Court Opinion

ID: 9395900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-18 19:03:58.30745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:25.555459
License: Public Domain

Filed 5/18/23 In re R.G. CA1/1
                  NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publi-
cation or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or or-
dered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

          IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                                      FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                                    DIVISION ONE

 In re R.G., a Person Coming Under
 the Juvenile Court Law.

 THE PEOPLE,                                                            A165119

              Plaintiff and Respondent,                                 (Contra Costa County
 v.                                                                      Super. Ct. No. J22-00041)
 R.G.,
              Defendant and Appellant.

          R.G. appeals from the juvenile court’s dispositional order sustaining a
wardship petition for felony possession of a gun in a school zone. Appellant
contends the juvenile court erred by admitting a statement that was made to
police officers without a Miranda1 warning. We are not persuaded and thus
affirm.
                                                I. BACKGROUND
          A student at appellant’s high school texted his father a screenshot of an
Instagram post that showed two students with guns in a bathroom at the
school. The father called the police. The police showed the screenshot to

          1    Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 (Miranda).
school staff, who identified appellant as one of the two students in the photo.
The staff informed the police that appellant and the other student in the post
were scheduled to be in gym class. The police placed the school on lockdown
and set up a perimeter around the gym.
      Before the police could enter the gym, an officer observed appellant
walking away from the building towards them. The officer noticed
appellant’s clothing matched that worn by one of the students in the
Instagram photo. Officer Ezra Tafesse testified that he and another officer
“approached [appellant] and he was then handcuffed and detained. . . . [W]e
searched him and we did not find the same backpack that we had seen in the
photo.” The officer did not provide appellant with a Miranda warning before
asking him “if he had [the backpack pictured in the Instagram photo] inside
the gym.” Appellant replied, “[Y]eah, the red backpack that said ‘Rebels’ on it
[is] inside the gym.” The police then searched the students and the gym,
eventually finding the backpack under retracted bleachers. The police found
a nonserialized, semiautomatic pistol equipped with an extended magazine
inside the backpack. Appellant was subsequently arrested.
      At trial, appellant asserted Officer Tafesse’s backpack question violated
Miranda. The trial court overruled the objection and explained, “At this
point I don’t believe it was a custodial arrest.”
      Based upon the evidence, the trial court found the charge to be true
beyond a reasonable doubt. In explaining its reasoning, the trial court noted
“very distinct similarities” between what appellant was wearing when he was
arrested compared to “what the minor [on] the left of [the Instagram photo] is
wearing.” The court also focused on the similarities between the gun and
backpack that were in the Instagram post and “what was ultimately found in
the gym.” Appellant timely appealed.

                                        2
                                 II. DISCUSSION
      The trial court overruled appellant’s Miranda objection on the premise
that appellant was not subject to a custodial arrest. On appeal, appellant
contends he was subject to a custodial arrest because the police created a
“coercive atmosphere” where no reasonable person would have felt free to
leave. We need not resolve this issue because, even accepting appellant’s
claim that he was subject to a custodial arrest at the time of questioning, his
statement to police was admissible under the public safety exception to
Miranda.2
A. Public Safety Exception to Miranda
      Miranda, requires “procedural safeguards . . . to secure the privilege
against self-incrimination,” including warning a defendant “that he has a
right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as
evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney,
either retained or appointed.” (Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at p. 444.)
However, the United States Supreme Court carved out “a ‘public safety’
exception” to the requisite Miranda warnings. (New York v. Quarles (1984)
467 U.S. 649, 655–656 (Quarles).)
      In Quarles, a woman approached two police officers stating she had just
been raped and indicating the assailant recently entered a nearby store
carrying a gun. One officer entered the store, located the suspect, and
detained him. (Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 651–652.) The officer noticed
the suspect’s empty shoulder holster and asked him where his gun was
located. (Id. at p. 652.) The suspect nodded toward some cartons and said,

      2  “ ‘ “In considering a trial court’s order . . . ‘ “we review the trial court’s
result for error, and not its legal reasoning.” ’ ” [Citation.] We “ ‘affirm the
judgment if it is correct on any theory.’ ” ’ ” (Beasley v. Tootsie Roll
Industries, Inc. (2022) 85 Cal.App.5th 901, 911.)

                                          3
“ ‘the gun is over there.’ ” (Ibid.) The officer retrieved the weapon and then
advised the suspect of his rights under Miranda. (Quarles, at p. 652.) The
trial court excluded evidence of the gun and the defendant’s statement about
the location of the gun because the officer had not provided the defendant
with Miranda warnings prior to asking about the weapon. (Quarles, at
pp. 652–653.)
      The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s ruling, holding the initial
questioning of the suspect did not violate Miranda because “the need for
answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety
outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth
Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination.” (Quarles, supra, 467 U.S.
at p. 657.) The court explained, “So long as the gun was concealed . . . with
its actual whereabouts unknown, it obviously posed more than one danger to
the public safety: an accomplice might make use of it [or] a customer or
employee might later come upon it.” (Ibid.)
      Appellant argues the current matter is distinguishable from Quarles
because “[t]he police had put the school on lockdown and were already going
to search the gymnasium.” Thus, argues appellant, there was no “immediate
necessity” to locate the gun. We disagree. Here, the unknown location of the
gun posed even greater risks than in Quarles because appellant was
photographed with the weapon and another individual. That second
individual could have had possession of, or access to, the weapon. Moreover,
the presence of numerous students and school staff heightened the possibility
that another person could have found the firearm.
      We further note appellant has not identified any case in which the
public safety exception to Miranda did not allow officers to question a suspect
about the location of a recently discarded weapon. To the contrary, courts

                                       4
regularly apply the public safety exception in such situations. (See, e.g.,
People v. Sims (1993) 5 Cal.4th 405, 451 [exception applied to questioning
suspect about possible firearms in the room]; People v. Simpson (1998)
65 Cal.App.4th 854, 861–862 [exception applied to question suspect about
guns in his residence “to protect police officers or the public from the dangers
that would be immediately encountered once the police attempted to enter
[the] residence to execute their warrant”].)
      Appellant also argues the officer’s question elicited little additional
information because he “merely confirmed that [the gun] was in the
gymnasium”—the location the police were already planning to search. But
this argument is irrelevant. We are unaware of any authority suggesting the
usefulness of the information provided is relevant to the applicability of the
public safety exception. Moreover, we fail to see how confirming a weapon’s
location is not useful. At the time the officers questioned appellant, they did
not know the location of the weapon—particularly because appellant was
detained outside of the gym—or if it was in someone else’s possession.
      Accordingly, appellant’s statement to the police falls within the public
safety exception to the Miranda requirement.
B. Harmless Error
      Even assuming the court erred in admitting appellant’s statement, any
error was harmless. “When statements are obtained in violation of Miranda
. . . , the error is reviewed under the federal ‘harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt’ standard.” (In re I.F. (2018) 20 Cal.App.5th 735, 781.) Here, the trial
court focused on the “very distinct similarities between what the minor on the
left of [the Instagram photo was] wearing” and appellant’s attire at the time
he was detained. The court also noted the gun and backpack depicted in the
Instagram photo matched the items found in the gym. This evidence

                                        5
sufficiently connected appellant to the gun and the backpack in which it was
located, and we decline to conclude appellant’s statement was essential to the
trial court’s judgment. Thus, even assuming the appellant’s statement was
improperly admitted, which it was not, any resulting error was harmless.
                            III. DISPOSITION
      We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                      6
                                           MARGULIES, J.

WE CONCUR:

HUMES, P. J.

BOWEN, J.*

A165119
In re R.G.

      
       Judge of the Contra Costa County Superior Court, assigned by the
Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.

                                       7