Court Opinion

ID: 9844449
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:02:58.927362+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:35.383682
License: Public Domain

TOBRINER, J.
I dissent.
Defendant was convicted of possession of heroin for sale in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11500.5. His only contention on appeal is that heroin-filled balloons and other evidence introduced against him should have been suppressed as the product of an unlawful search and seizure. The Attorney General, lacking a search warrant, seeks to justify the seizure of this evidence as incident to'defendant’s arrest. This arrest took place on defendant’s front lawn; the evidence was seized following a search of defendant’s garage, a detached building located at the rear of defendant’s property some 75 feet from the place of arrest.
Although we recognize that, since this search took place before Chimel v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 752 [23 L.Ed.2d 685, 89 S.Ct. 2034], the search need not be confined to the area from which defendant might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence, the search nevertheless fails. Under pre-Chimel law the decisions of the United States Supreme *42Court have established that “[a]‘ “search may be incident to an arrest only if it is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest and is confined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest.” ’ ” (Vale v. Louisiana (1970) 399 U.S. 30, 33 [26 L.Ed.2d 409, 413, 90 S.Ct. 1969]; Shipley v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 818, 819; Stoner v. California (1964) 376 U.S. 483, 486 [11 L.Ed.2d 856, 859, 84 S.Ct. 889].) (Italics in original.) To extend a search following an outdoor arrest to the interior of a building 75 feet distant from the place of arrest is clearly to venture beyond the legal domain of permissible warrantless search and to trespass into the area of the forbidden as delineated in those decisions. We have concluded that the superior court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress the. seized evidence; since that error was plainly prejudicial, the judgment of the superior court should be reversed. We proceed to set forth our reasons for that result.
We begin with a factual summary of the search and the events preceding it. On November 7, 1968, Police Officers Miller and Walsh learned from three informants—one reliable, the other two of untested reliability—that defendant was dealing in heroin; the officers thereupon undertook the surveillance of defendant’s residence. They arrived about 4:15 p.m. on November 7, 1968, and a few minutes later observed defendant drive up in a pickup truck. Defendant’s wife came out of the house and conversed with defendant for four or five minutes. Defendant then left the truck; he and his wife stood on the front lawn looking up and down the street for five to ten minutes. Defendant walked back to the truck, reached behind the seat, removed a white cylindrical cloth object, and proceeded to the garage at the rear of the property. There he remained for about 30 seconds. The officers, however, could not observe defendant’s actions in the garage. After defendant returned from the garage he and his wife went into the house.
About 4:35 p.m. a car drove slowly past defendant’s house and parked 40 feet away from it. A passenger whom Miller recognized as Robert Lopez, a known narcotic user, left the car and knocked at defendant’s front door. Defendant came out; both men then went into the garage, staying about one minute. When they emerged Lopez clenched his right hand. Lopez returned to his car and drove off; defendant went to his front yard and began watering the lawn.
The officers decided that they had witnessed a sale of narcotics. After obtaining assistance from other officers waiting nearby, Officer Miller arrested defendant in his front yard.1 Miller and other officers then went to the *43garage and searched that building. They discovered a boot on a rear shelf which enclosed a white cloth bag filled with balloons of heroin. A tin can on a wall brace contained, in addition to nuts and bolts, four balloons of heroin. The officers also discovered numerous empty balloons and a can of milk sugar, a substance used to dilute heroin.
Defendant was charged with possession of heroin for sale. He moved to suppress the evidence under Penal Code section 1538.5. When that motion was denied, he waived jury trial and submitted the case on the transcripts of the preliminary hearing and the 1538.5 hearing. The court found defendant guilty-and placed him on probation for four years on condition, that he spend the first six months in the county jail. The case comes here on defendant’s appeal.
Since this search antedates the Supreme Court decision in Chimel v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 752 [23 L.Ed.2d 685, 89 S.Ct. 2034], the rules established by that decision do not govern the present case. (Williams v. United States (1971) 401 U.S. 646 [28 L.Ed.2d 388, 91 S.Ct. 1148]; People v. Edwards (1969) 71 Cal.2d 1096, 1108 [80 Cal.Rptr. 633, 458 P.2d 713].) Thus the issue before us turns on whether under pit-Chimel standards the warrantless search of a garage can be upheld as incident to the arrest of a defendant 75 feet distant from that building.
The opinion of the Supreme Court in Vale v. Louisiana (1970) 399 U.S. 30 [26 L.Ed.2d 409, 90 S.Ct. 1969], provides the standard by which the present case should be decided. Vale was arrested on the front steps of his house by officers who then proceeded to search the house, discovering narcotics in one bedroom. The court held the search illegal.
The Supreme Court opinion reads: “The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the search of the house did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it occurred ‘in the immediate vicinity of the arrest’ of Donald Vale and was ‘substantially contemporaneous therewith . . . .’ 252 La., at 1070, 215 So.2d at 816. We cannot agree. . . . [E]ven if Chimel is not accorded retroactive effect ... no precedent of this Court can sustain the constitutional validity of the search in the case before us. [Par.] A search may be incident to an arrest ‘ “only if it is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest and is confined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest.” ’ Shipley v. California, 395 U.S. 818, 819; Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 486. If a search of a house is to be upheld as incident to an arrest, that arrest must take place inside the house . . . not somewhere outside—whether two blocks away, James v. Louisiana, 382 U.S. 36, twenty feet away, Shipley v. California, supra, or on the sidewalk near the front steps. ‘Belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling *44house furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant.’ Agnello v. United States [269 U.S. 20, 33]. That basic rule ‘has never been questioned in this Court.’ Stoner v. California, supra, at 487, fn. 5.” (399 U.S. at pp. 33-34 [26 L.Ed.2d at p. 413].)
The majority opinion seeks to distinguish Vale on several grounds. It first notes that in Vale the officers had obtained arrest warrants and could have readily obtained a search warrant also; the officers in the present case had no warrant of any kind. They did, however, have sufficient grounds to secure search and arrest warrants. (See People v. Prewitt (1959) 52 Cal.2d 330, 337 [341 P.2d 1].) Thus in both Vale and the present case the officers had sufficient information and opportunity to obtain search warrants, but chose instead to search incident to an arrest. The distinction thus narrows to one of the presence or absence of an arrest warrant, a matter which seems immaterial since the lack of an arrest warrant does not expand the bounds of the area which may be searched incident to the arrest.
The majority opinion also points out that in Vale the officers knew the house was unoccupied; in the present case defendant’s wife was in the house, and his daughter arrived while the officers were still there. Consequently the opinion concludes that in the present case there was a possibility that evidence might be destroyed if the officers delayed to get a warrant.
The risk that defendant’s wife would destroy evidence seems remote, since other officers had entered the house to arrest her at the time Miller searched the garage. The arrival of defendant’s daughter presents an interesting coincidence; in Vale it was the defendant’s mother and brother who arrived at the house before the search had turned up the narcotics. Again we perceive no valid grounds for distinction.
The majority opinion, in fact, reads like a paraphrase of the dissenting opinion of Justice Black in Vale v. Louisiana. Justice Black sought to justify the search as a reasonable police action to prevent the removal or destruction of evidence by Vale’s mother and brother, or by one of Vale’s customers. The majority of the Supreme Court squarely rejected that argument; “[0]ur past decisions make clear that only ‘in a few specifically established and well-delineated’ situations may a warrantless search of a dwelling withstand constitutional scrutiny, even though the authorities have probable cause to conduct it. The burden rests on the State to show the existence of such an exceptional situation. . . . And the record before us discloses none. [Par.] There is no suggestion that anyone consented to the search. The officers were not responding to an emergency. They were not in hot pursuit of a fleeing felon. The goods ultimately seized were not in the process of destruction. Nor were they about to be removed from the *45jurisdiction.” (399 U.S. at pp. 34-35 [26 L.Ed.2d at pp. 413-414].) (Citations omitted.)
Applying this reasoning to the facts of the present case-, we observe no evidence of consent, emergency, or hot pursuit. The evidence was not in the process of being removed or destroyed. And, by the necessary implication of the majority opinion in Vale, the possibility that relatives or confederates might remove the evidence is not one of those specifically established and well-delineated exceptions which justifies a warrantless search.
Finally, the majority opinion advances the distinction suggested by the Attorney General—that the search of a garage is a lesser intrusion on privacy than the search of a dwelling. It cites no cases, however, holding that a garage or other uninhabited building can be searched incident to an outdoor arrest.2
The cases, in fact, all condemn such searches of garages. In People v. Hobbs (1969) 274 Cal.App.2d 402 [79 Cal.Rptr. 281], a case antedating Chimel, police arrested defendant at his place of employment and then, without a warrant, searched the garage at his residence. The court held the search illegal, saying, “The threshold question presented by this appeal is whether the detached garage was within the protection of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 19 of the California Constitution. We believe that it was. Traditionally, such protection has extended territorially not merely to the home itself, but also at least to the subsidiary outbuildings on the same lot. ... In a highly automotive society, like that of southern California, a detached nearby family garage on the same lot as the family residence itself should be entitled to the same degree of constitutional protection of the privacy of its contents as the home itself enjoys. Moreover, such a garage is a place where the homeowner reasonably expects such privacy to obtain.” (274 Cal.App.2d at pp. 405-406.)
In People v. Landry (1969) 276 Cal.App.2d 370 [80 Cal.Rptr. 880], defendant was arrested on a private road servicing his and other houses. Over an hour later the police searched both defendant’s house and a detached storage shed. The court, applying prt-Chimel standards, held the search of the house and the search of the shed illegal. It stated: “The search of the house and shed was in violation of California law, well established at the time of the incident [i.e., before Chimel] .... The subsequent search *46cannot be upheld on the ground that it was incident to the valid arrest of appellant. Appellant was arrested on the dirt road, not in the house .or the shed which were later searched. The search was not limited to the premises where the arrest was made, nor was it contemporaneous with that arrest.” (276 Cal.App.2d 370, 375-376). The court cites Shipley v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 818 [23 L.Ed.2d 732, 89 S.Ct. 2053], which held that “ ‘one’s house cannot lawfully be searched without a search warrant, except as an incident to a lawful arrest therein.’ ” (395 U.S. at p. 820 [23 L.Ed.2d at p. 734].) (Italics in original.)
People v. Superior Court (Arketa) (1970) 10 Cal.App.3d 122 [89 Cal.Rptr. 316], involved the arrest of defendant in the rear yard of a residence, followed by the warrantless search of a shed 20 feet distant. The court held the search illegal, stating that “The legality of the search of the shed cannot be considered as one incidental to the arrest of a defendant some 20 feet away. (Chimel v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 752 [23 L.Ed.2d 685, 90 S.Ct. 2034].) Indeed, even prior to Chimel such a warrantless search would have been held illegal in this state.” (10 Cal.App.3d at pp. 126-127.)
The majority opinion attempts to distinguish these cases: in Hobbs the arrest did not take place on the same premises as the search; in Landry it was not contemporaneous with the search; in Arketa the defendant did not have control over the shed searched. This tactic may distinguish the facts of these cases, but it does not diminish the clear reasoning and holding of the Courts of Appeal—that garages and other outbuildings connected with a residence lie within the scope of a reasonable expectation of privacy, enjoy the same constitutional protection as the residence itself, and cannot- be searched except with a warrant or incident to an arrest therein.
The Attorney General does not dispute defendant’s contention that defendant entertained a reasonable expectation of privacy as to the contents of the garage. The Attorney General instead proposes an innovation in the law of search and seizure, although it is rather late in the game for new developments in pre-Chimel law. He contends that one has a lesser expectation of privacy in his garage than in his house, and therefore—and here the argument becomes obscure—either (a) the police may search garages incident to arrests not in the immediate vicinity or (b) the phrase “immediate vicinity of the arrest” describes an oscillating circle whose radius expands or contracts depending upon the degree of a defendant’s expectation of privacy as to- the contents within the various structures the police might wish to search.3
*47Not surprisingly, the .Attorney General cites no authority directly supporting his theory. He relies, instead, on the very general language of United States v. Rabinowitz (1950) 339 U.S. 56, 63 [94 L.Ed. 653, 659, 70 S.Ct. 430]: “What is a reasonable search is not to be determined by any fixed formula. The Constitution does not define what are ‘unreasonable’ searches and, regrettably, in our discipline we have no ready litmus-paper test. The recurring questions of the reasonableness of searches must find resolution in the facts and circumstances of each case.”
Rabinowitz, however, was not the only -pre-Chimel case on the scope of reasonable search. Other cases made it clear that a search incident to an arrest must be confined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest and defined that term to exclude searches of buildings following exterior arrests. (E.g., Shipley v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 818, 819-820 [23 L.Ed.2d 732, 734, 89 S.Ct. 2053].) And we read both Shipley and Vale v. Louisiana as square holdings that in searching incident to an arrest, an officer may not lawfully search beyond the immediate vicinity as narrowly defined in those decisions simply because in the circumstances of that particular case such an extended search appears reasonable.
The validity of a warrantless search not confined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest is tested not by the reasonableness standard of Rabinowitz, but by whether it comes within a “few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” (Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 357 [19 L.Ed.2d 576, 585, 88 S.Ct. 507].) Vale v. Louisiana (1970) 399 U.S. 30, 35 [26 L.Ed.2d 409, 414, 90 S.Ct. 1969] lists those exceptions: consent, emergency, hot pursuit, goods in the process of destruction or about to be removed from the jurisdiction. “The burden rests on the State to show the existence of such an exceptional situation.” (Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U.S. at p. 34 [26 L.Ed.2d at p. 413].) The Attorney General has not, and "does not claim to have, met this burden.
The judgment of the superior court should be reversed.
Peters, J., and Sullivan, J., concurred.

 defendant’s wife was arrested in the house. She is not a defendant in the proceeding and the record gives no details concerning her arrest. The People do not attempt to justify the search and seizure at issue as incident to her arrest, but limit their argument to the contention that the search was incident to defendant’s arrest.

The opinion does cite People v. Rodriguez (1965) 238 Cal.App.2d 682, 690 [48 Cal.Rptr. 117], which upheld the search of an apartment following an arrest on the walkway outside the building. The case is squarely contrary to Vale v. Louisiana and would appear to be overruled by the latter decision.'

 For example, the police could search houses within 10 feet of the place of arrest, garages within 100 feet, and doghouses within 500 feet.