Court Opinion

ID: 9735640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:26:37.347403+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:16.324388
License: Public Domain

AISO, J. pro tem.*—I respectfully dissent.
Under the circumstances reflected by the record, I do not feel that the trial court erred in rejecting defendant’s claim that the marijuana was discovered through a violation of his constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
In the main, the facts are narrated in the court’s opinion. Since the case is a close one which is “touch and go” upon the facts, I add a few other facts reflected in the reporter’s transcript. Officer Warren and his partner reached the location about 7 p.m. of August 23, 1966. He found a male Negro juvenile seated behind the steering wheel on the front seat, the defendant seated in the middle, and a woman seated on the right-hand passenger side. The officer asked the apparent driver who owned the car. The juvenile replied that he did not know. The officer asked defendant where the keys to the car were. Defendant replied that he did not know. Upon the officer’s request, he gave the officer permission to check the car for the keys. The officer did not ask the other two persons for the keys, because he was interested primarily in the defendant, whose description matched that of the person reported as using the keys to open the trunk and obtaining the cellophane-wrapped packages. The officer cheeked the ignition switch area, but no keys were there. Then as he was walking around the rear of the vehicle to get to the other side, he saw the defendant throw away a set of keys into the bushes. The officer retrieved the keys and used one to open the trunk. In so doing, he observed several wax-paper bags wrapped with rubber bands and containing green, leafy substance resembling marijuana. It was upon this discovery that the officer arrested the defendant for possession of marijuana for sale.
*26Although not explicitly approved in the recent case of Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1 [20 L.Ed.2d 889, 88 S.Ct. 1868], the implicit ratio decidendi justifying the “frisk” is a recognition that a “Michelson” type of stop and brief interrogation (People v. Mickelson (1963) 59 Cal.2d 448, 452 [30 Cal.Rptr. 18, 380 P.2d 658]) is constitutionally permissible.
The criterion to be applied in this case, in my opinion, is whether at the time the officer opened the trunk, he had reasonable and probable cause to believe that there was contraband in the trunk of the car.
We are not here concerned with a search of the person or of a home, but of an automobile parked upon a public highway. The standard of reasonableness to be applied to a search of a vehicle is not the same standard of reasonableness to be applied in the search of a home. (People v. Webb (1967) 66 Cal.2d 107, 114-115 [56 Cal.Rptr. 902, 424 P.2d 342, 19 A.L.R.3d 708].) Castenada v. Superior Court (1963) 59 Cal.2d 439 [30 Cal.Rptr. 1, 380 P.2d 641], cited bjr the court is not here apposite. Our Supreme Court in the later case of People v. Terry (1964) 61 Cal.2d 137, 152-153 [37 Cal.Rptr. 605, 390 P.2d 381], stated: “If a police officer has probable cause to believe that an automobile contains contraband he need not obtain a search warrant in order to search it . . . [T]his situation has not been affected by recent cases holding that he must obtain a warrant to search a building even though he has probable cause for such investigation. (People v. Edgar (1963) 60 Cal.2d 171 [32 Cal.Rptr. 41, 383 P.2d 449] ; Castenada v. Superior Court (1963) 59 Cal.2d 439, 443 [30 Cal.Rptr. 1, 380 P.2d 641].) The difference in treatment between buildings and automobiles historically has been justified by the mobility of the automobile and the greater need for protection of the fundamental rights of privacy that attach to a man’s home. (Chapman v. United States (1961) 365 U.S. 610 [5 L.Ed.2d 828, 81 S.Ct. 776] ; Carroll v. United States (1924) 267 U.S. 132 [69 L.Ed. 543, 45 S.Ct. 280, 39 A.L.R. 790].)”
The overall factual pattern here resembles in broad aspects that of Willson v. Superior Court (1956) 46 Cal.2d 291, 294-296 [294 P.2d 36], There anonymous information with slight corroboration based upon personal observation was held adequate to constitute reasonable and probable cause for arrest. (See also People v. Macknic (1967) 257 Cal.App.2d 370, 373-374 [64 Cal.Rptr. 833].) Here anonymous information, interpreted by the officer in the light of his experience as *27a policeman, was corroborated by evasive replies to questions, the deceptive position of the defendant seated in the middle of the front seat, and the clinching act of the defendant throwing away keys, which he had previously disclaimed knowing about. (People v. Talley (1967) 65 Cal.2d 830, 836-837 [56 Cal.Rptr. 492, 423 P.2d 564].)
The information relayed to Officer Warren and his partner by their watch commander was eoncededly anonymous information. It was a telephone report received from an unknown citizen residing in the area of 1300 Fifth Avenue that there was a blue and white vehicle parked in that block with three persons in it. A male Negro in a white T-shirt was observed getting out of the car, holding conversations with passersby on the sidewalk, opening the trunk of the vehicle, removing cellophane-wrapped packages therefrom, giving it to persons with whom he had conversed, and accepting money in exchange for the package. Although anonymous, it was information which the officer believed required checking out.
The questions put to Officer Warren and his answers were:
“Q. Well, sir, did this information have any significance to you when it was relayed to you by your watch commander ?
“A. Yes.
“ Q. What significance did it have to you?
“A. It indicated to me there may be possibly a sale of narcotics from a vehicle parked on the street.
“Q. Proceeding upon this information did you do something ?
“A. Yes. I proceeded to the location.”
While Officer Warren was then assigned to the patrol division of the Wilshire station and no foundational questions were asked regarding his expertise concerning narcotics, he did testify that he had four and a half years’ service as a Los Angeles police officer. ‘‘In evaluating the total situation that confront [s] [officers] ... we may consider their training and experience as police officers (People v. Wozniak, 235 Cal.App.2d 243, 250 [45 Cal.Rptr. 222]) and their expertise in the area of detecting suspicious circumstances which, to an ordinary individual, might appear innocent. [Citations.]” (People v. Beasley (1967) 250 Cal.App.2d 71, 79 [58 Cal.Rptr. 485]; accord: People v. Machel (1965) 234 Cal.App.2d 37, 48 [44 Cal.Rptr. 126], cert. den. 382 U.S. 839 [15 L.Ed.2d 81, 86 S.Ct. 88]; People v. Cowman (1963) 223 Cal.App.2d 109,117-118 [35 Cal.Rptr. 528].)
In Terry v. Ohio (1968) supra, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22 [20 *28L.Ed.2d 889, 906, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880], Chief Justice Warren, speaking for the United States Supreme Court, epitomizes the established rules governing a judicial inquiry thusly: “ [W]ould the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief’ that the action taken was appropriate? . . . the . . . officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts reasonably warrant that intrusion. . . . [his] inarticulate hunches . . . [and] subjective good faith . . . [are] not enough.” Nevertheless, the ease holding recognizes that recondite police reactions to facts which appear innocent to the unitiated as being criminal is a ponderable factor if the officer can articulate the basis of his reaction so that objective judicial assessment can be made. After assessing the facts narrated by the police witness in that ease, the Chief Justice wrote, “It would have been poor police work indeed for an officer of 30 years experience in the detection of thievery from stores in this same neighborhood to have failed to investigate this behavior further.” (392 U.S. 1, 23 [20 L.Ed.2d 889, 907, 88 S.Ct. 1868,1881].)
It is true that in this ease, what the watch commander’s relayed report meant to Officer Warren is in the form of a conclusion. But it is also an opinion of the officer standing unchallenged on the record. No objection to the form of answer was made. No request to voir dire the officer for the basis of that opinion appears. No cross-examination to the point was conducted. No motion to strike was made. Conclusions not objected to can constitute an adequate preliminary foundation for the admission of evidence whose admissibility has been questioned on constitutional grounds. (Cf. People v. Berg (1929) 96 Cal.App. 430, 441 [274 P. 433]; People v. Ramsey (1948) 83 Cal.App.2d 707, 721-722 [189 P.2d 802], overruled on other grounds in People v. Brown (1958) 49 Cal.2d 577, 584 [320 P.2d 5].) Moreover, “ [i]t is settled law that incompetent testimony, such as hearsay or conclusion, if received without objection takes on the attributes of competent proof when considered upon the question of sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding.” (Italics added.) (Berry v. Chrome Crankshaft Co. (1958) 159 Cal.App.2d 549, 552 [324 P.2d 70].)
Validity of the anonymous information as construed by the officer in the light of his experience was corroborated amply by what transpired at the scene. The answer of the juvenile *29seated behind the steering wheel was evasive. Defendant’s being seated in the middle of the front seat can be construed as an attempt to mislead the officer into the belief that he was not the one getting in and out of the car. Defendant lied about his knowledge as to the whereabouts of the keys to the car. Finally, the throwing away of the keys was the strongest kind of furtive action, indicating a consciousness that contraband was in the trunk. Whether there are other possible constructions which can be placed upon these events at the scene is immaterial; it is adequate that the construction which the officer placed upon them was a reasonable construction, entertainable in good faith. The trial court accepted this construction. With this corroborative evidence, there was reasonable and probable cause to believe that there was contraband in the trunk of the car. (Carroll v. United States (1924) supra, 267 U.S. 132, 155-156 [69 L.Ed. 543, 552-553] ; Perez v. Superior Court (1967) 250 Cal.App.2d 695 [58 Cal.Rptr. 635] ; People v. Brajevich (1959) 174 Cal.App.2d 438 [344 P.2d 815].) Had the officer stopped his investigation upon retrieving the keys which defendant had tossed away, the officer would have been derelict in his duties; the contraband would have vanished in a moving car.
The marijuana was thus discovered as the result of a reasonable search for contraband; reasonable and probable cause for the arrest then developed; the arrest without warrant of arrest was legalized.
I would affirm the judgment and dismiss the attempted appeal from the nonappealable order denying the motion for new trial. (People v. King (1963) 60 Cal.2d 308, 309 [32 Cal.Rptr. 825, 384 P.2d 153]; Witkin, Cal. Criminal Procedure (1963), p. 649.)
A petition for a rehearing was denied August 5, 1968, and respondent's petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied October 23,1968. McComb, J., Mosk, J., and Burke, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Assigned by the Chairman o£ the Judicial Council.