones on the premises, were jointly indicted on fifteen counts for every phase of betting on horse racing. After trial in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City, all were found' guilty and each sentenced ¹⁷ to pay a fine of $1,000. Sentence was later suspended on Rothstein and Fisher.

Louis Resnick and George Seidman appeal to this Court from the verdict, judgment and sentence. Two questions are presented on appeal. (1) Are the appellants entitled to complain of the illegal search? (2) Do the facts set forth in the affidavit and embodied in the search warrant constitute probable cause?

These questions are raised by the refusal of thg Trial Court to grant a motion by the appellants, in which Roth-stein and Fisher did not join, to quash the search warrant and by an exception by the appellants to the ruling admitting the search warrant in evidence. Before the passage of Chapter 194 of the Acts of 1929, commonly known as the Bouse Act, now Section 5 of Article 35 of the 1939 Code, evidence procured by means of an unlawful search and seizure was admissible in this State. Lawrence v. State, 103 Md. 17, 36, 37 , 63 A. 96 ; Meisinger v. State, 155 Md. 195, 196, 199 , 141 A. 536 , 142 A. 190 ; Baum v. State, 163 Md. 153, 156 , 161 A. 240 ; Nolan v. State, 157 Md. 332, 339 ; Heyward v. State, 161 Md. 685, 694 , 158 A. 897 ; Zukowski v. State, 167 Md. 549, 557 , 175 A. 595 ; Silverstein v. State, 176 Md. 533, 540 , 6 A. 2d 465 ; Riley v.