Court Opinion

ID: 9530286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:58:52.498172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:04.022133
License: Public Domain

BIRD, C. J.
I respectfully dissent for the reasons set forth in the unanimous Court of Appeal opinion below.
*155I
“It has long been established that the guideline for assessing the conduct of police officers is that of reasonableness. People v. Block (1971) 6 Cal.3d 239, 244 [103 CaI.Rptr. 281, 499 P.2d 961], tells us that, ‘[a]s a general rule, the reasonableness of an officer’s conduct is dependent upon the existence of facts available to him at the moment of the search or seizure which would warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the action taken was appropriate. And in determining whether the officer acted reasonably, due weight must be given not to his unparticularized suspicions or ‘hunches,’ but to the reasonable inferences which he is entitled to draw from the facts in the light of his experience; in other words, he must be able to point to specific and articulable facts from which he concluded that his action was necessary.’ (Citations omitted.)
“There appears to be no question that these officers could have sought out a magistrate to obtain a search warrant for the garage after the five occupants had been ordered out and arrested. As Officer Skiba admitted, the garage could have been secured while such an effort was made to obtain a search warrant. The record indicates that Zerbey consulted with a supervising officer who came to the scene; the decision was then made to conduct the search and seizure without seeking to obtain a warrant.
“At the time of entry, Skiba was generally aware of what Zerbey’s anonymous caller had reported was contained in the garage, including guns; he knew also that occupants had just exited from the garage. The two young black males he first encountered who ran back inside the garage, however, were not armed and were not identified by him as being connected with any specific criminal activity. Five persons exited on his command.
“The crucial question is whether Skiba was acting reasonably in entering the garage for his stated purpose, to determine whether other individuals remained there. No ‘hot pursuit’ was involved, nor was there any suspicion of narcotic activity. We know of no rule of law which authorizes an officer who has ordered persons out of premises to make a subsequent entry upon those premises to ascertain whether anyone else is there. If such were the rule, dangerous inroads could be made upon the protection afforded to private residences by the simple mechanism *156of ordering out the inhabitants and then entering to make sure everyone was out. We conclude that there were no ‘specific and articulable’ facts to support Skiba’s first entry into the Bowden garage.
“Skiba also testified that he entered the garage in order to protect himself and the other officers from physical harm. His stated fear was that someone might have remained in the garage with a weapon, and that such an armed person would present a danger to him and the other officers. In People v. Ramey (1976) 16 Cal.3d 263, 276 [127 Cal.Rptr. 629, 545 P.2d 1333], ‘exigent circumstances’ are described as ‘an emergency situation requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect or destruction of evidence. There is no ready litmus test for determining whether such circumstances exist, and in each case the claim of an extraordinary situation must be measured by the facts known to the officers.’
“It is understandable that a police officer may fear assault or worse at any time when he is outside of a building and does not know what is inside of it, particularly in a society where the possession of weapons is widespread, but the reasonableness of the steps he takes pursuant to such fear must be assessed in the context of the constitutional rights of citizens. There were simply no specific facts known to Skiba which supported a belief that an armed person might have remained in the garage after the exit of five occupants. An unfounded fear or belief of ‘imminent danger to life’ {Ramey, supra, 16 Cal.3d 263, 276) cannot constitute ‘exigent circumstances’ to justify a warrantless entry into a citizen’s garage.
“Since Officer Skiba had no right to be where he was when he made his plain sight observations, the subsequent search and seizure by Zerbey cannot be justified. The motion to suppress evidence seized from within the garage should have been granted.
[II]
“Defendant was initially arrested on August 29, 1975, following his detention upon exiting from the Bowden garage and the officers’ search of the garage and seizure of stolen property. This arrest was predicated *157on the basis that defendant had received stolen property. He was given the Miranda (Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 [16 L.Ed.2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 A.L.R.3d 974]) warnings. He invoked his constitutional rights and refused to talk. Defendant was released after being held for two days. He was arrested again on September 5, 1975, by the Santa Monica police and charged with the murder, robbery and burglary offenses set forth in the charging information in the instant case.
“Over appropriate objection, the jury was permitted to hear a transcription of an interview the police had with the defendant on September 5, 1975, at the Santa Monica Police Department. Defendant had been advised of his Miranda rights, had waived them and had recounted the events of July 24, 1975; he admitted participating in the crimes involved but denied that he was armed.
“It is defendant Mack’s position that his confession resulted from the exploitation by the police of the illegal search of the Bowden garage and the illegal seizure of property from that garage, including the ‘Hy Walter’ silver cup taken in the burglary of the Walter premises. Hence, argues defendant, his confession is inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree. We agree.
“Prior to making his confession, defendant was told by an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department who was at the Santa Monica Police Department that the police had everybody in custody and charged with murder, that ‘[w]e have witnesses; we have property, we have prints. We have everything. And we have all the stories.... And what you did and your involvement in it.’ (Italics added.)
“The inadmissibility of defendant Mack’s confession appears compelled by the ruling set forth in People v. Johnson (1969) 70 Cal.2d 541, 545 [75 Cal.Rptr. 401, 450 P.2d 865, 43 A.L.R.3d 366], that ‘where a confession is induced by illegally seized evidence, the confession is subject to exclusion as fruit of the poisonous tree.’ (See Wong Sun v. United States (1963) 371 U.S. 471, 485, 487-488 [9 L.Ed.2d 441, 453, 455-456, 83 S.Ct. 407].) In Johnson, the defendant’s confession was obtained after Miranda warnings, followed by the defendant’s being confronted with the confession of an accomplice which was inadmissible because it was the product of an illegal search of the accomplice’s residence and an illegal arrest of the accomplice.
*158“So, in the case before us, defendant Mack’s confession was obtained only after statements of a Los Angeles police officer to defendant Mack that the police had everybody that was in on the crimes, had all of the guns in custody, had witnesses and had the property. As we have previously pointed out herein, the property, which consisted of the items taken from the Bowden garage, was illegally seized, making the initial arrest of defendant and his codefendants illegal. Defendant Mack’s confession, therefore, is inadmissible by application of the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine since the confession was induced by illegally seized evidence.
“In view of our holding with respect to the errors involved in the trial court’s rulings on the suppression-of-evidence motion and the admissibility of defendant’s confession, we need not consider defendant’s contention relative to the denial of the motion for a mistrial based on the prosecutor’s exercise of peremptory challenges.
“The errors of denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence and admitting defendant’s confession are necessarily prejudicial and reversible errors. ‘[A] confession obtained from a defendant in violation of constitutional guarantees is prejudicial per se and requires reversal regardless of other evidence of guilt.’ (People v. Fioritto (1968) 68 Cal.2d 714, 720 [68 Cal.Rptr. 817, 441 P.2d 625].) If a defendant is to be convicted, he is entitled to be convicted only on relevant, nonprejudicial evidence. (People v. Guerrero (1976) 16 Cal.3d 719, 730 [129 Cal. Rptr. 166, 548 P.2d 366].)”