Filed 9/8/17

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

KEVIN R. WILLIAMS et al.,

Defendants and Appellants.

 B275226

 (Los Angeles County 

 Super. Ct. No. MA064988)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County. Eric P. Harmon, Judge. Affirmed. 

Allison H. Ting, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, 

for defendant and appellant Kevin R. Williams.

James M. Crawford, under appointment by the Court of 

Appeal, for defendant and appellant Pauline R. Winbush.

Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, 

Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. 

Winters, Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle and Tannaz 

Kouhpainezhad, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and 

Respondent.

* * * * * * * * * *
2

Pursuant to a plea agreement, defendants and appellants 

Kevin R. Williams and Pauline R. Winbush were each convicted 

of one felony count of dog fighting, and one felony count of animal 

cruelty. The sole issue on appeal is defendants’ contention the 

court erred in denying their joint motion to suppress evidence 

and to quash and traverse the warrant pursuant to Penal Code 

section 1538.5.

We affirm. 

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On February 17, 2015, defendants Williams and Winbush 

were charged by information with 29 separate counts, including 

four felony counts of possession of fighting dogs (Pen. Code, 

§ 597.5, subd. (a)(1); counts 1-4), and 17 counts of animal cruelty 

(Pen. Code, § 595, subd. (b); counts 5-21). 

Defendants jointly filed a motion to suppress evidence 

seized during the search of their residential property on 

November 26, 2014, and to quash and traverse the warrant 

pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5. The People filed 

opposition. The motion was heard on October 7 and 26, 2015, 

and concluded on November 18, 2015. We summarize the 

material facts as reflected in the testimony received at the 

hearing. 

Just before 3:00 p.m. on October 29, 2014, Ed Callaway, a 

field officer with the Los Angeles County Department of Animal 

Control (Animal Control), responded to a report of a loose horse 

near the 7000 block of West Avenue A-14 in an unincorporated 

rural area of Los Angeles county, near Lancaster. When he 

arrived on the scene and saw the wandering horse, he saw a car 

swerve to avoid hitting it, and several other cars in the vicinity. 

Officer Callaway approached the horse, trying not to 

frighten it out into traffic, but the horse headed back down 
3

Avenue A-14. He followed the horse slowly in his vehicle until 

the horse stopped at the property located at 7038 West Avenue A14 (property later determined to be defendants’ residence). The 

horse attempted to reenter the property through a side fence near 

where there was some sort of corral. Officer Callaway noticed 

there were several broken or loose boards in the fence, and 

presumed the horse had gotten loose from there. The horse was 

unable to get back into the yard. 

As the horse continued to try to push through the fence, 

Officer Callaway heard several dogs begin to bark. He walked 

along the outside of the fence toward the horse to try to 

determine if the dogs were loose and could frighten or injure the 

horse, or chase it back out onto the street where it would be a 

serious hazard. Officer Callaway saw that the dogs were 

confined in “makeshift” kennels of chain link fencing and plywood

inside the yard. 

The dogs continued barking, and the horse walked back 

toward the front of the property. The horse stopped near the 

driveway that led up to the garage attached to the home. There 

was an open gate in a chain link fence that abutted the side of 

the garage. The fence was about three feet high. The horse went 

through the gate but appeared to have difficulty getting into the 

back yard due to debris and weeds. It retreated back out to the 

front yard and began to eat some weeds or spilled hay on the 

ground near the garage. Officer Callaway moved his vehicle and 

parked it in a location near the driveway, hoping to block the 

horse from leaving that portion of the front yard. Officer 

Callaway then walked through the open gate into the back yard 

to see if there was a suitable corral, that did not have broken

fencing, in which to safely secure the horse. He could not see any 

suitable corral and returned to the front yard. 
4

Officer Callaway called Sergeant Rachel Montez-Kemp, 

also of Animal Control, and told her he needed a trailer to 

impound a loose horse. While he waited for her to arrive, he 

yelled into the yard announcing his presence in case the property 

owner was out back. He also honked the horn of his vehicle. He 

got no response. Sergeant Montez-Kemp arrived about 

20 minutes later with a horse trailer. 

Once Sergeant Montez-Kemp arrived, they haltered the 

horse and placed it inside the horse trailer. The horse looked 

“thin.” Sergeant Montez-Kemp had brought a bucket of feed, so

they left the horse eating inside the trailer while they attempted 

to determine if the owner was at home. Sergeant Montez-Kemp 

has worked for Animal Control for 16 years and the department’s 

normal procedure is to attempt to make contact with an owner of 

livestock before impounding an animal. Officer Callaway, who 

had seven years of experience, confirmed that was the 

department’s practice. 

Sergeant Montez-Kemp knocked on the front door of the 

home. No one answered, but she heard the distinctive sound of 

puppies barking from inside the home. She also knocked on the 

front window of the home and the garage door but got no 

response. Sergeant Montez-Kemp told Officer Callaway to call 

dispatch to attempt to call the property owners. Dispatch left a 

message on an answering machine after no one picked up the 

phone. 

They heard several dogs barking in the back yard, as well 

as a dog barking and “whining” from inside the garage. There 

was a strong smell of “excessive” fecal matter. Officer Callaway 

looked through a broken window in the upper corner of the 

garage door. There was a dog inside, in conditions that appeared

“unhealthful.” Officer Callaway also saw a treadmill and a “slat 
5

mill” partially covered by a tarp. A slat mill is a device used in 

the training of fighting dogs. Officer Callaway said he was six 

feet one inch tall, but was a couple of inches taller in his work 

boots, and was able to look into the window of the garage door.1 

Sergeant Montez-Kemp thought if the owner was out in the 

back yard, the noise from the barking dogs could make it difficult 

to hear them knocking and yelling out front. Both she and

Officer Callaway walked through the open gate near the garage 

into the back yard.2 Officer Callaway looked into the window at 

the back of the garage, as did Sergeant Montez-Kemp. 

While in the back yard, Sergeant Montez-Kemp confirmed 

the corral with the broken boards was not suitable for the horse 

as it could plainly escape again and get injured or be a danger to 

motorists. They walked a little further into the back yard toward 

the kennels. She noticed that all of the dogs on the property in 

makeshift kennels were pit bulls, the breed most often used in 

dog fighting. One of the dogs had a missing lip, and another 

smaller female pit bull had multiple scars on her body. Another 

kennel contained a dog with a litter of puppies. They saw no one 

in the back yard. 

1

 During cross-examination, Officer Callaway conceded he 

wrote his report about the incident several weeks later. Because 

Animal Control is understaffed, he often has to delay writing 

incident reports in order to handle more urgent matters. He 

conceded he did not include anything in his written report about 

entering the back yard of the property or hearing the whining 

dogs, because the focus of his report was documenting the 

impounding of the loose horse. 

2 Sergeant Montez-Kemp confirmed, on cross-examination, 

that she and Officer Callaway walked into the back yard together 

after the horse was secured on the trailer. 
6

Sergeant Montez-Kemp was familiar with defendants’

property as she had been called out to the property on prior 

occasions, including in February 2008 on a report of excessive 

dogs on the property and “possible dog fighting.” At that time, 

she found approximately 30 pit bulls on the property but 

defendants claimed to have the requisite permits or were in the 

process of obtaining them. No further action was taken. She was 

also aware that another Animal Control officer had been called to 

the property in 2010 due to a report regarding horses that were

“thin” or in poor condition. The officer who responded to the 

property in 2010 reported numerous pit bulls were kept in 

kennels filled with excrement and water bowls containing mold 

and algae. Sergeant Montez-Kemp testified she was experienced 

in “blood sports” and had investigated dozens of animal fighting 

cases in her career. 

Sergeant Montez-Kemp instructed Officer Callaway to take 

several photographs at the property, including the interior of the 

garage through the back window, and also from the window in 

the front garage door because he was taller than she was. 

Sergeant Montez-Kemp said Officer Callaway was able to see 

into, and take a photograph of, the interior of the garage from the 

broken front window without standing on anything. Sergeant 

Montez-Kemp also took some photographs of the kennels in the 

back yard. 

Sometime around 5:00 p.m., defendant Williams arrived 

home. He told Officer Callaway the horse got loose all the time

and he was unable to keep it locked up. Officer Callaway issued 

defendant a misdemeanor citation and impounded the horse.

The next day, Sergeant Montez-Kemp sent Deputy Robert 

Ferrell of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department an email 

about the events of October 29. She provided him copies of the 
7

photographs she and Officer Callaway had taken on October 29, 

2014. Sergeant Montez-Kemp told Deputy Ferrell she suspected

defendants were operating a “dog fighting operation” at their 

property. 

On November 10, 2014, Deputy Ferrell and Sergeant 

Montez-Kemp went to defendants’ property and drove around the 

perimeter from outside the fence. Deputy Ferrell noted two 

different sets of individual dog kennels. On at least two sides of 

the property, the fencing was “low” so the kennels were visible 

from the road, but he could not see the dogs inside. Deputy 

Ferrell confirmed he and Sergeant Montez-Kemp never entered 

defendants’ property on November 10, but only observed, and 

took photographs of, the property and kennels from the public 

roads outside of the fencing. 

Deputy Ferrell testified he prepared his affidavit in support 

of the search warrant based on the written and oral reports 

received from Sergeant Montez-Kemp, as well as his personal 

observations on November 10, 2014. Deputy Ferrell explained he 

had 26 years of experience as a deputy sheriff and is a certified 

court expert in the field of “bloodsports” and illegal animal 

fighting. Because he knew Sergeant Montez-Kemp to be 

experienced in blood sport investigations, her report and 

statements of her observations were credible to him. He 

understood from Sergeant Montez-Kemp that the horse had been 

secured in the trailer, when she and Officer Callaway proceeded 

into the back yard and eventually took the photographs. He 

agreed her photographs of the kennels appeared to be taken “up 

close” as compared to his photographs taken from outside the 

fence. 

Deputy Ferrell’s affidavit identified his experience, as well 

as Sergeant Montez-Kemp’s experience, with blood sport 
8

investigations. It summarized the observations made at the 

property by Sergeant Montez-Kemp and Officer Callaway on 

October 29, as well as the prior calls to the property. It further

set forth the information concerning Deputy Ferrell’s trip to 

defendants’ property on November 10, with Sergeant MontezKemp, in which he confirmed the presence of the kennels. The 

affidavit stated, in part, that based on the breed of dog being kept 

on the property, “the training devices observed, and the condition 

in which the dogs are housed (fighting dogs used in bloodsports 

are kept either on individual chains or in kennels spaced closely 

enough to see and get near each other, but always just out of each 

other [sic] reach) coupled with my observations of the location 

and my training and experience in bloodsports,” it was his belief 

that evidence of an illegal dog fighting operation would be found 

on the property. 

The search warrant issued November 24, 2014 and was 

served and executed on November 26, 2014. The officers

recovered 19 pit bulls (11 adults and 8 puppies), many of which 

were emaciated or had sores or scars. They also recovered 

numerous other dead animals, as well as the slat mill device and 

three boxes of documents related to dog fighting, among other 

items. 

After the testimony of Deputy Ferrell, Sergeant MontezKemp and Officer Callaway was completed, defendants called 

Pasquale DiFabrizio to testify. Mr. DiFabrizio is a private 

investigator hired by defendants. He attested to the information 

in his report documenting the conditions on the property. He 

said he attempted to duplicate the photographs taken by Officer 

Callaway on October 29, and could only obtain similar 

photographs of the kennels if he was inside the back yard right 

next to the kennels, as they are approximately 80 feet into the 
9

middle portion of the back yard from the chain link fence near 

the garage. He stated the back yard of defendants’ property is 

fully fenced with a mixture of chain link and wood boards. 

Mr. DiFabrizio confirmed there are windows on the front garage 

door, one of which is broken. The bottom edge of that window is 

approximately 5 feet 11 inches from the ground. Mr. DiFabrizio 

said he is six feet tall but could not take a photograph of the 

interior of the garage from that window without holding the 

camera over his head. 

After entertaining extensive argument, the court denied 

defendants’ motion. 

Thereafter, defendants each pled no contest to one count of 

possession of fighting dogs (Pen. Code, § 597.5, subd. (a)(1)), and 

one count of animal cruelty (§ 597, subd. (b)). 

The court sentenced each defendant to county jail for a 

term of three years eight months. The court suspended execution 

of sentence and placed both defendants on five years of formal 

probation on the condition that defendant Williams serve 

365 days in county jail, and defendant Winbush serve 270 days in 

county jail. Defendants were ordered to take animal cruelty 

classes and were prohibited for owning or residing with any 

animals during the probationary period. The remaining counts 

were dismissed in accordance with the plea agreement. 

This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

Defendants contend the trial court erred in denying their 

motion to suppress and to quash and traverse the warrant. They 

argue the Animal Control officers’ entry onto their property was 

unlawful because they did not have a warrant and there were no 

exigent circumstances. Defendants argue that to the extent the 

loose horse created an emergency, it ended as soon as the horse 
10

was secured in the trailer and there was no reasonable basis for 

the officers to continue their search into the back yard. 

Defendants contend the subsequent search and seizure of 

evidence pursuant to a warrant was the tainted fruit of the initial 

unconstitutional entry, and neither the independent source rule 

nor the good faith exception apply. When the tainted material is 

excised from the warrant, defendants contend it does not support 

a finding of probable cause. We disagree. 

In reviewing an order denying a motion to suppress 

pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5, we “uphold those factual 

findings of the trial court that are supported by substantial 

evidence.” (People v. Camacho (2000) 23 Cal.4th 824, 830 

(Camacho).) We independently review the question whether the 

challenged search conformed to constitutional standards of 

reasonableness. (Ibid.) Our review is governed by federal 

constitutional standards. (People v. Rogers (2009) 46 Cal.4th

1136, 1156, fn. 8 (Rogers); People v. Chung (2010) 195 

Cal.App.4th 721, 727 (Chung).) 

It is fundamental that the Fourth Amendment only 

protects from unreasonable searches “those areas in which a 

person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.” (People v. 

Chavez (2008) 161 Cal.App.4th 1493, 1499 (Chavez).) Plainly, a 

private home is a place in which an individual has a reasonable 

expectation of privacy. (Camacho, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 831.) 

Land or structures immediately adjacent to and intimately

associated with one’s home, referred to as “curtilage,” are

ordinarily considered part of the home itself for Fourth 

Amendment purposes. (Oliver v. United States (1984) 466 U.S. 

170, 180.) The Supreme Court identified four factors relevant to

deciding whether a given area constitutes curtilage: “the 

proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home, 
11

whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the 

home, the nature of the uses to which the area is put, and the 

steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation 

by people passing by.” (United States v. Dunn (1987) 480 U.S. 

294, 301.)

However, not every warrantless entry to the curtilage of a 

home offends the Fourth Amendment. The protection afforded 

one’s home by the Fourth Amendment “ ‘has never been extended 

to require law enforcement officers to shield their eyes when 

passing by a home on public thoroughfares. Nor does the mere 

fact that an individual has taken measures to restrict some views 

of his activities preclude an officer’s observations from a public 

vantage point where he has a right to be and which renders the 

activities clearly visible. [Citation.] “What a person knowingly 

exposes to the public, even in his own home . . . , is not a subject 

of Fourth Amendment protection.” ’ ” (Camacho, supra,

23 Cal.4th at p. 831.)

“ ‘ “It is clear that police with legitimate business may enter 

areas of the curtilage which are impliedly open, such as access 

routes to the house.” ’ ” (Chavez, supra, 161 Cal.App.4th at 

p. 1500, italics added.) “ ‘A sidewalk, pathway, common entrance 

or similar passageway offers an implied permission to the public 

to enter which necessarily negates any reasonable expectancy of 

privacy in regard to observations made there. The officer who 

walks upon such property so used by the public does not wear a 

blindfold; the property owner must reasonably expect him to 

observe all that is visible. In substance the owner has invited the 

public and the officer to look and to see.’ ” (Chavez, supra, 161 

Cal.App.4th at p. 1500.)

It is undisputed that on October 29, 2014, Officer Callaway 

entered the unfenced front yard of defendants’ property for a 
12

legitimate purpose. Officer Callaway responded to a report of a 

loose horse on the road, a horse which it is undisputed belonged 

to defendants.3 Defendants’ front yard and driveway were not 

fenced off and were publicly accessible. Officer Callaway’s 

actions, including briefly walking through the open gate to see if 

there was a safe corral, were reasonable attempts to secure the 

loose horse and determine if there was a suitable corral on the 

property. His conduct did not constitute a search under the 

Fourth Amendment. 

Once Sergeant Montez-Kemp arrived with the horse trailer

and secured the horse inside, she and Officer Callaway made 

further efforts to make contact with defendants before hauling 

the horse away. It was reasonable for the officers to make a

genuine effort to contact the property owner before formally 

impounding the horse. Knocking on the front door, a front 

window to the home, and the front garage door while calling out 

to see if anyone was home were reasonable tactics in that regard

and did not offend the Fourth Amendment.4 

Defendants primarily take issue with the conduct of the 

officers that occurred thereafter on October 29, 2014, namely 

looking into the windows of the attached garage and walking into 

and inspecting the fenced back yard. Defendants contend there 

3 Los Angeles County Code section 10.32.040 makes it a 

misdemeanor to allow one’s livestock to be loose on public land or 

roads. The citation issued to defendant Williams was for a 

violation of this ordinance. 

4 As defendants apparently concede, no Fourth Amendment 

issue was raised by any of the actions on November 10, 2014, 

when Deputy Ferrell returned with Sergeant Montez-Kemp and 

made observations of the property solely from public vantage 

points outside the fence.
13

was no longer any emergency as the horse was in the trailer and 

no longer presented a hazard, and their activities were motivated 

solely by the fact Sergeant Montez-Kemp was on “a mission of 

ferreting out” evidence of a crime. 

Respondent contends the conduct of the officers was 

justified by exigent circumstances. We agree.

“[T]he exigent circumstances doctrine constitutes an 

exception to the warrant requirement when an emergency 

situation requires swift action to prevent imminent danger to 

life.” (Rogers, supra, 46 Cal.4th at p. 1156.) The exigent 

circumstances exception is properly invoked when “an officer 

reasonably believes an animal on the property is in immediate 

need of aid due to injury or mistreatment.” (Chung, supra,

195 Cal.App.4th at p. 732; accord, Broden v. Marin Humane 

Society (1999) 70 Cal.App.4th 1212, 1222.)

There is no “ ‘ “ ‘litmus test’ ” ’ ” for determining whether 

exigent circumstances exist. (Rogers, supra, 46 Cal.4th at 

p. 1157.) “ ‘ “ ‘[I]n each case the claim of an extraordinary 

situation must be measured by the facts known to the officers.’ ” ’ 

[Citation.] Generally, a court will find a warrantless entry 

justified if the facts available to the officer at the moment of the 

entry would cause a person of reasonable caution to believe that 

the action taken was appropriate.” (Ibid.) 

In Chavez, an officer took a report from a woman that her 

boyfriend, who had previously been violent with her, had forcibly 

taken her car. (Chavez, supra, 161 Cal.App.4th at p. 1497.) She 

told the officer she was scared of her boyfriend, was not certain 

where their seven-year-old son was, and she had seen a gun at 

their home about six months earlier. (Ibid.) The officer went to 

the family home, felt the front grill of the car parked in the 

driveway and noticed it was warm. He therefore assumed the 
14

boyfriend was inside. He knocked several times on the front 

door, rang the doorbell, and called out his presence, but got no 

response. (Ibid.) He then walked a few steps down a cement 

walkway to a six-foot wooden gate, and looked over. The officer 

noticed a gun lying on the ground near a sliding door that led into 

the home. Fearing for the safety of the boy in case he was inside 

the home, the officer jumped over the fence to retrieve the gun, 

and then jumped back over the fence. (Ibid.) 

In reversing the trial court’s grant of the defendant’s 

motion to suppress, the Chavez court explained, “the officer’s 

observation of the revolver was not a search because the revolver 

was viewed in plain sight. . . . Defendant’s fence, at 

approximately six feet tall, prevented only physical intrusion and 

not observations by persons approximately six feet or taller. . . . 

Such a fence does not prevent viewing . . . in many other 

circumstances such as from an adjacent deck, back yard 

improvement, play set, children’s tree house, or neighbor’s 

second-story window.” (Chavez, supra, 161 Cal.App.4th at 

p. 1501, citations omitted.) 

Chavez further held that exigent circumstances justified 

the officer briefly jumping over the fence to secure the revolver. 

“By jumping the fence into defendant’s side yard to secure the 

revolver, [the officer] acted reasonably under the circumstances 

to protect both himself and the child he had reason to believe was 

in the residence. . . . He did not conduct any further search while 

in the yard and instead did no more than was necessary to 

eliminate the risk posed by the gun.” (Chavez, supra, 161 

Cal.App.4th at p. 1503.) 

Here, a horse that was thin and being housed in an unsafe 

corral had escaped from defendants’ property. Officer Callaway 

and Sergeant Montez-Kemp knew there had been prior calls to 
15

the property in response to reported concerns about the 

conditions of horses and pit bulls on the property. Sergeant 

Montez-Kemp heard puppies barking inside the home when she 

knocked on the door trying to contact defendants, and Officer 

Callaway heard a dog whining from inside the garage. There 

were strong odors of excessive fecal matter reasonably associated 

with unhealthful housing conditions. 

Under those circumstances, it was reasonable for Officer 

Callaway and Sergeant Montez-Kemp to be concerned there was 

a dog in distress inside the garage and possibly in need of 

immediate aid. There was nothing unreasonable about Officer 

Callaway standing on the front driveway and simply looking 

through the broken window in the garage door to determine 

whether the dog he heard making a whining bark was in genuine 

distress. Such facts “would cause a person of reasonable caution 

to believe that the action taken was appropriate.” (Rogers, supra, 

46 Cal.4th at p. 1157.) 

Moreover, Officer Callaway’s conduct, like the officer in 

Chavez, was “ ‘strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which 

justif[ied] its initiation.’ ” (Mincey v. Arizona (1978) 437 U.S. 385, 

393.) He did not thereafter enter the garage or intrude further 

inside. He only looked inside to determine if the dog needed to be 

assisted. From that vantage point, the treadmill and partially 

covered slat mill device were plainly visible inside the garage. 

Defendants argue that Officer Callaway and Sergeant 

Montez-Kemp did not find any animals in immediate threat of 

injury or death, either inside the garage or in the back yard, and 

in fact ultimately waited several weeks to return with law 

enforcement, and a warrant, to impound the dogs on the 

property. Defendants suggest this is proof there was no 

emergency justifying their conduct. We are not persuaded. 
16

The exigent circumstances doctrine protects reasonable law 

enforcement conduct. Officer Callaway acted reasonably in 

looking inside the garage window to attempt to determine the 

conditions of the dog he heard inside. Simply because the dog, 

while living in unhealthful conditions, did not appear to be in 

immediate risk of death, does not mean exigent circumstances 

did not justify Officer Callaway’s decision to look inside. (People 

v. Troyer (2011) 51 Cal.4th 599, 606 [the possibility that injury or 

death may be prevented by immediate action “outweighs the 

affront to privacy” when an officer makes a warrantless entry 

“under the reasonable but mistaken belief that an emergency 

exists”].) 

Defendants argue there were no circumstances that 

justified the officers proceeding into the back yard after having 

looked in the garage. Given the facts known to the officers, it was 

not unreasonable for them to be concerned about the condition of 

the dogs they could hear barking incessantly from the back yard. 

They could have reasonably believed they were justified to walk 

into the back yard and briefly check on the dogs in the kennels 

that were visible from outside the fence. 

Even assuming that Officer Callaway and Sergeant 

Montez-Kemp’s decision to walk into the back yard and inspect 

the kennels was not justified by exigent circumstances, the 

warrant was nonetheless valid. Deputy Ferrell’s affidavit 

contained substantial information supporting a finding of 

probable cause, even without the information obtained by Officer 

Callaway and Sergeant Montez-Kemp’s search of the back yard

on October 29, 2014. 

We begin with the well-established principle that an

affidavit of probable cause in support of a search warrant is 

presumed valid. (People v. Scott (2011) 52 Cal.4th 452, 484.)
17

Moreover, “[t]he showing required in order to establish probable 

cause is less than a preponderance of the evidence or even a 

prima facie case.” (People v. Carrington (2009) 47 Cal.4th 145, 

163.)

After excising the information provided to Deputy Ferrell 

by Sergeant Montez-Kemp that was obtained from her 

observations of the kennels while in the back yard (specifically 

the injuries and scarring to the dogs in the kennels), Deputy 

Ferrell’s affidavit contained the following information:

(1) Deputy Ferrell was a certified expert in blood sport 

investigations; (2) Deputy Ferrell personally observed, from the 

public roadway, the individual dog kennels located on defendants’ 

property that were of a type used to house fighting dogs; 

(3) Sergeant Montez-Kemp was an experienced Animal Control 

officer with expertise in illegal dog fighting operations; 

(4) defendants’ property had been the source of numerous calls 

over the previous four years regarding pit bulls on the property

and an illegal dog fighting operation had been suspected but not 

confirmed; (5) on October 29, 2014, Sergeant Montez-Kemp and 

Officer Callaway had to secure and impound a horse that escaped 

from unsafe housing from defendants’ property; and (6) on 

October 29, 2014, after securing the horse, a slat mill device used 

in the training of fighting dogs was observed on the property. 

This information, without more, was sufficient for the 

search warrant to issue. “[L]aw enforcement officers may draw 

upon their expertise to interpret the facts in a search warrant 

application, and such expertise may be considered by the 

magistrate as a factor supporting probable cause.” (People v. 

Nicholls (2008) 159 Cal.App.4th 703, 711.) Deputy Ferrell’s 

experience allowed him to explain the significance of the dog 

breed (pit bulls) and the type of kennels on defendants’ property
18

as related to a possible dog-fighting operation. Combined with 

the balance of information provided, including the prior calls to 

defendants’ property, there was ample information, given Deputy 

Ferrell’s expertise in bloodsports, demonstrating probable cause, 

even without the information about the injuries and scarring on 

the dogs in the back yard.

We reject defendants’ contention the information from 

Sergeant Montez-Kemp about prior calls made to defendants’ 

property were stale and not properly considered in determining 

probable cause. “No bright-line rule defines the point at which 

information is considered stale. [Citation.] Rather, ‘the question 

of staleness depends on the facts of each case.’ [Citation.] ‘If 

circumstances would justify a person of ordinary prudence to 

conclude that an activity had continued to the present time, then 

the passage of time will not render the information stale.’

[Citation.]” (People v. Carrington, supra, 47 Cal.4th at pp. 163-

164.) The calls at issue spanned approximately a four-year 

period of time during which defendants were known to be 

keeping, and apparently breeding, numerous pit bulls on their 

property. It was not unreasonable for that information to be 

considered relevant to the possible existence of an ongoing dogfighting operation on defendants’ property. 

Defendants have failed to show the affidavit contained any

material omissions that were deliberately made to create a false 

impression or with reckless disregard for the truth. (People v. 

Scott, supra, 52 Cal.4th at p. 484.) 
19

DISPOSITION

The order denying defendants and appellants’ motion to 

suppress evidence and to quash and traverse the warrant is 

affirmed.

Defendant and appellant Kevin R. Williams’ judgment of 

conviction is affirmed. 

Defendant and appellant Pauline R. Winbush’s judgment of 

conviction is affirmed. 

GRIMES, J.

WE CONCUR: 

RUBIN, Acting P. J. 

FLIER, J.