Source: https://caselaw.lexroll.com/2018/12/01/people-v-neal-no-a153101-cal-app-11-30-2018/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 07:14:51+00:00

Document:
Appellant John David Neal (appellant) appeals from a judgment convicting him of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon (Pen. Code, § 29800, subd. (a)(1)), claiming evidence regarding firearms taken from his home by the police should have been suppressed as the fruit of an unconstitutional warrantless search. Appellant also contends that the probation supervision fee he was ordered to pay was improperly imposed by the trial court without any determination of his ability to pay it.
We shall reject the first claim but find that the second is meritorious.
After the jury was selected, trial was completed in a single day. Antioch Police Officer Randall Gragg was the sole witness for the People and appellant the sole defense witness.
Officer Gragg testified that on the evening of December 22, 2014, he and his field training officer, Corporal Shawn Morin, were informed by radio that a man at the Antioch Marina was acting in a possibly suicidal manner. When they arrived at the marina, Officer Gragg observed appellant talking to Antioch Police Sergeant Schnitzius. Appellant told Schnitzius he was previously in the military and had been a police officer and possessed police and military weapons at his home in Antioch. Because appellant appeared upset and fluctuated between moments of calmness and frustration, he was transported to a hospital to be psychologically evaluated.
Officers Gragg and Morin then went to appellant’s residence to learn whether it contained the weapons appellant mentioned to the police. They arrived and were met by appellant’s wife, Mimi Neal (Neal). Officer Gragg asked her whether she was aware of any firearms in the house. She told them she was and “said something to the effect of, yes, I don’t want these guns in my house.” Neal led the two officers to the master bedroom and asked them to look into a walk-in closet where they found six firearms: “four long guns, two rifles and two shotguns.” The officers collected the firearms for safekeeping and provided Neal a property receipt.
When the officers returned to the police department, Officer Gragg conducted a check of appellant’s criminal history and found he had a prior felony conviction for assault in 2006. Concluding appellant was a convicted felon in possession of firearms, Gragg contacted “evidence personnel” and advised them that the firearms taken from appellant’s home were now being used for “evidentiary purposes,” not for safekeeping.
Later, Officer Morin received a voicemail on a police department phone from appellant sarcastically thanking him for taking his firearms and inquiring about how he could get them back. Appellant stated that the guns belonged to him and he intended to give them as Christmas presents to his children. Officer Morin recorded the voicemail, and it was played for the jury.
On December 23, the day after he spoke with police officers at the Marina, appellant went to the Antioch Police Department, “[p]artly to see what I needed to do next when I found out that morning that the guns had been removed from the house. Partly to vent some frustration on the following events after they were [re]moved.” Appellant testified that he “was trying to retrieve my father’s property to be given to family members that were coming from both out of state and out of the area to meet up for the holidays.” Appellant admitted that he had not provided the information about giving the guns to other family members in the voicemail he left for Officer Morin, but he stated that he had given this information to Officer Pfeiffer, another Antioch police officer.
On cross-examination appellant admitted his prior felony conviction and the authenticity of the plea form he executed that was the basis of that conviction. However, he testified that when he signed the plea form he understood that the specific rights he lost while on probation, including the prohibition of the possession of firearms, would be returned to him following his successful completion of probation, as was his right to vote.
The jury convicted appellant of the sole charge of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, and the court suspended imposition of sentence and placed appellant on probation for three years.
The report and recommendation of the probation officer recommended that appellant be placed on probation and, among other things, also recommended that appellant pay for the cost of probation supervision as determined by the probation officer but not to exceed $75 per month. The report contains no analysis of appellant’s financial ability to pay that amount.
Appellant’s pretrial motion to suppress evidence of firearm possession (§ 1538.5) was heard on May 5, 2017.
Prior to the testimony of Officer Gragg, who was also the sole witness for the People at the suppression hearing, the trial court established that since appellant was not seeking to suppress evidence obtained during the process of his detention, but only evidence later obtained from his home, the circumstances of the detention were irrelevant; the only issue being whether appellant’s wife consented to the warrantless search and seizure. Counsel for the parties agreed that was the case.
Officer Gragg’s brief testimony commenced with the district attorney’s request that he describe the conversation he had with appellant’s wife when he went to appellant’s home with Officer Morin.
“Q. And did part of your conversation with Neal [appellant’s wife] involve firearms?
“Q. And can you describe that part of the conversation?
“A. I explained to Neal the procedure of confiscating firearms for safekeeping for subjects that have been placed on a 5150 hold.
“Q. And how did she respond to that?
“A. Neal was very cooperative and she seemed almost eager to get the firearms out of her house.
“Q. So that when you initially told her that you were there to confiscate any firearms, what did she say?
“A. She said something to the effect of I don’t want them in my house. Please take them out of my house.
“Q. And what happened after that?
“A. Mimi Neal allowed us into her house and led us to the master bedroom, I guess you call it walk-in closet, and she showed us to where the firearms were stored.
“Q. And where were the firearms stored in the closet?
“A. The closet was segregated by what appeared to be female clothing on the left, male clothing on the right and all the firearms were on the male side of the closet.
“Q. All right. And when you say that she showed the firearms to you, did she just show you to the closet or did she point to where the firearms were?
“A. Just showed me to the closet.
“Q. After you located the firearms, did Neal say anything?
“Q. Did she ask you to take the firearms away?
On cross-examination Officer Gragg added that he was accompanied by Officer Morin, they appeared at appellant’s house about 8:00 p.m., when it was dark, they were wearing police uniforms, Gragg possessed a firearm and a taser, and Neal was then alone in the house with her children.
The court was not persuaded. As it stated, “I did not hear what you think you heard because I certainly did not hear this officer testify that he told Neal that they were there to search the house and that they had the right to search the house or that they were going to search the house. That’s not what he said. What he said was that in light of the 5150 arrest, they were there to investigate whether or not [appellant] possessed any firearms and [appellant’s wife] affirmed that he did and invited them in to take them. But they never said we have a right to search this house or we’re going to search this house or anything along those lines.” Accordingly, appellant’s motion to suppress was denied.
Appellant’s reply brief focuses on the Attorney General’s contention that the trial court’s factual determination that appellant’s wife consented to the search based on her own desire to get rid of the guns, not because she felt legally compelled to do so, is amply supported by substantial evidence. Appellant emphasizes that “[t]he standard for measuring the scope of a suspect’s consent under the Fourth Amendment is that of ‘objective’ reasonableness” (Florida v. Jimeno (1991) 500 U.S. 248, 251), and argues that the Attorney General improperly relies on appellant’s wife’s subjective desire to get rid of appellant’s firearms. We do not see it that way.
The trial court placed greatest weight on the conduct of the police officers, particularly Officer Gragg, not on Neal’s attitude about firearms. For that reason, this case is analogous to People v. Munoz (1972) 24 Cal.App.3d 900, the case the Attorney General primarily relies upon, which appellant ignores. In Munoz four officers went to an apartment in a building in which they were told the defendant possessed and was selling drugs. One officer knocked on the screen door, identified himself and announced that he was investigating possible narcotics sales. After several minutes delay, the defendant invited the officers in and, after some hesitation, on learning that the officers desired to make a warrantless search, said “ ‘Yeah, go ahead and search.’ ” As part of their search the officers entered a bedroom apparently in the possession of a tenant or guest of the defendant without the consent of that possessor. Reversing a ruling that the search was invalid, the Court of Appeal pointed out that the officers did not suddenly materialize, nor did they surprise Munoz or others in the apartment. “Munoz knew who they were when he invited them into his home. . . . There was . . . no assertion of a right to enter or search” and “no evidence of ‘confrontation’ in the sense of challenge or resistance or . . . threat or hostility, and no evidence from which a rational inference could be drawn that there was any compulsion of the type that would render the consent constitutionally inadequate.” (Id. at p. 905.) The same can be said of the encounter between Officers Gragg and Morin and Neal.
The facts of this case are materially different from those of the two cases appellant primarily relies upon—People v. Miller (1978) 196 Cal.App.3d 307 and Phillips v. County of Orange (S.D.N.Y. 2012) 894 F.Supp.2d 345—because in both the police demanded entry on the basis of unjustified assertions of legal authority. Officer Gragg told Neal her husband had been placed on a section 5150 hold, but he never suggested that section 5150, or any other statute or authority, empowered him or Officer Morin to enter or conduct a search of her home. People v. Bailey (1985) 176 Cal.App.3d 402, which appellant also relies upon, is also easily distinguishable. In that case the Court of Appeal affirmed the granting of a motion to suppress because the search was coerced by the overt physical assertion of police authority far beyond any representation made by the police in this case.
The trial court did not err in denying appellant’s motion to suppress.
It appears from the record that none of these statutory requirements were met in this case.  Appellant was not, either prior to or at the sentencing hearing, informed by the probation officer or the court of any of the rights given him under section 1203.1b; and the court’s statements suggest it may have been unaware appellant possessed those rights. Because the probation officer had not determined appellant’s ability to pay a probation supervision fee or the manner in which payment of any such fee should be made, the sentencing court was unable to assess those determinations.
Where, as in this case, a statute posits ability to pay as a precondition of a requirement to pay a fee comparable to the one at issue here—such as the booking fee authorized by Government Code section 29550.2, subdivision (a)—the defendant has the right to a determination of his ability to pay the fee before the court may order payment. (People v. McCullough (2013) 56 Cal.4th 589, 593.) In this situation, unless waived by the defendant, it is for the court, not the probation officer, to make the final determination. Here, neither the court’s order nor anything else that took place at the sentencing hearing informed appellant of his right to an adjudication after an evidentiary hearing as to the propriety of the probation officer’s determinations, or indicated that those determinations would be subject to any further judicial review. Matters required by the statute to be decided by the court, in the absence of a knowing and intelligent waiver by appellant, were instead left entirely in the hands of the probation officer.
Finally, there is reason to believe administrative fees of the sort authorized by section 1203.1b do not serve their ostensible purpose, to defray the cost of county government. The Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector of the City and County of San Francisco recently concluded that of all of the fees imposed by the San Francisco Superior Court in behalf of the county, “probation fees [authorized by section 1203.1b] are among the most expensive for individuals, second only to victim restitution, and result in the most long-term debt of the administrative fees . . . examined.[] A total of $15.8 million in probation fees has been assessed in the last six years, [of which] $12 million is still uncollected.” (Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector City and County of San Francisco, The Financial Justice Project, Criminal Justice Administrative Fees: High Pain for People, Low Gain for Government, a Call to Action for California Counties (2018) p. 3.) (Executive Summary).
The portion of the order of probation requiring appellant to pay for the cost of probation services as determined by the probation officer, not to exceed $75 per month, is set aside. The case is remanded to the superior court for a determination of appellant’s ability to pay all or a portion of the reasonable costs of probation supervision, the amount, if any, of such costs he shall be ordered to pay, and the terms of payment, in accordance with the provisions of section 1203.1b, and the principles articulated in this opinion.
In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.

References: § 29800
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