Court Opinion

ID: 9726534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:56:04.136986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:28.181079
License: Public Domain

HERNDON, J.
I concur in the judgment of reversal. At the outset it appears to me that the order setting aside the information in this case should be reversed because the evidence that appellant had confessed his guilt of stealing the automobile was offered and received at the preliminary hearing without objection or motion to strike. It is well settled that unless an objection is urged at the preliminary hearing it may not be asserted on a motion under Penal Code section 995. (Robison v. Superior Court, 49 Cal.2d 186, 197 [316 P.2d 1]; People v. Schultz, 263 Cal.App.2d 110, 113 [69 Cal.Rptr. 293]; People v. McFarren, 155 Cal.App.2d 383, 384 [317 P.2d 998].) In my view, the application of the foregoing rule is not avoided by the fact that at the conclusion of the hearing, and after both sides had rested, defendant moved “to dismiss the charges on the basis that the original stop was illegal.”
However, I dissent from the holding of the majority that the detention of appellant for the purpose of routine interrogation was not justified by the observations of the officer under the attendant circumstances. As we pointed out in People v. Manis, 268 Cal.App.2d 653, 659 [74 Cal.Rptr. 423], “[t]he validity of any particular temporary detention involves a determination of fact.” The magistrate who presided at the preliminary hearing in this case decided that question of fact in the affirmative; and that *887determination was binding upon the superior court sitting as a court of review, as it does in hearing a motion under section 995, there being substantial evidence to support the finding.
In People v. Cowman, 223 Cal.App.2d 109 [35 Cal.Rptr. 528], a case involving a similar factual situation, we discussed the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Rios v. United States, 364 U.S. 253 [4 L.Ed.2d 1688, 80 S.Ct. 1431], 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.”
In People v. Courtney, 11 Cal.App.3d 1185, 1189 [90 Cal.Rptr. 370], the law is stated as follows: “It is now established law ‘that circumstances short of probable cause to make an arrest may still justify an officer’s stopping pedestrians or motorists on the streets for questioning.’ (People v. Mickelson, 59 Cal.2d 448, 450 [30 Cal.Rptr. 18, 380 P.2d 658]; see also Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. 1, 22 [20 L.Ed.2d 889, 906]; People v. One 1960 Cadillac Coupe, 62 Cal.2d 92, 96 [41 Cal.Rptr. 290, 396 P.2d 706].) ‘While the circumstances which justify temporary detention may be bewilderingly diverse’ (People v. Manis, 268 Cal.App.2d 653, 659 [74 Cal.Rptr. 423]), such a detention is proper when the circumstances are such as would indicate to a reasonable police officer that such a course is necessary to the proper discharge of his duty. (People v. One 1960 Cadillac Coupe, supra, pp. 95-96 ; People v. Manis, supra, p. 659.)”
In People v. Martinez, 6 Cal.App.3d 373, at pages 376-377 [86 Cal.Rptr. 49], the court lists a substantial number of different factual situations which, in recent decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal of this state, have been held sufficient to justify “routine investigation.” A comparison of those factual situations with that presented in the case at *888bench leads to the conclusion that the detention here in question was reasonable and proper.
The fact that the record owner of the automobile stolen by appellant in this case was a man whose name, Suk K. Lee, obviously provided an exceedingly strong indication that he was of Oriental extraction, and the fact that the vehicle was occupied by four persons, none of whom was Oriental and all of whom appeared to the officer to be Negroes, combined to cause the officer to suspect the vehicle might have been stolen.
In my opinion these facts were sufficient to create in the mind of a reasonable person a “rational suspicion” that some activity out of the ordinary might have taken place—an indication of an unusual combination of circumstances suggesting that the driver of the vehicle might have stolen it. The observation is made in the majority opinion that “the area, at least as far as the record reveals, was not a ‘high crime’ neighborhood.” I would suggest that it is now a proper subject of judicial notice, in view of the alarming increase in the incidence of such crimes as robbery, burglary and auto theft in the City of Los Angeles, that all parts of the city, and not merely the southeast district in which the instant detention occurred, are now “high crime” areas.
Quite obviously, the truth that the suspicions of Officer Alvarez were well founded was promptly and conclusively demonstrated by appellant’s voluntary confession. However, it is not necessary to resort to the benefit of hindsight to justify the actions of the officer in this case.
It is beyond reasonable dispute that probable cause for appellant’s arrest was provided by the discovery of the broken wind wing, combined with appellant’s inability to produce any identification, the observation of the registration card on the steering post indicating that the vehicle was owned by one Suk K. Lee and the classic but questionable explanation that the car had been loaned to the driver by a friend named Jones.
In view of statistics indicating that currently more than two-thirds of the serious crimes against person and property committed in this area are never solved and their perpetrators never apprehended, I submit that this is no suitable time to restrict law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties in detecting and apprehending criminals.
Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied February 3, 1972.