Opinion ID: 1375029
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Denying Application to Renew Motion

Text: As stated, at defendant's second trial, the court denied an application to hear his motion to suppress evidence under section 1538.5 de novo. The motion was made in a manner the court called conclusionary; defendant did not explain what new evidence might justify a rehearing. Nevertheless, he argued at the motion hearing that the matter should be relitigated because there was more [evidence] on the credibility of the officers that were involved in the [prior section 1538.5] motions. The purported new evidence consisted of the possibility that two other witnesses would testify they never saw nude pictures in plain sight in defendant's apartment. The court rejected that offer of proof immediately, saying that defendant could have told counsel about any such witnesses before the prior litigation. Defendant also suggested vaguely that prior counsel may have exercised poor judgment in not pursuing the possibility that Carter had been seen in another individual's company after defendant admitted having been with him. The court found that defendant has not established through any evidence whatsoever that [he] lacked an opportunity for a full determination of the merits of his motion as originally made and noticed at the previous hearing and the request for a 1538.5 de novo is denied. (22) Defendant now contends that the court erred in denying a new hearing on his section 1538.5 motion because counsel at the first trial was ineffective for not impeaching the arresting officers with purported evidence, contained in a police report that they possessed, that Carter was seen by his brother near their house an hour after defendant saw him. He contends that the denial of his application violated rights he finds in the Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to due process, to counsel, and to a reliable fact-finding process in a capital case. In People v. Superior Court ( Corona ) (1981) 30 Cal.3d 193, 199-200 [178 Cal. Rptr. 334, 636 P.2d 23], we suggested that if counsel's ineffectiveness at a section 1538.5 suppression hearing denied a defendant an opportunity for a full determination of the motion's merits, in some circumstances the defendant should receive a new hearing. But we believe that the question whether there was an opportunity for a full determination of the motion's merits at the prior trial is essentially factual and we review for substantial evidence the court's implicit ruling that there was such an opportunity. Substantial evidence supports the ruling: on this record, we conclude that the court could reasonably find that defendant failed to show he was denied the opportunity to present all the available evidence at the time of the original hearing. This record is similar to that before the Court of Appeal in People v. Dorsey (1973) 34 Cal. App.3d 70 [109 Cal. Rptr. 712], overruled on another ground in Bunnell v. Superior Court (1975) 13 Cal.3d 592, 602 [119 Cal. Rptr. 302, 531 P.2d 1086]: The reversal of defendant's conviction returned him to the position he occupied prior to his conviction, i.e., facing trial after the denial of his motions to set aside the information and suppress the evidence. Defendant made no showing of any change of circumstance necessitating renewal of these motions at the second trial. The opportunity of renewing such motions for a second time is within the discretion of the trial court judge upon retrial. [Citation.] We find no abuse of discretion here. (34 Cal. App.3d at p. 73.) Neither do we. Anticipating we might reach this conclusion, defendant contends briefly that any failure to raise the point adequately constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Presumably he refers to the fact that defendant's motion papers did not mention the purported exculpatory police report and that he only alluded to it vaguely at the hearing. We doubt that the contents of any such report, if admissible in evidence and accepted by the court, would have altered its ruling denying a new hearing, for it is also doubtful that the court at the prior trial would have ruled differently if it had learned of the report and received it in evidence. It is unlikely that the purported one-hour discrepancy to which defendant alludes would have changed the officers' assessment of his possible guilt of crime, assuming for purposes of argument that they were aware of it. Although Officer Sims listed his perception that defendant was the last person known to have seen Carter as a factor in arresting him, it is clear that his inconsistent statements alone provoked strong suspicion that he had committed an offense. On this record, we reject the ineffective-assistance contention: there is no reasonable probability that, if defendant had better briefed the motion with supporting argument or furnished a police report of the type he describes, the outcome would have differed.