Silverman v. United States

*506Mr. Ju.sti.ce Stewart

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The petitioners were tried and found guilty in the District Court for the District of Columbia upon three counts of an indictment charging gambling offenses under the District of Columbia Code. At the trial police officers were permitted to describe incriminating conversations engaged in by the petitioners at their alleged gambling establishment, conversations which the officers had overheard by means of an electronic listening device. The convictions were affirmed by the Court of Appeals, 107 U. S. App. D. C. 144, 275 F. 2d 173, and we…