Opinion ID: 1170008
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Alleged improper admission of articles seized from defendant's car

Text: [17] Defendant attacks the trial court's admission into evidence of items seized from defendant's car four hours subsequent to his arrest, after a police officer had towed the car to the impound garage. The items included defendant's orange shirt, pearl buttons from the shirt, sunglasses, a cap, and makeup in a box. Defendant contends that because the evidence was seized at a time and place remote from the arrest, it was not admissible as the product of a search incident to the arrest. He urges us to follow Preston v. United States (1964) 376 U.S. 364 [11 L.Ed.2d 777, 84 S.Ct. 881], and People v. Burke (1964) 61 Cal.2d 575 [39 Cal. Rptr. 531, 394 P.2d 67], in holding unlawful a vehicle search conducted at a police station hours after an arrest. We need not decide, however, whether the evidence in the instant case had been obtained unlawfully, since it could not have prejudiced defendant's case; indeed defendant fails to suggest any source of prejudice. The items could only have tended to establish the truth of issues admitted by defendant, his identity as the culprit and his general intention to commit a robbery. Defendant admitted that he fired the fatal shot, and he testified that in planning the robbery they needed some objects that would help cover up our features and purchased caps, sunglasses, and makeup, and we do not believe that the prosecution's introduction into evidence of these items contributed to defendant's decision to adopt the position taken. (Cf. People v. Spencer (1967) 66 Cal.2d 158, 168 [57 Cal. Rptr. 163, 424 P.2d 715].) His defense was that he did not participate in the robbery that actually occurred and that he fired the fatal shot accidentally. Upon these issues, the seized evidence had no bearing whatsoever. We conclude that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ( Chapman v. California, supra, 386 U.S. 18, 23 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 710, 87 S.Ct. 824, 24 A.L.R.3d 1065]; People v. Modesto, supra, 66 Cal.2d 695, 714.)