Opinion ID: 1447881
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Validity of Defendant's Arrest

Text: (1) Defendant contends his arrest was invalid, and thus its fruits, including his statements to police, should have been suppressed, because the arresting officers who entered the Los Robles house to serve the arrest warrant did not have reasonable cause to believe he was inside, thus violating section 844 and the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. We disagree. Section 844 requires police officers to have reasonable grounds to believe that a suspect is inside a dwelling before they may make a nonconsensual entry to effect an arrest. [4] This requirement applies to arrests with and without warrants ( People v. Jacobs (1987) 43 Cal.3d 472, 478 [233 Cal. Rptr. 323, 729 P.2d 757]; People v. Marshall (1968) 69 Cal.2d 51, 55-56 [69 Cal. Rptr. 585, 442 P.2d 665]), and to peaceable as well as forcible entrances ( People v. Jacobs, supra, 43 Cal.3d at p. 480). At the hearing on defendant's motion to suppress evidence arising from his arrest, Officer Dennis Sullivan of the Alhambra Police Department testified that he first encountered defendant on September 30, 1984, two months before the arrest, when Sullivan investigated an apparent altercation between an unidentified man and Frank Hillhouse at the Los Robles street address where defendant was later arrested. In the course of determining whether he should arrest either party, Sullivan spoke to defendant inside the front room of the house. Defendant identified himself as Michael Wader, said that his girlfriend lived at the house, and that he had been in prison for murder for 20 years. Although Officer Sullivan made no arrests resulting from the altercation, he filled out field interview cards on defendant and Hillhouse. On November 28, 1984, Officer Sullivan learned at roll call of two outstanding arrest warrants each for defendant and Hillhouse. He then drove past the Los Robles address, saw two cars in the driveway, and ran license plate checks. Neither car was registered to defendant. Officer Sullivan returned to the house in the early morning hours. He drove past the house slowly on several occasions, and at least once, used binoculars. Through a three-foot opening in the drapes of the inside front room, he observed defendant and a woman sitting on a couch backed up against the front window. The interior lights were on. Although their backs were to the window, Officer Sullivan could identify defendant because the man and woman turned toward each other, presenting profiles. Officer Sullivan was certain the man was defendant and not Hillhouse, because defendant was thinner and lighter than Hillhouse. Officer Sullivan left the Los Robles site at one point; when he returned, one of the two cars was gone. At 2:30 or 3:00 a.m., the lights in the house went out. After staying at the location for two more hours, Officer Sullivan returned to the police station. At approximately 6:15 a.m., Officer Sullivan, assisted by another officer, returned to the Los Robles address with an arrest warrant. Employing a ruse, the officers obtained entrance to the house and arrested defendant. At most, defendant contends, the police had a hunch that he was inside the house. In essence, defendant argues that Officer Sullivan's testimony was not worthy of belief because it varied in certain particulars from a written police report he prepared shortly after the arrest. First, defendant focuses on a statement in Officer Sullivan's report that when he drove by the house, he saw a man later identified as defendant. But Officer Sullivan testified that his reference to a subject later identified as defendant meant only that he later confirmed, by viewing defendant's driver's license, that the subject was indeed defendant. Second, defendant stresses that Officer Sullivan wrote in the arrest report that he saw the backs of people in the Los Robles residence, but did not write that he saw their profiles, as he later testified. Any confusion or lack of complete consistency in a witness's testimony speaks to the weight of the evidence. (See 3 Witkin, Cal. Evidence (3d ed. 1986) Introduction of Evidence at Trial, ง 1751, p. 1706.) This is a matter within the province of the trier of fact โ here, the trial court. Third, defendant contends that People v. Jacobs, supra, 43 Cal.3d 472, cannot be meaningfully distinguished from this case. We disagree. In Jacobs, the arresting officer testified he believed that the defendant was at a residence during daytime hours because the officer had obtained his address from an employment application, had seen the defendant at that address some three months earlier, and had learned the defendant was not employed during the day. ( Id. at p. 478.) We held this evidence was insufficient to give rise to a reasonable belief that the defendant was inside the house. ( Id. at p. 479.) Here, by contrast, the arresting officer personally observed defendant at the residence in the early morning hours before the arrest at dawn. We conclude that substantial evidence supports the trial court's determination that Officer Sullivan had reasonable cause to believe defendant was inside the Los Robles address when he served the arrest warrant; accordingly, section 844 was not violated. (See People v. Jacobs, supra, 43 Cal.3d at pp. 479-480.) For the same reason, defendant has not demonstrated a violation of the Fourth Amendment. (See Payton v. New York (1980) 445 U.S. 573, 603 [63 L.Ed.2d 639, 661, 100 S.Ct. 1371].) The officers searched the residence and found defendant. Defendant also argues that this nonconsensual search was unlawful because the arresting officers did not have a search warrant, and there were no exigent circumstances justifying a warrantless search. But because the arrest was made under the authority of a valid arrest warrant and in conformity with section 844, the absence of exigent circumstances or a search warrant is of no significance.