Court Opinion

ID: 9747752
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:31:21.6296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:26.514652
License: Public Domain

KLINE, P. J., Dissenting.
The majority opinion is in my view irreconcilable with the pertinent case law; the result is both anomalous and unjust.
It is undisputed in this case that “ineffectiveness of counsel infected the first suppression hearing” (People v. Superior Court (Corona) (1981) 30 Cal.3d 193, 200 [178 Cal.Rptr. 334, 636 P.2d 23]) that appellant therefore cannot be said to have had the opportunity for a ‘full determination of the grounds to suppress evidence, (ibid.) and that he is for this reason entitled to another suppression hearing. (Ibid:, People v. Camilleri (1990) 220 Cal.App.3d 1199, 1203 [269 Cal.Rptr. 862]. Nevertheless, enunciating a heretofore unknown legal principle, the majority says that the second suppression hearing that is required in these circumstances may only address issues not presented at the first hearing. No appellate court of this state has ever before applied such a limitation, which denies the defendant the opportunity to fully litigate his claim that evidence should be suppressed; that is, to address all of the bases of that claim. On the contrary, in Corona, supra, the Supreme Court indicated that the judge presiding over the second suppression hearing has discretion “to hear the matter fully." (30 Cal.3d at p. 202.) Significantly, the court’s decision to allow such complete reconsideration was “grounded—in part—upon considerations of fundamental fairness.” (Ibid.)
The anomaly that results in this case from the majority’s unprecedented limitation on the discretion of the judge presiding at the second suppression hearing is obvious. It is undisputed that Judge Moelk properly granted the codefendant wife’s suppression motion on the identical basis that he did so in favor of appellant, and the case against her was dismissed for that reason. The majority thus permits evidence illegally obtained by the same police *275officers in the same search of the same premises to be used against one defendant but not against another. A more dramatic example of the unfairness the Corona court was at pains to prevent can hardly be imagined.
The unjust incongruence the majority achieves is exacerbated by the manifest correctness, as a substantive matter, of Judge Moelk’s suppression order. Detective Sears, who estimated he waited just 15 seconds after knocking before commanding that the door be knocked down, admitted he had no reason to think any inhabitant might escape or evidence might be destroyed if he waited a bit longer. It is difficult to think anyone could quickly dispose of a methamphetamine laboratory, which in any case Sears was told was located in the garage, not the house.1 Sears admitted he had no reason even to believe there was anybody then inside the house, which he had been surveilling. Appellant’s wife testified she was preparing to breastfeed her 11-day-old daughter in the back bedroom when she heard the loud banging on the door. She said she immediately went to the front door to open it when the police “crashed in,” forced her to the floor and restrained her with handcuffs. We do not live in a society in which the police are constitutionally permitted to conduct themselves in this fashion absent exigencies never apparent in this case.
The policies reflected in the case law the majority relies upon provide no basis upon which to prevent appellant from challenging the constitutionality of the forcible entry at the hearing conducted by Judge Moelk. As we explained in People v. Nelson (1981) 126 Cal.App.3d 978 [179 Cal.Rptr. 195], there are two reasons not to expand the exception to the rule of Madril v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 73 [123 Cal.Rptr. 465, 539 P.2d 33] carved out in People v. Brooks (1980) 26 Cal.3d 471, 474-478 [162 Cal.Rptr. 177, 605 P.2d 1306]: (1) the “declared legislative purpose of preventing the unnecessary expenditure of time resulting from multiple suppressions hearings,” and (2) “[allowing more than one hearing would invite abuse, since a defendant may prefer to ‘forum shop’ by raising each ground separately and possibly before different judges.” (Nelson, supra, at p. 983.) Neither of these policy considerations would be offended by affirming the judgment in this case, which involves no expansion of the Brooks exception. The second suppression hearing would have been held in any event, and the failure of counsel to present all issues at the initial hearing was the product of incompetence, not a desire to forum shop. The “savings” in judicial resources accomplished by limiting the scope of the second hearing, which is *276de minimis, certainly does not justify the disparate application of the Fourth Amendment that has resulted. If appellant’s wife’s constitutional rights were violated—and there is no longer any dispute about that—so must appellant’s have been. By overriding the discretion of the trial judge as to the scope of the suppression hearing, which violates the rule set forth by Justice Richardson in Corona, the majority permits the use of evidence obtained through a constitutionally proscribed search and seizure. This should not be done.
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the judgment.
A petition for a rehearing was denied July 29, 1996, and on August 5, 1996, the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Kline, P. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Respondent’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied October 23, 1996. Mosk, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Sears stated that he assumed someone might blow up the lab while he was at the front door, though he admitted such a person would likely blow himself up in the process. Sears felt this assumption was “reasonable” because such an act was “not uncommon” when someone knocked on the door. This testimony is preposterous.