Salsburg v. Maryland (346 U.S. 545)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 11, 1954 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 346 U.S. 545 · 74 S. Ct. 280
- Docket
- No. 38
- Argued
- October 20, 1953
- Decided
- January 11, 1954
- Term
- October Term 1953
- Vote
- 7–1
- Majority author
- Justice Burton
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Warren, Justice Black, Justice Clark, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Burton (wrote), Justice Minton, Justice R. H. Jackson
- Dissenting
- Justice Douglas (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Burton 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…
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