Court Opinion

ID: 9721209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:51:57.863103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:24.034864
License: Public Domain

HERNDON, J.
I concur in the opinion and offer only brief additional comment.
In Rios v. United States, 364 U.S. 253 [4 L.Ed.2d 1688, 80 S.Ct. 1431], the relevant facts are recited as follows:
“At about ten o’clock on the night of February 18, 1957, two Los Angeles police officers, dressed in plain clothes and riding in an unmarked car, observed a taxicab standing in a parking lot next to an apartment house at the corner of First and Flower Streets in Los Angeles. The neighborhood had a reputation for ‘narcotics activity.’ The officers saw the petitioner look up and down the street, walk across the lot,, and get into the cab. Neither officer had ever before seen the petitioner, and neither of them had any idea of his identity. Except for the reputation of the neighborhood, neither officer had received information of any kind to suggest that someone might be engaged in criminal activity at that time and place. They were not searching for a participant in any previous crime.' They were in possession of no arrest or search warrants.
“The taxicab drove away, and the officers followed it in their car for a distance of about two miles through the city. At the intersection of First and State Streets the cab stopped for a traffic light. The two officers alighted from their car and approached on foot to opposite sides of the cab. One of the officers identified himself as a policeman. In the next minute there occurred a rapid succession of events. The cab door was opened; the petitioner dropped a recognizable package of narcotics to the floor of the vehicle; one of the officers grabbed the petitioner as he alighted from the cab; the other officer retrieved the package; and the first officer drew his revolver.”
The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States holds in effect that the officers’ two-mile pursuit of the cab and their act in approaching and detaining the vehicle for purposes of “routine interrogation” were proper. In remanding the case to the District Court for further proceedings, the court declared as follows: “The validity of the search thus turns upon the narrow question of when the arrest occurred, and the answer to that question depends upon an evaluation of the conflicting testimony of those who were there that night.”
In People v. Cowman, 223 Cal.App.2d 109 [35 Cal.Rptr. 528], a case involving a similar factual situation, we discussed Rios v. United *625States, supra, and a number of other decisions of the state and federal courts wherein the actions of police officers in detaining suspects for purposes of investigation were held proper notwithstanding that the attendant circumstances were not sufficiently suspicious to provide probable cause to arrest. In the light of this review we commented as follows at pages 117-118: “The rationale of all these decisions is that an officer of the law, employed to maintain the peace and to prevent crime, as well as to apprehend criminals after the fact, has both the right and the duty to make reasonable investigation of all suspicious activities even though the nature thereof may fall short of grounds sufficient to justify an arrest or a search of the persons or the effects of the suspects. Experienced police officers naturally develop an ability to perceive the unusual and suspicious which is of enormous value in the difficult task of protecting the security and safety of law-abiding citizens. The benefit thereof should not be lost because the cold record before a reviewing court does not contain all the particularized perceptions which may have been so meaningful at the scene.”* 1

 People v. Cowman, supra, is cited with approval in People v. Superior Court (Kiefer) 3 Cal.3d 807, at page 827 [91 Cal.Rptr. 729, 478 P.2d 449].

 In light of the unfavorable outcome, in terms of the People’s case, it deserves emphasis that the only evidence offered at the hearing was Officer Toney’s.