fore. Then, from under the pressure of various groups in society, especial-

from all branches of law enforcement, they backtrack a little bit, and they vacillate. And that is the story I have to tell. About a year and a half ago down at the Pike at Long Beach, I became aware of a shocking situation (see "tangents," June, 1962). I learned that the police in Long Beach had actually constructed in the roof of one of the buildings on the Pike a pipe. Through the pipe they could look down upon persons coming and going into a restroom and performing their toilet duties. Vice officers claimed that by looking through the spy hole they had seen two of my clients engaged in a homosexual act while in separate pay stalls where a hole had been cut in the dividing partition. We decided to attack the charge on an unlawful search and seizure basis. Our argument went like this: the constitution guarantees to everyone a right to privacy. Now, it appeared to us that if a person has a right to privacy anywhere, that certainly ought to be in a toilet for which he has paid ten cents and closed the door. The proceedings, briefly, went in this manner: we first got a preliminary examination before a magistrate. We objected properly to everything and asked the right questions to bring out the issues. I made my motion before the judge to dismiss. The motion was denied. I took it up to the Superior Court, where it was again denied. I then made a motion under section 995 of the Penal Code for a writ of prohibition directed to the District Court of Appeal. The District Court wouldn't even hear it. We went to the Supreme Court, and there, five of the seven judges voted to hear the case. We argued at some length. All seven eventually agreed and made what has been known as the Bielicki Decision, which is a landmark decision in this state. It may have very far-reaching

influences in other states and other areas of law as well. The court said in the Bielicki decision that while in other cases in which police officers entered premises open to the general public and while there saw, as other members of the public could also have seen, the illegal activities justifying further search or arrest, in this case, Officer Hetzel climbed up on the roof of the restroom, which was not a portion of the premises open to the general public and from that vantage point he observed activities of the petitioners which no member of the public could have seen. They based their decision on the right of privacy in this enclosed space; there had been no waiver of that right of privacy by the occupants, and it was not like the case of an open window where anyone can look in and see what is going on, and the only way the officer did see the activity was by looking through a concealed hole.

In October, 1962, shortly after the Bielicki Decision, along came another case known as people vs. Bret. The case was also won. But as a result the police decided they were going to be pretty cute. They would avoid the unnatural look of a pipe placed in the roof and find some means of observing which was a part of the building and which was already there. So they found a ventilator in the ceiling of a toilet and leered down at people in the same manner as before for days and weeks at a time. They had telephones installed and an elaborate network set up with one man down below and another man up above. And finally while looking through the ventilator they saw someone doing something. And again our Supreme Court threw the case out. They said it doesn't matter because the ventilator was up there to ventilate and wasn't placed there for police officers to look through and no member of the general public could have gotten up in the ceiling. Fine. Things were

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