Salsburg v. Maryland
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The ultimate issue here is whether Maryland has violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by authorizing its courts, in prosecutions in Anne Arundel County for certain gambling misdemeanors, to admit evidence procured by illegal search or seizure. The violation is charged because Maryland, at the same time, prohibits the admission of such evidence in like prosecutions in other counties, and, even in Anne Arundel County, prohibits its admission in prosecutions for many other misdemeanors. For the reasons hereafter stated, we hold that Maryland’s action is valid.
In 1952, police officers of Anne Arundel County arrested the appellant, Salsburg, and two other men, in a two-room building in the rear of a garage on the Governor Ritchie Highway in that County. The officers had no warrant but, when they received no answer to their knock on the locked door of the rear room, they broke it open with an ax. Upon entering, they found appellant and two companions, apparently engaged in' operating a betting pool on horse races, and arrested them. The officers seized three telephones, two adding, machines, several racing forms and much paraphernalia commonly used in operating such a betting pool. The State concedes that the entry, search and seizure were illegal.
Salsburg and his companions were brought to trial in the Circuit Court of Anne Arundel County charged with making or selling a book or pool on the result of a running race of horses in violation of Flack’s Md. Ann. Code, 1951,
The history of the Bouse Act is enlightening. Originally Maryland courts followed the common-law practice of admitting evidence in criminal prosecutions without regard to the legality of its obtention. Lawrence v. Maryland, 103 Md. 17, 32-37, 63 A. 96, 102-104. In 1914, the decision in Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, announced a contrary rule of practice in the federal courts. It held that evidence illegally seized by federal officers is not admissible in federal prosecutions. In 1928, the Court of Appeals of Maryland declined to adopt that practice and reaffirmed the Maryland common-law practice. Meisinger v. Maryland, 155 Md. 195, 141 A. 536. In 1929, the General Assembly of Maryland passed the Bouse Act substantially adopting the federal practice for prosecutions of misdemeanors in the state courts.
In 1935, prosecutions under the “Health-Narcotic Drugs” subtitle of the general title “Crimes and Punishments” were exempted from the Bouse Act.
Appellant concedes that the State has the legislative “power” to choose either the rule which excludes or that which admits illegally seized evidence. He does not attack the validity of the application of one to felonies and of the other to misdemeanors. He contends, however, that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is violated when Maryland admits the illegally seized evidence in prosecutions for certain misdemeanors in certain counties, but excludes it in prosecutions for the same type of misdemeanors in other counties and for somewhat comparable misdemeanors in the same and other counties. He sees no rational basis for the classifications made in the 1951 amendment.
Whatever may be our view as to the desirability of the classifications, we conclude that the 1951 amendment
The 1951 amendment establishes no additional or different offenses in Anne Arundel County. It deals only with the admissibility of evidence in the prosecution of certain misdemeanors otherwise established by law. Rules of evidence, being procedural in their nature, are peculiarly discretionary with the law-making authority, one of whose primary responsibilities is to prescribe procedures for enforcing its laws. Several states have followed diametrically opposite policies as to the admission of illegally seized evidence. See Appendix, Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 33-39. See also, Adams v. New York, 192 U. S. 585, 594-596. Maryland seeks to derive some benefit from each of the policies.
Appellant complains further that prosecutions for lottery misdemeanors are subject to the rule of exclusion of the Bouse Act, while those for operating gambling pools are exempt. He complains also that prosecutions for violations of county gambling restrictions are subject to the Act, while violations of comparable state gambling restrictions are not. In our opinion such differences are not fatal to the legislative scheme. We do not sit as a superlegislature or a censor. “To be able to find fault with a law is not to demonstrate its invalidity. It may seem unjust and oppressive, yet be free from judicial interference. The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations — illogical, it may be, and unscientific.” Metropolis Theatre Co. v. Chicago, 228 U. S. 61, 69-70. See also, Dominion Hotel v. Arizona, 249 U. S. 265, 268. Cf. Johnson v. Maryland, 193 Md. 136, 66 A. 2d 504.
We find little substance to appellant’s claim that distinctions based on county areas are necessarily so unrea
“[T]here is nothing in the Constitution to prevent any State from adopting any system of laws or judicature it sees fit for all or any part of its territory. If the State of New York, for example, should see fit to adopt the civil law and its method of procedure for New York City and the surrounding counties, and the common law and its method of procedure for the rest of the State, there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States to prevent its doing so. This would not, of itself, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, be a denial to any person of the equal protection of the laws. ... It means that no person or class of persons shall be denied the same protection of the laws which is enjoyed by other persons or other classes in the same place and under like circumstances.” Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22, 31.6
Maryland has followed a policy of thus legislating, through its General Assembly, upon many matters of local concern, including the prescription of different substantive offenses in different counties.
The presumption of reasonableness is with the State.
We find no merit in the suggestion of appellant that the 1951 amendment to the Bouse Act affirmatively sanctions illegal searches arid seizures in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If the statute were so interpreted such a question might arise.
We sustain the validity of the 1951 amendment to the Bouse Act and the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Maryland, accordingly, is
Affirmed.
In the warrant which started this proceeding before a Justice of the Peace, the section was identified as Art. 27, §291, Flack’s Md. Ann. Code, 1939.
At the time of the trial, the Bouse Act, including amendments, appeared as follows in Art. 35, § 5, Flack’s Md. Ann. Code, 1951:
“No evidence in the trial of misdemeanors shall be deemed admissible where the same shall have been procured by, through, or in consequence of any illegal search or seizure or of any search and seizure prohibited by the Declaration of Rights of this State; nor shall any evidence in such cases be admissible if procured by, through or in consequence of a search and seizure, the effect of the admission of which would be to compel one to give evidence against himself in a criminal case; provided, however, that nothing in this section shall prohibit the use of such evidence in Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Anne Arundel, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Harford, Kent, Prince George’s, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Washington, Wicomico and Worcester Counties, in the prosecution of any person for unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon. Provided, further, that nothing in this section shall prohibit the use of such evidence in Anne Arundel, Wicomico and Prince George’s Counties in the prosecution of any person for a violation of the gambling laws as contained in Sections 308-329, inclusive, of Article 27, sub-title ‘Gaming,’ or in any laws amending or supplementing said sub-title.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The original Bouse Act, Md. Laws 1929, c. 194, consisted of only that part of the first sentence which precedes the first proviso in Art. 35, § 5, Flack’s Md. Ann. Code, 1951. See note 2, supra.
Md. Laws 1935, c. 59, now Art. 27, § 368, of Flack’s Md. Ann. Code, 1951.
This trend has continued. In 1952, the exemption as to prosecutions for unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon was made statewide. Md. Laws 1952, c. 59. In 1953, the exemption as to prosecutions under the above-specified gambling laws has been extended to Worcester, Howard and Cecil Counties. Md. Laws 1953, cc. 84, 419. Finally, prosecutions in Wicomico County, under certain alcoholic beverage laws, have been exempted. Id., c. 581.
“The Fourteenth Amendment does not profess to secure to all persons in the United States the benefit of the same laws and the same remedies. Great diversities in these respects may exist in two States separated only by an imaginary line. On one side of this line there may be a right of trial by jury, and on the other side no such right. Each State prescribes its own modes of judicial proceeding. If diversities of laws and judicial proceedings may exist in the several States without violating the equality clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, there is no solid reason why there may not be such diversities
E. g., as to local option in relation to intoxicating liquor, see Lloyd v. Dottison, 194 U. S. 445; Rippey v. Texas, 193 U. S. 504; and see Ft. Smith Light Co. v. Board of Improvement, 274 U. S. 387, 391.
Without appraising their validity, but as illustrating Maryland practice, we find Flack’s Md. Ann. Code, 1951, full of such examples. Art. 2B — differing requirements as to sales of alcoholic beverages in various counties and cities; Art. 27, § 136 — one county is exempted from a general prohibition against interference with water supply; § 146 — deals with the effect of disorderly conduct in three counties; § 545 — exempts two counties from certain provisions against placing tacks, broken glass, etc., on highways; § 566 — makes special provisions as to junk yards in five counties; §§ 578-610B — prescribe a variety of Sabbath-breaking provisions for several counties and municipalities; Art. 51, § 7 — grants a right of jury service to women, except in ten counties; § 9 — provides varying methods of selecting jury panels in several counties. “It has long been the practice of the Maryland Legislature either to enact local laws or to exempt particular counties from the operation of general laws.” Neuenschwander v. Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, 187 Md. 67, 80, 48 A. 2d 593, 600; Stevens v. Maryland, 89 Md. 669, 674, 43 A. 929, 931. Cf. Maryland Coal & Realty Co. v. Bureau of Mines, 193 Md. 627, 69 A. 2d 471.
"... It is ... a maxim of constitutional law that a legislature is presumed to have acted within constitutional limits, upon full knowledge of the facts, and with the purpose of promoting the interests of the people as a whole, and courts will not lightly hold that an act duly passed by the legislature was one in the enactment of which it has transcended its power.” Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Matthews, 174 U. S. 96, 104. “A statutory discrimination will not be set aside as the denial of equal protection of the laws if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.” Metropolitan Casualty Ins. Co. v. Brownell, 294 U. S. 580, 584. See also, Middleton v. Texas Power & Light Co., 249 U. S. 152, 157-158; Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 78-79.
Metropolitan Casualty Ins. Co. v. Brownell, supra. The State is not bound “to strike at all evils at the same time or in the same way.” Sender v. Oregon Dental Examiners, 294 U. S. 608, 610.
“. . .we have no hesitation in saying that were a State affirmatively to sanction such police incursion into privacy it would run counter to the guaranty of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 28.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
I am still of the view, expressed on other occasions (see Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 40-41; Schwartz v.
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