Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/2d/62/757.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 06:10:54+00:00

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THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ALAN THOMAS BILDERBACH, Defendant and Appellant.
John C. Salyer for Defendant and Appellant.
We adjudicate defendant's appeal from a judgment on a verdict finding him guilty of violating Health and Safety Code section 11530, prohibiting possession of marijuana. We reverse the conviction on the basis of the erroneous admission of defendant's confession since the record fails to indicate that, prior to the confession, defendant had been advised of his rights to an attorney and to remain silent, or that he had otherwise waived those rights. We also point out that if, upon a new trial, the question of the admissibility of the confession arises, the trial judge should not only determine whether defendant properly waived his rights to counsel and to remain silent before confessing, but should also decide whether the confession was induced by an illegal search and seizure.
On August 22, 1963, police officers arrested defendant's brother, Bruce Bilderbach, and Jay Becker at the home of Becker's parents for illegally possessing marijuana. While the police were conducting an investigation on the premises, defendant and Sue Jenkins arrived at the home in an automobile owned by Miss Jenkins. After obtaining Miss Jenkins' consent, the officers searched her car and found in the glove compartment a vial containing debris that appeared, and was later analyzed, to be marijuana. Although defendant and Miss Jenkins denied having ever seen the vial before, the officers arrested both of them.
The officers then drove the defendant to his home, which was about 16 miles distant. There the police, during a search without a warrant, uncovered a marijuana cigarette, the ownership of which defendant admitted.
The following day defendant, after being questioned by the police about the marijuana found in Miss Jenkins' automobile, admitted that the narcotic belonged to him. He stated, "Yeah, man, I guess it is. You've got me on the other anyway. It's mine." At the time of this confession defendant was in custody. Nothing in the record indicates that prior to such confession defendant had been advised of his rights to counsel and to remain silent or that he had otherwise knowingly and intelligently waived those rights.
Upholding the lawfulness of the search of the automobile, the trial judge condemned as illegal the search of defendant's house. After excluding the marijuana cigarette found in the house, fn. 2 the judge nevertheless adjudged defendant guilty. In so ruling the court stated, "there seems to be no question but that he [defendant] admitted to at least two of the officers that he did have at least a joint ownership of the vial, and it was stipulated that it was marijuana."
[1a] Defendant's confession should not have been admitted into evidence in view of People v. Dorado (1965) ante, p. 338 [42 Cal. Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361]. Following Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) 378 U.S. 478 [84 S. Ct. 1758, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977], in which the United States Supreme Court established that an accused has a right to counsel at the pre-arraignment accusatory stage and that incriminating statements obtained in violation of that right must be excluded, we held in Dorado that the admission of a confession given during that stage requires reversal if the defendant has not been advised of his rights to counsel and to remain silent or if he has not otherwise waived those rights prior to giving the confession.
Defendant advances two further propositions: that the search of the automobile was unlawful because Miss Jenkins did not voluntarily consent to it, and that his confession that the marijuana found in the car belonged to him should not have been admitted on the ground that it constituted a "fruit" of the illegal search of the house. We explain why we find no merit in the first proposition; we discuss the second because the point may arise on retrial.
Defendant urges the unlawfulness of the search of the automobile upon the ground that it was not incident to a lawful arrest. He asserts that since Miss Jenkins' consent to the search took place after her arrest it was involuntary. (See People v. Haven (1963) 59 Cal. 2d 713, 719 [31 Cal. Rptr. 47, 381 P.2d 927].)  The record contains evidence, however, that the police arrested Miss Jenkins after the search and that she voluntarily consented to the search. Since evidence on [62 Cal. 2d 763] the issue of the voluntary nature and the time of Miss Jenkins' consent conflicted, and since substantial evidence supports the trial court's finding that the search preceded the arrest and that the consent was otherwise voluntary, we must accept that decision. (See People v. Washington (1958) 163 Cal. App. 2d 833, 842 [330 P.2d 67]; People v. Guy (1956) 145 Cal. App. 2d 481, 490 [302 P.2d 657]; People v. Smith (1956) 141 Cal. App. 2d 399, 402 [296 P.2d 913].)  For the same reason we do not upset the trial court's holding as to the inadmissibility of the evidence found in defendant's home on the ground of its procurement during an illegal search.
In Wong Sun an informant told police that he had purchased an ounce of heroin from a "Blackie Toy," proprietor of a laundry on Leavenworth Street in San Francisco. While the other agents remained out of sight, agent Alton Wong, on the pretext that he was calling for laundry, sought to enter. When Toy started to close the door, the agent identified himself as a narcotics officer, but Toy slammed the door and fled to a rear bedroom, where his wife and child were sleeping. Breaking open the door, agent Wong and the other officers followed Toy to the bedroom. There the agents apprehended and searched him. Although a search of the premises uncovered no narcotics, Toy, upon questioning, implicated one "Johnny," who was later identified as Johnny Yee, as a vendor of narcotics.
When the agents contacted Yee, he surrendered a quantity of heroin which he said had been brought to him by Toy and [62 Cal. 2d 765] another Chinese known to him only as "Sea Dog." Toy later identified "Sea Dog" as Wong Sun. The agents then searched Wong Sun's house, discovered no narcotics, but arrested him. Several days after their arraignment and release on bail, Yee, Toy and Wong Sun, during interrogations, furnished unsigned, incriminating statements.
By means of the admission of statements which might refer to the illegally seized materials, evidence that should have been excluded would be indirectly placed before the court. (See State v. Evans (1962) 45 Hawaii 622 [372 P.2d 365, 375].) Moreover, the court in Wong Sun, after pointing out that the "broad exclusionary rule" extends to indirect as well as to direct products of illegal invasions, states that no distinction may be made in this regard between physical and verbal evidence. (371 U.S. at pp. 485-486.)  If no such distinction can stand, it follows that verbal evidence which resulted from the illegal search must be excluded just as physical evidence is excluded irrespective of the absence of "oppressive circumstances."
Traynor, C. J., Peters, J., Peek, J., Burke, J., and White, J., fn. * concurred.
FN 1. Early in the trial, when defendant objected to the admission of one of his extrajudicial statements on the ground that the corpus delicti had not been proved, the trial judge stated that he would reserve ruling until the entire case was in, and that he assumed that the evidence was being offered on the question of probable cause for the arrest and search. Testimony as to defendant's admission of ownership of the vial came in shortly thereafter. Subsequently, when almost all of the evidence had been presented, the judge reiterated that "we are on the phase of the case of the admissibility of the evidence solely."
FN 2. Nothing in the record indicates that the trial judge relied upon defendant's admission that he owned the marijuana cigarette found in the house.
FN 4. In holding that Toy's conviction could not stand on his uncorroborated admission, the court left open the question "whether, in light of the fact that Toy was free on his own recognizance when he made the [unsigned] statement, that statement was a fruit of the illegal arrest." (371 U.S. at p. 488.) The court also said that the trial court must decide whether sufficient evidence corroborated Wong Sun's admission.
FN 5. See Broeder, Wong Sun v. United States: A Study in Faith and Hope (1963) 42 Neb.L.Rev. 483, 524-532; Maguire, How to Unpoison the Fruit--The Fourth Amendment and the Exclusionary Rule (1964) 55 J.Crim.L., C. & P.S. 307, 317-318. Cases after Wong Sun holding that statements are admissible if voluntary or if not accompanied by "oppressive circumstances" generally involve the problem of statements given after an illegal arrest. (E.g., People v. Freeland (1963) 218 Cal. App. 2d 199 [32 Cal. Rptr. 132]; State v. Traub (1963) 151 Conn. 246 [196 A.2d 755]; United States v. Burke (1963) 215 F. Supp. 508, 511, affd. 328 F.2d 399 (1964); State v. Jackson (1964) 43 N.J. 148 [203 A.2d 1, 12-13]; Prescoe v. State (1963) 231 Md. 486 [191 A.2d 226, 231]; State v. Kitashiro (1964) ___ Hawaii ___ [397 P.2d 558, 562]; State v. Keating (1963) 61 Wn.2d 452 [378 P.2d 703].) In two of the states from which the above decisions came, the courts in holding inadmissible statements induced by an illegal search and seizure did not mention the presence of "oppressive circumstances" or discuss the voluntariness of the statements. (State v. Kitashiro, supra, 397 P.2d 558, at pp. 565-568; McNear v. Rhay (1965) ___ Wn.2d ___ [398 P.2d 732, 739]; but see McChan v. State (1965) ___ Md. ___ [207 A.2d 632, 639].) Even some decisions excluding statements after an illegal arrest do not mention these elements. (Gatlin v. United States (1963) 326 F.2d 666, 671-673; State v. Mercurio (1963) ___ R.I. ___ [194 A.2d 574]; see Commonwealth v. Jacobs (1963) 346 Mass. 300 [191 N.E.2d 873, 880-881].) We do not pass on any question involving the admissibility of statements given by an accused after he has been illegally arrested. Although the language in some cases indicates that statements induced by the illegal search are "involuntary" (see, e.g., United States v. Smalls (1963) 223 F. Supp. 387, 389), the use of the word "involuntary" in this connection does not necessarily mean that such statement was coerced; it may only indicate that the defendant was motivated to make the statement when confronted with the evidence obtained during the illegal search.

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