Walker v. State

Grason, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On April 19, 1949, the automobile which Raleigh E. Walker was driving stalled on the Marlboro Pike, in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The record fails to disclose the time of day this occurred, but at argument it was stated it was around 3:30 P. M. Officers Purdy and Siddall, of the Prince George’s County police force, were cruising in an automobile and came upon Walker’s car, stalled in the road. With their car, the officers pushed Walker’s car to the side of the road.

They then got out of their car and Walker got out of his. Purdy gives the following account of what transpired: “Looking in the car I observed this little box in the floor of the car, with a couple of paper bags in it; and due to the fact of the time of the afternoon, I asked whose work he had. He said ‘What work?’ I said, ‘The work on the floor.’ He said, ‘What work on the floor?’ A couple of other questions along that line; of course, he would not give any information as to what kind of work it was, or anything. So we proceeded to open one of these paper bags that was on the floor of the car, * * He further said the paper bags were “In a little ⁴¹⁶ pasteboard box; the box was open, the bags were exposed.” He could not see what was in the bags.

His testimony is that money and number slips were collected around that time of day by those in the number business, and that it was usual and customary to put money and number slips into paper bags, wrap them tightly, and deposit the same in a small pasteboard box. Siddall testified: “We picked that box up; there was no top on it at that time, which now it is folded down inside, and one of these bags, and asked Walker, T see you have your eggs.’ When we opened one bag and saw that it was lottery slips, and various amounts of money, we confronted him at that time.” (The terms “work” and “eggs” seem to be code words used by those engaged in conducting the kind of gambling involved in this case.) Siddall further testified: “He (Walker) told me he was working for himself.” The money in the bags amounted to $172.11. Walker was taken by the officers to the police station and charged with having in his possession lottery tickets, and was indicted by the Grand Jury for Prince George’s County. The indictment charged that he “unlawfully and knowingly did have in his possession certain papers, commonly known as and called ‘number slips’, used for the purpose, of carrying on and conducting a lottery.” Act 1939, Chapter 258, section 562A, Code of Public Local Laws of Prince George’s County, (Flack), 1943, section 608. ' This case was tried before the .court, without a jury, under a plea of “not guilty”.

All of the facts narrated above were offered in evidence at the trial, over the objection of the traverser. He was convicted and sentenced, and the case comes here on appeal. The only question ' in the case is ■ whether a misdemeanor was committed in the view of the officers. • There was some indication, and the court seems to have so held, that when the police came upon the traverser when his automobile was stalled on the Marlboro Pike, he was violating the traffic laws, and that ⁴¹⁷ therefore he was under arrest by the officers when they made the search and seizure. We think that such a conclusion is highly tenuous and is not the law.

We do not think that if one’s car breaks down on the highway, and he cannot possibly move it without help, that he has violated the traffic law. The stopping of the car was not the voluntary act of the traverser, and when the police officers arrived they used their car to push the traverser’s car to the side of the road. There was no violation of a traffic law, and it is very significant that no charge of blocking traffic was placed against the traverser by the police officers. We think the testimony of the police officers in this regard is immaterial.

The evidence shows these officers did not know the traverser, and had never seen him before this occasion. The following cases have been cited, some by the traverser and some of them by the State, namely: Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 , 45 S. Ct. 280 , 69 L. Ed. 543 , 39 A. L. R. 790; Husty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694 , 51 S. Ct. 240 , 75 L. Ed. 629 , 74 A. L. R. 1407; Trupiano v. United States, 334 U. S. 699 , 68 S. Ct. 1229 , 92 L. Ed. 1663 ; United States v. Murray, D. C., 51 F. 2d 516 ; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160 , 69 S. Ct. 1302 , 93 L. Ed. 1879 . All of these cases grew out of prosecutions under Federal statutes. It was lawful for prohibition agents to stop an automobile on a public highway, search the same, and seize contraband goods, if they had probable cause to think that such an automobile was transporting alcoholic beverages, because such a search was authorized by the Volstead Act and amendments thereto, 27 U. S. C. A. § 1 et seq.

It was held in Sugarman v. State, 173 Md. 52, 59 , 195 A. 324 , that there was no statute in this State that authorized the search of an automobile, and authorities are cited to show that such a right of search did not exist at common law. We therefore think that the cases above referred to are not applicable in this case, and, incidently, the facts in each of the cases cited are stronger than the ease at bar. In none of those cases did the ⁴¹⁸ prohibition agents rely solely on what they knew from their experience with bootleggers and how they operated their illegal business. They applied the knowledge gained by their experience to the pertinent and material facts which they learned by their investigation of a specific case, and which were subsequently proved.

We have been referred to