Opinion ID: 2585222
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Arturo D.

Text: Arturo first asserts that Officer Rowe had no reason to enter the vehicle to search for registration because, Arturo claims, the record discloses that the trial court found that he earlier had given the registration to the officer. The record does not support this reading. At one point during direct examination, the officer testified that when he asked Arturo for his license and registration, Arturo produced neither item. Thereafter, during cross-examination, the officer testified that he could not recall whether Arturo had produced the requested documentation. Still later, following further discussion concerning the evidence on this point, and in response to defense counsel's argument that Officer Rowe had no right to be where he was or to search, the trial court interrupted defense counsel and asserted: There's no suggestion that the officer was doing anything other than looking for documents of title and driver's identification.  (Italics added.) To this, defense counsel replied, That's right. The trial court immediately responded, That's what he said. This constitutes a finding by the trial court that when the officer searched the car, he was looking for both registration and driver identification. Of course, the power to judge the credibility of the witnesses, resolve any conflicts in the testimony, weigh the evidence and draw factual inferences, is vested in the trial court. On appeal all presumptions favor the exercise of that power, and the trial court's findings on such matters, whether express or implied, must be upheld if they are supported by substantial evidence. ( People v. Lawler (1973) 9 Cal.3d 156, 160, 107 Cal.Rptr. 13, 507 P.2d 621; People v. Martin (1973) 9 Cal.3d 687, 692, 108 Cal.Rptr. 809, 511 P.2d 1161 [because the trial court ruled on the suppression motion after holding an evidentiary hearing pursuant to the motion, all factual conflicts must be resolved in the manner most favorable to the court's disposition of the motion].) Here the trial court's finding is supported by substantial evidenceOfficer Rowe's testimony on direct examination that when he asked Arturo for his license and registration, Arturo produced neither. [18] Accordingly, we must honor the trial court's finding that, when conducting his search, Officer Rowe was looking for both registration and license documentation. Arturo also asserts that because he candidly admitted to Officer Rowe that he was 16 years of age and had no license, the officer accordingly had no right to search his vehicle for any license or other identification. Officer Rowe was not obligated to take the driver's word on these matters at face value, however. When the officer prepared to cite Arturo for a Vehicle Code violation, he had both a right and an obligation to ascertain the driver's true identity, to ensure that the driver's true name appeared on the citation and on the written promise to appear. We conclude that Officer Rowe was entitled to enter the vehicle to conduct a limited search for both registration and identification documents. Arturo next asserts that a limited warrantless search under Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d 411, 285 Cal.Rptr. 31, 814 P.2d 1273, and related cases must be confined to traditional repositories such as a glove compartment or a sun visor, and that the area under a driver's seat is not a traditional repository for registration or identification documents. The Attorney General, by contrast, asserts that an officer is entitled to conduct a nonpretextual warrantless search for such documents in those locations where such documentation reasonably may be expected to be found. We agree with the Attorney General. Although we observed in Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d 411, 431, 285 Cal.Rptr. 31, 814 P.2d 1273, that when the officer in that case saw the wallet, [he] was confining his search to the visor and glove compartment, traditional repositories of auto registrations, we did not thereby restrict the scope of such a search to traditional repositories for auto registration documents. Instead, we merely explained that the officer in that case properly was searching in an area where such documentation reasonably could be expected to be found. Neither Webster nor any of the cases that it cited or that preceded it confined the scope of a permissible search for documentation to such so-called  traditional repositories. [19] Subsequently, in Turner, supra, 8 Cal.4th 137, 182, 32 Cal. Rptr.2d 762, 878 P.2d 521, we observed that the warrantless search for documents in that case, as in Webster, was confined to the glove compartment, a traditional repository of vehicle registration. Again, as the Attorney General explains, this reference to a `traditional repository' [was] descriptive rather than restrictive. Although, as noted above, the United States Supreme Court has not specifically approved or defined the scope of a warrantless search of a vehicle for registration or identification documentation, our conclusion that under certain circumstances limited searches for required regulatory documentation are permissible in those locations where such documentation reasonably may be expected to be found, appears to be consistent with the high court's decision in Class, supra, 475 U.S. 106, 106 S.Ct. 960, upholding a warrantless limited search to allow an officer to observe a car's VIN during a stop following a traffic violation. Our conclusion is also consistent with general Fourth Amendment case law concerning the scope of permissible searches (e.g., Michigan v. Long (1983) 463 U.S. 1032, 1049, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 3481, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 [protective search of passenger area of automobile is limited to those areas where a weapon may be placed or hidden]), and as noted above it is consistent with a number of prior California cases (see ante, at pp. 587-89, 38 P.3d at pp. 438-40) as well as cases from other jurisdictions (see ante, fn. 16). Finally, our conclusion also parallels the view of noted Fourth Amendment scholar Wayne R. LaFave, who, citing and describing Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d 411, 285 Cal. Rptr. 31, 814 P.2d 1273, and Turner, supra, 8 Cal.4th 137, 32 Cal.Rptr.2d 762, 878 P.2d 521, states: Under a variety of circumstances, it is reasonable for the police to make a limited search of a vehicle in an effort to determine ownership.... [¶] ... The better view is that if the driver has been given an opportunity to produce proof of registration but he is unable to do so, and even if he asserts that there is no such proof inside the car, the officer is not required to accept such an assertion at face value, at least when his `previous conduct would ... cast doubt upon his veracity'; at that point, the officer may look for registration papers `on the dashboard, sun visor and steering column' and, if not found in those places or seen in plain view, in `the glove compartment,' all `places where it reasonably may be found.'  (3 LaFave, Search and Seizure, supra, § 7.4(d), pp. 566-567, italics added, fns. omitted; see also id., p. 567, fn. 131.) [20] We proceed to apply this standard to the facts of this case. As the Attorney General suggests in his briefs, some persons who are stopped for traffic violations may not wish to provide an officer with valid documentation showing the driver's true name or identity, or showing the name of the vehicle's owner. Some drivers who wish to avoid disclosing such documentation to the police may keep the documents under the driver's seat and yet disclaim their existence. Indeed, at the suppression hearing, the prosecutor argued that it's not uncommon that people will shove their driver's license or their wallets underneath the seat while they're driving. The Attorney General argues that police officers, knowing this, reasonably may expect to find a wallet, or identification, or registration documents, under a driver's seat. We conclude that case law supports the Attorney General's view. Although Arturo asserts that he was able to find only one case in which a wallet was found under a driver's seat, in fact numerous published appellate decisions report that drivers' wallets (and hence, often, identification) have been located under the front seats of vehicles. (E.g., People v. Barrick (1982) 33 Cal.3d 115, 121, 187 Cal.Rptr. 716, 654 P.2d 1243 [driver's wallet found under driver's seat]; Grudt v. City of Los Angeles (1970) 2 Cal.3d 575, 582, 587, 86 Cal. Rptr. 465, 468 P.2d 825 [driver's wallet found under front seat]; People v. Bauer (1969) 1 Cal.3d 368, 372, 82 Cal.Rptr. 357, 461 P.2d 637 [driver retrieved his wallet from under driver's seat]; People v. Alvarez (1996) 49 Cal.App.4th 679, 685, 56 Cal. Rptr.2d 814 [driver's wallet found under driver's seat]; Ingle v. Superior Court (1982) 129 Cal.App.3d 188, 192, 181 Cal. Rptr. 39 [driver's wallet found under driver's seat]; People v. Goss (1980) 109 Cal. App.3d 443, 449, 167 Cal.Rptr. 224 [defendant's wallet found under front seat]; People v. Bundesen (1980) 106 Cal.App.3d 508, 510, 165 Cal.Rptr. 174 [defendant's wallet found under front passenger seat, where defendant had been sitting]; People v. Bracamonte (1967) 253 Cal.App.2d 980, 982, 61 Cal.Rptr. 830 [driver's wallet found under driver's seat]; People v. Williams (1965) 235 Cal.App.2d 389, 393, 45 Cal. Rptr. 427 [driver placed his wallet under front seat before exiting from car].) Indeed, in People v. Hinger, a wallet containing the driver's identification was found under the front seat of the vehicle (in that case, the front passenger seat). Published decisions of other state and federal courts also report numerous instances of drivers' wallets being found under the front seats of vehicles. (E.g., United States v. Dento (3d Cir.1967) 382 F.2d 361, 363 [driver's wallet found under front seat]; Mallett v. Bowersox (8th Cir. 1998) 160 F.3d 456, 457 [driver's wallet found under front seat]; Cotton v. United States (9th Cir.1967) 371 F.2d 385, 389-390 [driver's wallet found under front seat]; United States v. McCurdy (10th Cir.1994) 40 F.3d 1111, 1113 [defendant's wallet found under front seat]; United States v. Gerlach (E.D.Mich. 1972) 350 F.Supp. 180, 182 [driver's wallet found under front seat]; United States v. Spitalieri (N.D.Ohio 1975) 391 F.Supp. 167, 170 [defendant's wallet found under front seat]; United States v. Day (E.D.Pa.1971) 331 F.Supp. 254, 255 [driver's wallet found under driver's seat]; People v. Moore (Colo. 1995) 900 P.2d 66, 68 [wallet of defendant, a car passenger, found under front passenger seat]; Lewis v. State (Fl.Dist.Ct.App. 1998) 711 So.2d 205, 206 [defendant's wallet found under front seat]; People v. Jackson (1987) 158 Ill.App.3d [394, 110 Ill.Dec. 746, 511 N.E.2d 923, 924 [defendant found victim's wallet under driver's seat in course of robbing him]; Huey v. State (Ind.Ct.App. 1987) 503 N.E.2d 623, 625 [driver's wallet found under driver's seat]; Commonwealth v. Ellis (1981) 12 Mass.App.Ct. 612, 427 N.E.2d 1179, 1182 [driver's license found under front seat]; People v. Johnson (N.Y.App.Div.1994) 206 A.D.2d 439, 614 N.Y.S.2d 442, 443 [defendant's wallet found under front seat]; State v. Hurd (Ct.App.1996) 325 S.C. 384, 480 S.E.2d 94, 96[[u]nderneath the driver's seat, the deputies found a wallet containing Hurd's Georgia driver's license, Hurd's North Carolina identification card, some money, and a speeding ticket issued to Hurd in Lancaster County approximately four hours earlier]; State v. Mitzlaff (1995) 80 Wash.App. 184, 907 P.2d 328, 329 [driver's wallet found under driver's seat].) These citations amply support the observation that persons trying to hide their identity will often put their wallets underneath the seat. ( State v. Gordon (1991) 110 Or.App. 242, 821 P.2d 442, 443; see also, e.g., Mallett v. Bowersox, supra, 160 F.3d 456, 457 [as police officer approached the vehicle, the defendant hid his wallet and identification under the front seat; when the officer arrived at the side of the vehicle and requested the driver's license, the defendant replied that he did not have his license with him and falsely claimed to be Anthony Mallett, his own brother].) We conclude that in the circumstances of this case, the area under Arturo's seat was a location where registration or identification documentation reasonably might be expected to be found. Arturo insists that even if it is generally reasonable to search for identification or registration documents under the driver's seat, Officer Rowe exceeded the permissible scope of a proper limited search for such documents because he searched an area that the driver could not easily reach and conducted the search from behind the driver's seat. For the reasons that follow, we disagree. As noted above, Officer Rowe first attempted to search under the seat from the front area of the truck's cabhe reached blindly with his hand under the seat, but felt nothing. Immediately thereafter, the officer approached the same general area beneath the seat from a different vantage point, behind the driver's seat of the truck's extended cab, in a position that allowed him not only to feel, but also to view, the area under the seat. As the Attorney General observes, the space behind the truck's driver's seat would have afforded the officer an opportunity to inspect beneath the seat without restriction from the steering wheel and pedals, etc. At that point, Officer Rowe noticed and seized the pipe and the box in the middle of the area under the driver's seat. Arturo asserts there is no evidence that this area was easily accessible to a driver from the front, or that it could be reached from the front. Initially, we note that the circumstance that a driver might deposit his or her wallet under the driver's seat from the front, while seated, does not necessarily mean that the driver plans to retrieve that wallet from a sitting position within the cab of the vehicle, instead of, for example, retrieving it from a position standing outside the open door. (See People v. Batter, supra, 1 Cal.3d 368, 372, 82 Cal.Rptr. 357, 461 P.2d 637 [After a request for his registration, the defendant, from outside the car, reached beneath the front seat and pulled out the folder portion of a wallet and extracted an expired, temporary driver's license].) Moreover, there is no evidence that the area searched was not in fact accessible from the front, easily or otherwise, and Officer Rowe testified that he was searching the area that he believed would ... be in control of the driver, which would be the front area. Finally, even if the area searched was not easily accessible from the front, this factor would not be determinative. Items placed under a car seat can shift as the car moves, and an item, such as a wallet, placed originally in an easily accessible position near the front of a seat, may, through the movements of the car, migrate to another location under that seat. In this regard, there is no evidence that the floor area under the driver's seat was partitioned, so as to prevent items placed under the seat in the front from gravitating toward the center area under the seat. We agree with the Attorney General that although the prospective reach of a driver in relation to the location searched is a factor that can be considered in evaluating the reasonableness of the search, it is not determinative. Nor do we find Officer Rowe's decision to conduct the search from a vantage point behind the driver's seat to be unreasonable. We agree with the Attorney General that an officer may conclude based upon a variety of factors such as the size of the vehicle, the size of the door opening, the height of the vehicle off the ground, and the positioning of the seat in relation to the steering wheel and pedal, that viewing the area under the driver's seat is more easily and reasonably accomplished from behind the driver's seat rather than from the front seat. We reject Arturo's suggestion that allowing the limited search here at issue to be conducted from the more efficient vantage point of behind, rather than in front of, the seat constitutes a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. For example, although it is accepted that an officer under proper circumstances reasonably may search for documentation in a glove compartment, and might gain such access from the driver's seat area, an officer alternatively, and just as reasonably, may gain such access by opening the front passenger door and searching from that vantage point, rather than restricting his or her entry and positioning to the driver's side of the vehicle. (E.g., People v. Faddler, supra, 132 Cal.App.3d 607, 609, 183 Cal.Rptr. 328.) We agree with the Attorney General that once the officer is entitled to enter the car and look in the area under the driver's seat, the act of positioning his or her head behind the seat and looking forward constitutes no greater intrusion and implicates no greater expectation of privacy than positioning his or her head in front of the seat and looking backward. [¶] Moreover, artificially limiting the vantage point of an officer to essentially the driver's physical space, namely the area in front of the driver's seat, places an unjustified and potentially dangerous burden on the officer. If an officer is entitled to search under the driver's seat but is unable to safely position himself to view that area due to the presence of the steering column and pedals, his only option is to use his hand to blindly feel under the driver's seat or abandon an otherwise justified search. [21] In sum, the controlling question is whether the officer lawfully was entitled to search the location where he was looking. We conclude that it was reasonable for Officer Rowe to view the area underneath the driver's seat. The search was not rendered improper merely because the officer elected to view that area from behind the driver's seat. And if, as here, the officer observes contraband in plain view while conducting a proper limited search for regulatory documents, the contraband properly may be seized. ( Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d 411, 431, 285 Cal.Rptr. 31, 814 P.2d 1273, and cases cited.) Finally, Arturo asserts that Officer Rowe's search was unreasonable because the nature and quality of the intrusion on his Fourth Amendment interests outweighed the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion. (See Class, supra, 475 U.S. 106, 118, 106 S.Ct. 960, 968.) [22] Arturo emphasizes that he gave Officer Rowe identifying informationa name, an address in Vallejo, and a date of birthand accordingly, he argues, no important government interest justified or outweighed the ensuing intrusion upon his Fourth Amendment rights. The record establishes, however, that the officer stopped defendant in Suisun City, more than 17 miles from the Vallejo address given; it was 11:30 p.m., and the driver, a minor, admitted that the truck belonged neither to him nor to his passengers. The driver was unable to provide Officer Rowe with a driver's license or other documentation of his identity, and as the court found, the driver also failed to provide the officer with vehicle registration documentation. Officer Rowe reasonably decided to have the car towed. Prior to actually issuing the traffic citation, the officer decided to conduct a limited search in an area where he reasonably could expect to find the missing but required documentation. It is apparent that at that point Officer Rowe was attempting to determine for himself whether registration information concerning the vehicle's owner was available inside the vehicle, and also was attempting to verify and ascertain the driver's identity (and, indeed, whether he in fact was licensed as a driver), so that the citation could be issued in the driver's true name and show his true address. Under these circumstances, the officer's decision to conduct a limited search for registration and identification documents was reasonable, and the contraband found in plain view during the course of that limited search was properly obtained under the Fourth Amendment and not subject to exclusion. The Court of Appeal below reached a contrary conclusion, finding instead that the scope of the officer's intrusion went beyond that justified by the need to locate registration [or other identifying] documents and accordingly, it was unreasonable as a search for registration [or other identifying] documents. In support of its view, the court asserted as follows: (1) [T]he problem with this search is that the officer testified that he first searched the area `in control of the driver, which would be in the front area.' ... It was only when Officer Rowe positioned himself behind the bench seat that the pipe was visible; (2) [W]e cannot say that the scope of a search for registration or identification documents in the cab of a pickup reasonably extends to virtually all areas in the physical proximity of the driver; (3) The officer did not testify that he was concerned for his personal safety and was searching for weapons; and (4) Nor did [the officer] testify that the area below the driver's seat could even be reached by the driver with or without the rear seat in use. With regard to the Court of Appeal's first pointthat Officer Rowe testified he was searching the area within the driver's control, which would be in the front area, but conducted that search from behind the driver's seatas we have explained above, the search was not improper merely because the officer elected to undertake it from behind the driver's seat rather than from in front of the driver's seat. Nor do we agree with the Court of Appeal's implication that approving the search here at issue would condone searches for required documentation of virtually all areas in the physical proximity of the driver. As explained above, the scope of such a search is circumscribed, being limited to places where such documentation reasonably could be expected to be found. Nor do the Court of Appeal's other two points support a contrary conclusion. It is insignificant that Officer Rowe failed to testify to any suspicion that the driver was armed, because the officer undertook the search in order to find required documentation. Pursuant to Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d 411, 285 Cal.Rptr. 31, 814 P.2d 1273, and related cases, the limited search here at issue was justified on that basis alone. [23] Finally, the Court of Appeal's assertion that Officer Rowe did not testify that the area below the driver's seat could be reached is problematic as a factual matter on this record, [24] and in any event, as we explained ante, at pages 598-99, 38 P.3d at pages 448-49, whether the searched area was or was not easily within reach of the driver while positioned in the driver's seat is a factor to be considered in determining the reasonableness of a limited search for documentation, but is not a dispositive factor. Accordingly, we conclude in Arturo D. (S085213) that the trial court properly denied the suppression motion, and that the Court of Appeal erred in determining otherwise.