Court Opinion

ID: 9796437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:57:24.533465+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:18.620230
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
Late in the night of March 1, 1988, a red-and-white Ford Fairmont speckled with rain traveled through deserted downtown Visalia. Officer Alan Wightman of the Visalia Police Department, aware of recent auto thefts in the area, saw the car and had a hunch the driver was involved in some illegality, so he followed it. Wightman confirmed by radio that the car had not been reported stolen. Still suspicious, he imagined that the driver might be under the influence of drugs or alcohol and, like a properly trained peace officer, followed the car but observed no violations of the traffic laws common to such offenders, nor did he see either the driver or the passenger imbibe an alcoholic beverage. The car eventually left the downtown area and entered the freeway, whereupon Officer Wightman observed that it was traveling 40 miles per hour on a stretch of highway where the speed limit was 55. At that point Wightman effected a traffic stop; briefly detained and questioned the driver and passenger, defendants Richard Lacy Letner and Christopher Allan Tobin; and conducted a quick visual scan of the car’s interior and trunk. Several hours later, after the discovery of Ivon Pontbriant’s murder, police located the car and searched it, finding additional evidence.
*210As fully explained by Justice Kennard, Officer Wightman lacked reasonable cause to believe the driver of the Ford Fairmont had violated any law, and the officer thus had no legally justifiable reason to detain—in effect, seize—defendants. I therefore join that portion of Justice Kennard’s dissenting opinion that concludes Officer Wightman’s traffic stop and ensuing detention violated defendants’ Fourth Amendment rights. (See dis. opn., post, at pp. 217-220.) But as explained below, because I conclude this constitutional violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, it does not require reversal. Accordingly, I concur in the majority’s decision to affirm the judgment.
I.
As a general rule, violations of the United States Constitution require reversal of the resulting criminal judgment unless the error can be found harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 87 S.Ct. 824].) This stringent standard of review applies to violations of the Fourth Amendment. (Bumper v. North Carolina (1968) 391 U.S. 543, 550 [20 L.Ed.2d 797, 88 S.Ct. 1788]; People v. Rich (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1036, 1080 [248 Cal.Rptr. 510, 755 P.2d 960]; People v. Jasmin (2008) 167 Cal.App.4th 98, 114 [84 Cal.Rptr.3d 19].) In this case, the People obtained two categories of evidence from the unjustified traffic stop: evidence obtained during the detention itself, and evidence from a search of the car the next evening. As explained below, the inculpatory power of the evidence gathered as a direct result of the traffic stop was negligible, and its admission was thus harmless. As for the later car search, because defendants had no recognizable possessory interest in the vehicle, they may not challenge the search or object to the admission at trial of the evidence thereby obtained, nor in any event was that evidence of particular significance to the prosecution. Applying Chapman to this case, and recognizing the evidence of defendants’ guilt was extensive, I conclude the error in admitting the evidence defendants now challenge as a result of Officer Wightman’s traffic stop was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
II.
Officer Wightman’s decision to stop and detain defendants resulted in the following evidence being admitted against them in their criminal trial: (a) Wightman’s discovery of a common buck knife when he conducted a patsearch of defendant Letner; (b) Wightman’s observation of Heineken and Lowenbrau beer bottles in the car {ibid.); (c) defendants’ statements concerning their destination that night; and (d) Wightman’s observation and identification of defendants as the driver and passenger of Pontbriant’s car just hours after the crimes. Because all this evidence came to the People by directly *211exploiting the traffic stop, a seizure that, as explained in Justice Kennard’s dissenting opinion, was unsupported by reasonable cause to believe the driver was in violation of any law (dis. opn., post, at pp. 218-219), the evidence should have been suppressed under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution as “ ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’ ” (Wong Sun v. United States (1963) 371 U.S. 471, 488 [9 L.Ed.2d 441, 83 S.Ct. 407]; see People v. Sims (1993) 5 Cal.4th 405, 445 [20 Cal.Rptr.2d 537, 853 P.2d 992].) Only if the admission of this evidence can be found harmless beyond a reasonable doubt can we affirm the judgment.
We may quickly discount the first two items for lack of probative value. The type of knife Officer Wightman found in defendant Letner’s pocket was not uncommon or unusual and was an otherwise legal implement, nor was the blade matched to the wound suffered by the victim. Moreover, when police experts disassembled the knife and examined its component parts, they found no blood, suggesting that, given the copious amount of blood spilled by the victim due to the severing of her carotid artery, Letner’s buck knife was not the murder weapon.
Nor was Officer Wightman’s observation of the beer bottles in the car particularly inculpatory. The bottles were of common brands and, although those brands were linked to the murder scene, the evidence of the officer’s observations was cumulative to other evidence: police discovered the same bottles in their later search of the car, and defendant Tobin testified at trial that he had bought both Heineken and Lowenbrau beer and shared it with Letner and the victim on the night she was murdered. Neither Wightman’s discovery of Letner’s knife nor his observation of the beer bottles could have been significant to the jury’s decision.
The People also introduced into evidence certain statements defendants had made during the illegal detention, but none was of particular significance. Officer Wightman testified at trial that Letner told him the Ford Fairmont he was driving belonged to Ivon Pontbriant, that she lived on North Jacob Street, but that he did not know the exact address. But as Wightman testified at the suppression hearing—and presumably could have testified at trial—before he stopped defendants he had already received information via police radio that the car belonged to Pontbriant.
Officer Wightman also testified at trial that at the time of the stop Letner said he was taking Tobin home, whereas Tobin said that Letner was taking him home to Tobin’s house on South Crenshaw, where he lived with *212“Jeanette” (presumably his girlfriend Jeanette Mayberry). Despite the majority’s characterization of defendants’ statements during this detention as “inconsistent and apparently untruthful” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 143), no inconsistency is apparent and the statements would not have given the jury occasion to believe that defendants were being evasive.1
The most inculpatory evidence the People obtained from the unjustified traffic stop was the identity of defendants as the persons driving Pontbriant’s car shortly after she was murdered. But considering all the circumstances, as detailed below, this evidence was of little importance in connecting defendants to the murder. An acquaintance of Letner’s placed the pair at a bar between 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. the evening Pontbriant was killed. Tobin also testified he and Letner were at a bar that evening, but left to go to Pontbriant’s house. The three of them spent the evening drinking together, and Pontbriant and Letner made phone calls to Edward Burdette and Kathy Coronado. Burdette corroborated that Pontbriant and Letner had called him that night around 8:00 p.m. or later. Forensic experts determined that Pontbriant was killed late that evening. Sometime after midnight, and before making the now challenged traffic stop, Officer Wightman observed two White men driving a red-and-white Ford Fairmont and determined by radio that the car’s registered owner was Pontbriant.2 Setting aside the evidence of the traffic stop, defendants were then seen around 4:00 a.m. that same morning, on foot, at Denise Novotny’s home. Apparently without access to a car, they asked if her husband could give them a ride to work, saying it was an emergency. Novotny was acquainted with defendants and recognized them, but told them her husband was out of town. Defendants thereafter fled the city under suspicious circumstances suggestive of guilt. (See People v. Abilez (2007) 41 Cal.4th 472, 521-522 [61 Cal.Rptr.3d 526, 161 P.3d 58] [flight logically permits an inference of guilty knowledge].) That evening police found defendants’ property in Pontbriant’s car. Once in Iowa, defendants confessed to their new employer, Earl Bothwell, that they were wanted for murder in California and had taken a red-and-white Ford from a woman. After being apprehended in Iowa, Letner temporarily escaped law enforcement custody.
In sum, Officer Wightman’s discovery of defendant Letner’s buck knife, his observation of the beer bottles in the car, and his recounting of defendants’ statements, considered singly or together, were not particularly inculpatory or important to the prosecution. Although Wightman’s testimony placing defendants in the victim’s car shortly after she was killed was, by contrast, undoubtedly useful to the prosecution, this information was presented to the *213jury by other means as well. Wightman’s legal observation of two White men in Pontbriant’s car that night, coupled with the later discovery by police of defendants’ belongings in the abandoned Ford Fairmont, sufficiently placed defendants in the car at that critical time. Thus, when weighed against the web of other evidence connecting defendants to Pontbriant’s murder, the admission of the evidence obtained from Officer Wightman’s improper detention of both defendants was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
III.
The evening after the traffic stop, police returned to Pontbriant’s Ford Fairmont, which was still parked where defendants had left it, and searched it for clues. In the car, police discovered a white rag bearing evidence of blood and some unopened bottles of Heineken and Lowenbrau beer. In the trunk, police found some stolen cosmetic and hair care items identified by witness Jeanette Mayberry as belonging to defendant Letner. (Id. at p. 121.) Police also found in the trunk a sword and a shotgun that defendant Tobin testified belonged to him. These items were significant evidence that defendants had been in the car and, inferentially, had participated in Pontbriant’s murder. Defendants contend the items should have been suppressed as tainted by the initial illegality of the unjustified traffic stop. (Wong Sun v. United States, supra, 371 U.S. at p. 488.) But because neither defendant owned or legitimately possessed the car in which this evidence was found, they are foreclosed from challenging the legality of the car’s search.
“ ‘Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights which, like some other constitutional rights, may not be vicariously asserted.’ [Citations.] A person who is aggrieved by an illegal search and seizure only through the introduction of damaging evidence secured by a search of a third person’s premises or property has not had any of his Fourth Amendment rights infringed. [Citation.] And since the exclusionary rule is an attempt to effectuate the guarantees of the Fourth Amendment, [citation], it is proper to permit only defendants whose Fourth Amendment rights have been violated to benefit from the rule’s protections.” (Rakas v. Illinois (1978) 439 U.S. 128, 133-134 [58 L.Ed.2d 387, 99 S.Ct. 421].) “[S]ince voter approval of Proposition 8 in June 1982, state and federal claims relating to exclusion of evidence on grounds of unreasonable search and seizure are measured by the same standard.” (People v. Camacho (2000) 23 Cal.4th 824, 830 [98 Cal.Rptr.2d 232, 3 P.3d 878].) “A defendant has the burden at trial of establishing a legitimate expectation of privacy in the place searched or the thing seized.” (People v. Jenkins (2000) 22 Cal.4th 900, 972 [95 Cal.Rptr.2d 377, 997 P.2d 1044]; see also Rawlings v. Kentucky (1980) 448 U.S. 98, 104 [65 L.Ed.2d 633, 100 S.Ct. 2556].)
*214A person who, with permission, borrows a vehicle from the rightful owner and thereby exercises legitimate control over it for a temporary period of time has a recognizable expectation of privacy in the car. (People v. Leonard (1987) 197 Cal.App.3d 235, 239 [242 Cal.Rptr. 757].) However, “[t]o mount a challenge to a search of a vehicle, defendants must show, among other things, a legitimate basis for being in it, such as permission from the owner. [Citation.] Defendants who do not have a legitimate basis for being in a car that is not registered in the name of any of the car’s occupants cannot object to the search of the vehicle.” (U.S. v. Ponce (2d Cir. 1991) 947 F.2d 646, 649.) Here, although Tobin testified that Letner had asked Pontbriant if he could borrow her car, and Officer Wightman testified that Letner told him they had borrowed the car from Pontbriant, Tobin’s testimony was self-serving, and both witnesses’ statements were hearsay and thus inadmissible for the truth of the matter stated. Walter Gilliland, by contrast, who lived with and was romantically involved with Pontbriant, testified she was protective of her car and rarely allowed anyone to drive it. In the absence of solid evidence Pontbriant had loaned her car to defendants or that they were driving it with her permission, and in light of Gilliland’s testimony, I conclude defendants lacked a legitimate expectation of privacy in the car’s contents. Consequently, defendants may not challenge the admission of the evidence discovered therein.
But even were we to assume defendants established that Pontbriant had lent them her car and that they at one time had a possessory interest in it sufficient to create a legitimate expectation of privacy in its contents, any such expectation had ceased by the time police searched it. Officer Wightman effected the now challenged traffic stop shortly after midnight. Because Letner did not have a driver’s license and Tobin appeared too intoxicated to drive, Officer Wightman instructed defendants to leave the car on the side of the road. Although defendants had ample time to retrieve the car the following day, Wightman recalled seeing the red-and-white Ford Fairmont, still parked where defendants had left it, many hours later at' 5:30 p.m. the next evening. Police did not seize the car until around 9:00 p.m. By that time Pontbriant, the car’s owner, had been identified as a murder victim and police had determined that she was the owner of the Ford Fairmont. Given the passage of time and indications that defendants had abandoned the car, any temporary possessory interest they may have had in the car the previous night had expired by the time police searched it. (See People v. Smith (1966) 63 Cal.2d 779, 800-801 [48 Cal.Rptr. 382, 409 P.2d 222] [no reasonable expectation of privacy in an abandoned rental car]; People v. Shepherd (1994) 23 Cal.App.4th 825, 828-829 [28 Cal.Rptr.2d 458] [no expectation of privacy in a purse abandoned in a stolen truck].)
*215In any event, even were I to conclude defendants could challenge the admission of this evidence,3 its admission was not particularly damaging. A forensic analysis of the bloody rag could not match the blood definitively to either defendant; the blood was found to be merely consistent with defendant Tobin’s blood, as it was also with Gilliland’s blood. Because Gilliland cohabitated with the victim and presumably had access to her car, and because the victim’s blood was not found on the rag, the persuasive force of the forensic evidence of the bloody rag was negligible, even considering that Tobin had allegedly told fellow inmate Gregory Gerrard he was worried about the discovery of the rag. The diminished probative value of the rag is clear when we compare it to the evidence police found at the murder scene: (a) bloody hairs on the victim’s body that matched defendant Letner’s hair; (b) blood on a pillowcase (consistent with both defendant Tobin’s and Gilliland’s blood); (c) a semen stain on the carpet consistent with Tobin’s antigenic activity (and inconsistent with Gilliland’s); and (d) strong evidence, including Tobin’s own testimony, that both defendants had spent much of the evening with the victim.
Police found a Heineken beer bottle and a Lowenbrau beer bottle cap at the crime scene, lending some significance to the bottles of beer of the same brand police found in the Ford Fairmont when they searched it. But these brands of beer are not particularly distinctive or unusual and, in any event, Tobin testified he had purchased some Heineken and Lowenbrau beer and drank it with the victim the night she was murdered. Accordingly, the evidence from the car was merely cumulative and hence not particularly inculpatory.
The balance of the evidence found by police in Pontbriant’s car is of even less importance. Jeanette Mayberry identified the stolen cosmetics and hair care items police found in the trunk as defendant Letner’s property, but there *216was little doubt Letner was with the victim the night she was murdered: defendant Tobin so testified, and both Edward Burdette and Kathy Coronado testified that Letner (together with Pontbriant) had made a series of aggressive telephone calls to them on the night in question. This evidence unequivocally places Letner at the victim’s home on the night of the murder. Nor was either the sword or the shotgun, found by police in the car’s trunk, significant: Tobin testified the items belonged to him, and neither was used in the crimes. Finally, Tobin testified and admitted being with the victim on the night she was killed.
In sum, even were I to conclude defendants were entitled to challenge the warrantless search of Pontbriant’s car due to some fleeting possessory interest in it, the evidence found in the car was either of little inculpatory value or cumulative to other evidence. The admission of the evidence from the car was thus harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.4
For the reasons stated above, although I agree with Justice Kennard’s dissenting opinion that Officer Wightman’s traffic stop was not supported by reasonable cause, I concur in the majority’s decision to affirm the judgments of conviction.
Moreno, J., concurred.

Wightman’s testimony at the suppression hearing revealed a few more inconsistencies, but these were not heard by the jury.

The officer at this point did not yet know that Pontbriant was a murder victim.

A question is presented whether defendants may be viewed as having abandoned Pontbriant’s car only because Officer Wightman illegally stopped the car and detained them. (See, e.g., U.S. v. Ienco (7th Cir. 1999) 182 F.3d 517, 529, fn. 12 [evidence left in a police car by an arrestee following an illegal arrest cannot be held to have been voluntarily abandoned].) Because more than 18 hours had elapsed between Officer Wightman’s traffic stop and the police search, however, and the car was left parked on a public street and was not situated so as to suggest defendants retained a possessory interest in it (such as being parked in a private driveway or garage), to conclude defendants intended to abandon Pontbriant’s car and its contents, irrespective of the stop, is reasonable. Defendants’ abandonment of the car, moreover, distinguishes this case from the authorities cited in the dissent. (Dis. opn., post, at pp. 220-221, fn. 2.) In any event, we need not resolve whether the subsequent car search was tainted by the illegal traffic stop because, as explained below, the evidence found in the car could not have been very significant to the jury’s decision to find defendants guilty, and any error was thus harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

This conclusion renders it unnecessary to address defendants’ additional claim that because the People did not, at the suppression hearing below, rely on defendants’ lack of a possessory interest in the car, the People have forfeited the right to raise that theory on appeal. (See People v. Wilkinson (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 1554, 1574 [78 Cal.Rptr.3d 501] [“the People may not . . . tender a new theory not raised at the original suppression hearing”]; see also Lorenzana v. Superior Court (1973) 9 Cal.3d 626, 640 [108 Cal.Rptr. 585, 511 P.2d 33].)