Court Opinion

ID: 9627806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:55:24.02394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:50.301486
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent.
Since the facts of this case with respect to the reasonableness of the search are quite similar to those in the case of *283People v. Martin, Crim. 5758, ante, p. 106 [293 P.2d 52]. I refer to my dissent in that case as an expression of my views on the law applicable to the case at bar.
There is another reason why I would reverse the judgment in the ease at bar which is not mentioned in my dissent in the Martin case, supra. As pointed out in the majority opinion in the case at bar, this case was tried before the decision of this court in People v. Cahan, 44 Cal.2d 434 [282 P.2d 905], and therefore the trial court did not have before it or take into consideration the rule announced in the Cahan case with respect to the admissibility of illegally obtained evidence. Neither did the trial court have occasion to pass upon the reasonableness of the search and seizure as this factor was not considered material under the rule and practice which existed prior to the decision of this court in the Cahan case. For this reason we do not have the benefit of the finding of the trial court on the question of whether or not the officers who conducted the search here had reasonable cause to believe that defendant had committed a felony or was engaged in the commission of a felony at the time of the search. While it is my opinion, that on the record before us, no reasonable cause is shown for the search of the defendant, and it must therefore be declared to be an illegal search, it may be that if the ease against the defendant was being prosecuted in the light of what was said by this court in the Cahan case and cases which have followed that ease, the prosecution would no doubt offer any evidence available for the purpose of showing the reasonableness of the search and the trial court would necessarily make a finding on this issue in ruling on the admissibility of the evidence obtained as the result of the search. If there was a conflict in the evidence on this issue, we would be bound by the finding of the trial court the same as we should be bound by such a finding in any other case.
I can see no justification whatsoever for the holding of the majority in this case that the evidence as a matter of law shows that the officers had reasonable grounds to believe that defendant had committed or was engaged in the commission of a felony at the time they made the search and seizure here involved, but on the contrary it appears from the face of the record that the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the officers had no cause whatever to believe defendant had committed or was engaged in the commission *284of a felony and therefore the search and seizure was illegal and the evidence obtained thereby should be held inadmissible under the rule in the Cahan ease.
I would therefore reverse the judgment and remand the case for a new trial so that the trial court would have an opportunity to pass upon the reasonableness of the search in view of the evidence which might then be presented in the light of the decision of this court in the Cahan case and other cases involving this same subject matter since the decision of this court in the Cahan case.