Court Opinion

ID: 9847241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:56:23.441523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:04.155026
License: Public Domain

LUCAS, J.
 I concur with the majority’s conclusion that defendant was not “in custody” during his interview and with the ultimate holding that the alternative writ should be discharged and the peremptory writ denied. However, I part company from my colleagues on the way to the final result.
I do not believe that defendant was unlawfully in custody at the time he consented to the search of his coveralls. The trial judge unequivocally found the testimony presented supported the conclusion that defendant “was free to leave at any time he indicated he wished to, prior to his formally being placed under arrest ...” and I agree. The majority’s finding of unlawful detention rests upon its perception of an amorphous “change” in the “complexion of defendant’s stay . . . when he was left alone in the interview room. It is one thing for him to have been sitting in the locked room talking to two people who had indicated they would take him back to the garage whenever he wanted. But it is an entirely different matter when a person is left alone in that locked room with no apparent or ready means of leaving.” (Ante, p. 136.) The majority further cites testimony of Lieutenant Green, who apparently had never met defendant before he requested his consent on behalf of Officer Sitterud, that he would not have permitted defendant to leave the room without first checking with Sitterud.
The record shows that Sitterud and his coinvestigator left defendant to keep an appointment with laboratory technicians at the garage. The meeting had been planned before defendant was asked to accompany the officers and before he was interviewed. Thus, the discussions with defendant did not generate Sitterud’s interest in further testing at the garage. When the officers departed for their appointment they were already late, and defendant was left where he had been interviewed as a matter of convenience. Nothing *140about his environment was altered; he was simply in the same room but on his own awaiting the return of the officers to continue their discussion.
When defendant originally arrived at the station he was taken to a room adjoining a general office area containing the desks of Sitterud and 17 other investigating officers. Sitterud testified that interviews generally were not held in the outer area because of noise and distraction and because the various desks often contained sensitive information regarding cases under investigation. It was therefore not usual practice to allow witnesses or suspects to remain there or to perform interviews there. On the other hand, witnesses were frequently left in interview rooms where they would be available during an officer’s field investigation or simply to accommodate an officer’s schedule.
In regard to defendant, Sitterud testified he had several reasons for wishing him to wait in the interview room. Sitterud intended to speak with other possible witnesses and wanted defendant accessible so that he could then correlate information received from others with defendant’s recollection. Moreover, defendant was a janitor at the garage, and Sitterud did not wish him present when laboratory tests were performed both because he did not want extraneous people around and because defendant’s resumption of his duties at the garage could have interfered with the investigation.
Sitterud therefore “asked [defendant] if he would wait for us at the office.” (Italics added.) He told defendant he would be gone a “short time” and explained he was leaving for an appointment for which he was already late. Defendant was left with newspapers to read, and on his way out Sitterud informed Lieutenant Green that defendant was a witness and asked Green to attend to his needs. Lieutenant Green stated he would have checked with Sitterud before permitting defendant to leave the interview room in order “to determine his status.” The situation did not arise because defendant never sought to leave, and Green did not speak to defendant until he sought his consent. Sitterud, who was in charge of the investigation, testified specifically that if, at the time he left to return to the garage, defendant had asked to leave, he would have let him do so.
Officer Sitterud’s request for permission to examine the coveralls came only 15 to 20 minutes after he had left defendant. At that point he had spoken with another person who described a time frame for the last evening that the victim was seen which sharply differed from that offered by defendant. The garage manager told Sitterud that defendant had brought his coveralls to work that day, and the officer then decided to check them to see whether they bore on the investigation.
*141Once one concludes that the initial interview did not involve unlawful custody, I see no basis to find that the departure of the officers here somehow transformed the situation into an unlawful one. Both before and after the departure of the officers defendant would have had to ask for assistance in leaving the room: before, by requesting Sitterud or his partner to unlock the door; after, by knocking in order to have Lieutenant Green let him out. Defendant was not moved from the place where the interview had occurred. He was asked if he would wait and the reasons for the delay were explained to him. These reasons were totally credible in view of the progress of the investigation. If anything, the action of the officers in leaving defendant alone, unbooked and apparently unsearched,1 in the same room in which they had interviewed him, supports the conclusion that defendant’s presence continued to be noncustodial. Nothing significant occurred to make the departure of the officers change the nature of defendant’s situation.
Because I do not believe defendant was in illegal custody at the time the officers left, I do not find it necessary to inquire into the application of the “inevitable discovery” rule. I would instead conclude that the consent was freely and properly given under the facts and circumstances of this case, and end the consideration there.
One final note. I do not intend to imply that officers who have focused upon a suspect but do not yet have sufficient cause to arrest may cavalierly leave the suspect in a locked room in an attempt improperly to impress on him the weight of their authority while they pursue their investigation. However, such was not the case here, where the record demonstrates that the officers, until they returned to the garage, viewed defendant only as a helpful witness whom they wished to have available as a significant “reference point” while they investigated. Had the officers been interviewing the bereaved widow at the time they had to leave for their appointment, I suspect their conduct would have been the same as it was here. They would have asked if she were willing to wait, and if she agreed, would have left her just as they left defendant.
I cannot find that the officers acted improperly here. The circumstances of defendant’s tenure in the interview room take on a suspicious cast only because he ultimately turned out to be the suspect. When defendant remained in the room it was understood by all that he was a witness rather than a suspect and his presence was a result of cooperation and not coercion. His consent sufficed to authorize the search. Had the search and subsequent *142tests not revealed what they did, the officers apparently would have returned and resumed their interview, taking up where they had left off.
Mosk, J., concurred.

Defendant, it should be noted, was transported to the station in the back seat of an unmarked police car which had no barrier between front and back and had fully functional back doors which an occupant could open at will.