P. v. Martin
Filed 9/6/13 P. v. Martin CA2/3
California
Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or
relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except
as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This
opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN
THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND
APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION
THREE
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
BRANDON MARTIN,
Defendant and Appellant.
B242102
(Los Angeles
County
Super. Ct.
No. BA386277 )
APPEAL
from a judgment of the Superior Court
of
County, Dennis J. Landin, Judge. Affirmed.
William
J. Capriola, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and
Appellant.
Kamala D.
Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General,
Lance E. Winters, Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle and John Yang,
Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
_________________________
Defendant and
appellant, Brandon Martin, appeals his conviction, by guilty plea, for
(Health & Saf. Code, § 11350).
He was placed on deferred entry of judgment for 18 months.
The judgment is affirmed.
BACKGROUND
The following facts are taken from
the hearing on Martin’s motion to suppress evidence.
1.
Prosecution evidence.
Los Angeles Police Officer Victor
Cadena, assigned to a narcotics enforcement detail on the afternoon of July 6, 2011, was in plain
clothes and driving an unmarked police van.
Near Monte Vista and 52nd Streets, while “monitoring the area for
narcotics activity,†Cadena saw two African-American men walking down the
street. One of them “matched the
description of a [grand theft auto] suspect that had been broadcast the day
before†as being “a light-skinned male black with dreadlocks.†Cadena testified this man drew his interest
because “it was in the area where [the car theft had] happened. Also, he was exactly like they described, a
light-skinned male black and had dreadlocks.â€
The man with the dreadlocks turned
out to be Huteson and his companion was defendant Martin. Cadena radioed to have a backup unit respond
to the scene and make a pedestrian stop.
While awaiting the backup unit, Cadena continued to monitor the two
men. He saw them walk down Monte Vista
and turn onto Avenue 51. “About a
couple houses west they met up with a male Hispanic
who . . . handed witness Huteson an object. Huteson then handed that male Hispanic an
object. Then they separated.†When the backup officers arrived, Cadena
instructed them to detain Huteson and Martin, who were handcuffed.
Cadena
walked over and asked Huteson and Martin for their identifications. He also made a radio request to have
Officer Ibarra, who had provided the description of the grand theft auto
suspect, come to the scene to see if he could identify Huteson. While waiting for Ibarra to arrive, warrant
checks were run on the two men. It turned
out there was an outstanding misdemeanor arrest warrant for Martin.
Ibarra
arrived within 15 minutes or less. He
said Huteson “looked just like†the grand theft auto suspect, except the
suspect did not have tattoos and Huteson “had tattoos on his arms and face. So [Ibarra] eliminated him as a
suspect.†Huteson was released. Martin was taken into custody on the
station holding tank, he was found to be in possession of cocaine.
2.
Defense evidence.
Martin testified he ran into his
friend Huteson after getting off the bus and they were walking down
Avenue 54 toward Martin’s father’s house on Avenue 51. When Huteson stopped to talk to a Hispanic
man, Martin went into his father’s house.
The police subsequently detained him as he was leaving his father’s
house. He was handcuffed and taken to
where Huteson was being detained.
About 20 minutes later, three police
cars arrived. One of the officers
indicated Huteson fit the description of a robbery suspect. Martin testified he asked the officers,
“Okay. If he fits the description, why
am I here?†The police then checked
Martin’s identification, which was almost 30 minutes after he had left his
father’s house.
CONTENTION
The trial court erred by denying Martin’s
motion to suppress evidence of the cocaine discovered during his booking
search.
DISCUSSION
Martin
contends the cocaine discovered at the station house should have been
suppressed under the “fruit of the poisonous tree†doctrine because his detention
on the street had been illegal. We
conclude that, even if the temporary detention was illegal, the outstanding
arrest warrant constituted an independent, untainted ground for Martin’s arrest
and the cocaine was, therefore, admissible.
Hence, the trial court properly denied Martin’s suppression motion.
1.
Background.
At the suppression hearing, the
trial court initially said it intended to suppress the cocaine because the
police lacked sufficient cause to stop Martin on the street. But after reviewing our Supreme Court’s
opinion in People v. Brendlin (2008)
45 Cal.4th 262, the court concluded the evidence was admissible because the
legitimate jailhouse search that flowed from the
sufficiently attenuating circumstance:
“As I said, I don’t think the police officer had reasonable suspicion to
detain and seize your client. But in
light of all the circumstances, I don’t see it as a fishing expedition or
. . . acting knowingly unconstitutionally. [¶]
It’s my understanding that your client was with someone who was a
suspect in some other crime. And, of
course, once he, the police officer learned of . . . the outstanding
warrant . . . there is an intervening circumstance
. . . .†The trial court
reasoned: “[I]n light of the totality of
the circumstances, it seems to me that the officer wasn’t just grabbing someone
randomly off the street. He stopped your
client because your client was associated with someone who was wanted.â€
2.
Standard of review.
“ ‘In ruling on a motion to
suppress, the trial court must find the historical facts, select the rule of
law, and apply it to the facts in order to determine whether the law as applied
has been violated. [Citation.] We review the court’s resolution of the
factual inquiry under the deferential substantial evidence standard. The ruling on whether the applicable law
applies to the facts is a mixed question of law and fact that is subject to independent
review. [Citation.]’ [Citation.]
In evaluating whether the fruits of a search or seizure should have been
suppressed, we consider only the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable
searches and seizures. [Citation.]†(People
v. Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 268.)
3. There
may have been a valid Terry stop.
Although
the trial court relied on the attenuation of an initial illegality to admit the
evidence, on appeal the Attorney General contends the evidence could also have
been properly admitted on the ground the temporary detention was lawful. This is a close question.
a. Legal
principles.
The seminal case in the area of
stop-and-frisk detentions is Terry v.
Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1 [88 S.Ct. 1868], which said: “[W]e deal here with an entire rubric of
police conduct – necessarily swift action predicated upon the on-the-spot
observations of the officer on the beat – which historically has not been, and
as a practical matter could not be, subjected to the warrant procedure. Instead, the conduct involved in this case must
be tested by the Fourth Amendment’s general proscription against unreasonable
searches and seizures. [¶] Nonetheless, the notions which underlie both
the warrant procedure and the requirement of probable cause remain fully
relevant in this context. . . .
[I]t is necessary ‘first to focus upon the governmental interest which
allegedly justifies official intrusion upon the constitutionally protected
interests of the private citizen,’ for there is ‘no ready test for determining
reasonableness other than by balancing the need to search [or seize] against
the invasion which the search [or seizure] entails.’ [Citations.]
And in justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be
able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with
rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.
. . . And in making that
assessment it is imperative that the facts be judged against an objective
standard: would 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?†(Id.
at pp. 21-22, fns. omitted.)
“The guiding principle in determining
the propriety of an investigatory detention is ‘the reasonableness in all the
circumstances of the particular governmental invasion of a citizen’s personal
security.’ [Citations.] In making our determination, we examine ‘the
totality of the circumstances’ in each case.
[Citations.] [¶] Reasonable suspicion is a lesser standard
than probable cause, and can arise from less reliable information than required
for probable cause, including an anonymous tip.
[Citation.] But to be reasonable,
the officer’s suspicion must be supported by some specific, articulable facts
that are ‘reasonably “consistent with criminal activity.†’ [Citation.]
The officer’s subjective suspicion must be objectively reasonable, and
‘an investigative stop or detention predicated on mere curiosity, rumor, or
hunch is unlawful, even though the officer may be acting in complete good
faith. [Citation.]’ [Citation.]
But where a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity exists, ‘the public
rightfully expects a police officer to inquire into such circumstances “in the
proper exercise of the officer’s duties.â€
[Citation.]’ [Citation.]†(People
v. Wells (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1078, 1083.)
b. Discussion.
Citing Ybarra v. Illinois (1979) 444 U.S. 85 [100 S.Ct. 338], Martin
argues his detention was illegal because Detective Cadena “did not testify that
he had any prior knowledge of appellant or suspicion that he was involved in
criminal activity. Appellant was merely
‘with someone who was [mistakenly thought to be] a suspect in some other
crime.’ This was the sole justification
for appellant’s detention. There is no
indication in the record that the grand theft auto from the day before was
committed by more than one person, let alone that appellant fit the description
of a perpetrator of that crime.â€
In Ybarra, officers looking for evidence of drug trafficking executed
a search warrant naming the Aurora Tap Tavern as the place to be searched and a
bartender named Greg as the person to be searched. Upon entering the tavern, the officers
advised all those present they would be frisked for weapons. Ybarra, who was standing in front of a
pinball machine, was found to be in possession of heroin. The Supreme Court held Ybarra’s search had
been illegal because the officers lacked “probable cause to believe that any
person found on the premises of the Aurora Tap Tavern, aside from ‘Greg,’ would
be violating the law. The search warrant
complaint did not allege that the bar was frequented by persons illegally
purchasing drugs. It did not state that
the informant had ever seen a patron of the tavern purchase drugs from ‘Greg’
or from any other person. Nowhere, in
fact, did the complaint even mention the patrons of the Aurora Tap
Tavern.†(Ybarra v. Illinois, supra, 444 U.S. at p. 90, fn. omitted.) Ybarra
declared that “a person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of
criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to
search that person. [Citation.]†(Id.
at p. 91.)
The Attorney General argues Martin’s
situation was fundamentally different from Ybarra’s. “Here, the officer observed someone (Huteson)
fitting a very unique and specific description of a criminal suspect, i.e., an
African-American male with dreadlocks, milling about the very location of the
crime that occurred a day earlier. Under
these circumstances, there was certainly a sufficient basis to detain Huteson
for purposes of determining whether he in fact was the perpetrator of an
earlier crime. Because the criminal
suspect was accompanied by one additional person, due to officer safety issues
and due to the need to determine what criminal connections appellant may have
as to Huteson, the officers had reasonable basis to also detain
appellant.†“Furthermore, Detective
Cadena saw appellant and Huteson briefly meet another person on the street and
saw that person hand Huteson an object.
While this may not have sufficed to justify the detention by itself in
the absence of evidence regarding the nature of the object, this certainly
contributed to the totality of the circumstances the officers observed,
supporting a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.â€
The
Attorney General cites People v. Glasser (1995)
11 Cal.4th 354, a case where officers were executing a search warrant at a
suspected drug house when the defendant drove up, parked in the driveway and started
to walk through a gate into the backyard.
Although the officers did not recognize the defendant as someone
connected to the residents, he “appeared to be more than a stranger or casual
visitor†(id. at p. 365) and he was
detained. Glasser held the detention “was justified by the need to determine
defendant’s identity and connection to the premises and to protect the
officers’ own safety.†(
In
the case at bar, the officer safety factor could have been triggered in two
ways. Huteson’s interaction with the
Hispanic man might have been a drug transaction, and given Cadena’s testimony
that Martin and Huteson were together the whole time, Martin was arguably a
drug suspect. Drug-related crimes are
classic examples of inherently violent situations in which investigating
officers are legitimately concerned about their safety. (See Ybarra
v. Illinois, supra, 444 U.S. at p. 106 [firearms are “tools of the tradeâ€
in the drug business]; People v. Glasser,
supra, 11 Cal.4th at p. 367 [“The police interest in protecting against
violence during the search of a home for narcotics has been widely
recognized.â€].) The same concern might
also have been triggered by the suspicion Huteson and Martin had both been
involved in the auto burglary.
1052, pointed out that auto burglary, although not a classic violent felony,
raised safety concerns: “The bur
current case, as they point out that not only may an individual suspected of
such a crime reasonably be anticipated to be armed with a weapon (such as a
knife or a firearm), but also may reasonably be expected to possess ‘tools of
the trade’ such as screwdrivers and pry tools, which may easily be used as
weapons. . . . [¶] A similar analysis holds true for automobile
burglary and automobile theft suspects, as they use tools that can readily be
used as weapons.†(Id. at pp. 1060-1061.)
However, we need not determine the
legality of Martin’s initial detention.
As we will explain, post, the
trial court properly denied the suppression motion because any taint from an
illegal pedestrian stop was sufficiently attenuated by the subsequent discovery
of Martin’s outstanding arrest warrant.
4. Any
illegality in Martin’s initial detention was sufficiently attenuated by the
outstanding arrest warrant.
We
agree with the Attorney General that, even if Martin’s initial detention had
been illegal, the trial court correctly denied his suppression motion because
the illegality was subsequently attenuated.
As our Supreme Court held in People
v. Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th 262:
“Case law from other state and federal courts uniformly holds that the
prior to a search incident to arrest constitutes an intervening circumstance
that may – and, in the absence of purposeful or flagrant police misconduct,
will – attenuate the taint of the antecedent unlawful traffic stop. We join this chorus of cases and reverse
the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had ordered suppression of the
evidence seized from defendant’s person and from the vehicle in which he was a
passenger on the sole ground that the outstanding warrant would not have been
discovered ‘[b]ut for the unlawful vehicle stop.’ †(Id.
at p. 265, italics added.)
Brendlin
explained:
“ ‘ “[N]ot . . .
all evidence is ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ simply because it would not have
come to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question in such a case
is ‘whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to
which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that
illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the
primary taint.’ †’
[Citations.] ‘[B]ut-for cause, or
“causation in the logical sense alone,†[citation] can be too attenuated to
justify exclusion. . . .’
[Citations.]
“Although the significance of an
arrest warrant in attenuating the taint of an antecedent unlawful traffic stop
is an issue of first impression for this court, the general framework for
analyzing a claim of attenuation under the Fourth Amendment is well
settled. [Citation.] ‘[T]he question before the court is whether
the chain of causation proceeding from the unlawful conduct has become so
attenuated or has been interrupted by some intervening circumstance so as to
remove the “taint†imposed upon that evidence by the original illegality.’ [Citation.] . . .
“Where,
as here, the issue is whether the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant
has attenuated the taint of an antecedent unlawful seizure, other state and
federal courts have likewise invoked the three Brown factors [citing Brown
v. Illinois (1975) 422 U.S. 590, 592 (95 S.Ct. 2254)] – i.e., the
temporal proximity of the unlawful seizure to the subsequent search of the
defendant’s person or vehicle, the presence of intervening circumstances, and
the flagrancy of the official misconduct in effecting the unlawful
seizure. [Citations.]†(People
v. Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at pp. 268-269.)
In Brendlin, an officer spotted a car being driven by Karen Simeroth
with expired registration tags. The
officer learned by radio a renewal application was in process and he could see
a valid temporary operating permit taped to the rear window of the car. However, he could not tell if the permit
matched the car, so he made a traffic stop to investigate further. The officer asked Simeroth for her license
and asked her passenger, defendant Brendlin, to identify himself. During this query, the officer saw
drug-related contraband in the car. The
officer then learned by radio that defendant was a parolee with an outstanding
arrest warrant. The Court of Appeal
suppressed evidence found on defendant and in the car on the rationale that,
because the officer had only a mere hunch the car was unregistered, the traffic
stop was illegal.
Applying the three
evidence. Although a close temporal
proximity between the illegal detention and the subsequent search usually
militates against an attenuation finding,
“where the intervening circumstance is a lawful arrest under an outstanding
arrest warrant, the defendant’s conduct is irrelevant, and the police cannot be
said to have exploited the illegal seizure that preceded the discovery of the
outstanding warrant.†(
p. 270.) Brendlin then explained:
“Accordingly, some courts have held that the first Brown factor is not relevant to the attenuation of the taint of an
antecedent illegal seizure where the intervening circumstance is an outstanding
arrest warrant. [Citations.] Other courts have reasoned that the first
(and tends to favor suppression of the evidence) but is not dispositive. [Citations.]
We need not decide which line of authority is correct because even the
courts in the latter category ‘have all but unanimously concluded that, in this
kind of situation, this first Brown
factor is outweighed by the others.’
[Citation.]†(
Brendlin
went on to explain: “As to the second
holds that an arrest under a valid outstanding warrant – and a search incident
to that arrest – is an intervening circumstance that tends to dissipate the
taint caused by an illegal traffic stop. . . . The challenged evidence was thus the fruit of
the outstanding warrant, and was not obtained through exploitation of the
unlawful traffic stop. [Citation.] [¶]
The third Brown factor, the
flagrancy and purposefulness of the police misconduct, is generally regarded as
the most important because ‘it is directly tied to the purpose of the
exclusionary rule – deterring police misconduct.’ [Citations.]
Defendant contends that the illegality here was flagrant in that Deputy
Brokenbrough ‘had no reasonable suspicion that any occupant of the vehicle had
violated the law when he made the traffic stop’ and that he had at most ‘a
hunch’ the driver was operating an unregistered vehicle. But a mere ‘mistake’ with respect to the
enforcement of our traffic laws does not establish that the traffic stop was
pretextual or in bad faith. [Citations.] Deputy Brokenbrough testified that he ordered
the traffic stop in order to investigate the vehicle’s registration, that he
did see the temporary sticker in the rear window prior to the stop, but that
(in his experience) such stickers sometimes belonged to a different vehicle or
had been falsified. Although the People
have conceded that this was insufficient to justify a temporary detention to
permit further investigation, the insufficiency was not so obvious as to make
one question Deputy Brokenbrough’s good faith in pursuing an investigation of
what he believed to be a suspicious registration, nor does the record show that
he had a design and purpose to effect the stop ‘in the hope that something
[else] might turn up.’ [Citations.] In particular, there is no evidence at all
that the deputy ‘invented a justification for the traffic stop in order to have
an excuse to run [a] warrant check[]’ [citation] or that a search of the
vehicle or its occupants was the ‘ultimate goal’ of the initial unlawful
detention. [Citations.]†(People
v. Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at pp. 271-272.)
Martin argues his case is different
because he “was searched (i.e., pat-searched) before the police discovered the
existence of the [arrest] warrant.â€
However, as explained ante,
such a pat search was probably warranted for reasons of officer safety and, in
any event, nothing was found during this pat search. The drugs were not discovered until Martin’s
subsequent booking search at the police station. Martin asserts Cadena had absolutely no
reason to suspect he was involved in the auto burglary or any other crime. Not so; the trial court reasonably concluded
Cadena suspected Martin might have been Huteson’s accomplice.
Martin’s reliance on the facts in
is misplaced. There the defendant came
home to find two police detectives inside his residence. The detectives had “broke[n] into his
apartment, searched it, and then arrested Brown, all without probable cause and
without any warrant, when he arrived.
They later testified that they made the arrest for the purpose of
questioning Brown as part of their investigation of the murder of a man named
Roger Corpus.†(Id. at p. 592.) There was no
attenuation in Brown because the
entire point of arresting the defendant had been the chance the detectives
might find incriminating evidence for their on-going investigation. Here, on the other hand, the reason for
Martin’s detention was his apparent connection to Huteson, not because Catena
had some independent ulterior motive for investigating Martin. And even if that connection was insufficient
to justify a Terry stop, it was
enough to demonstrate Catena had not been acting in bad faith.
The trial court properly held the
drug evidence was admissible because the discovery of Martin’s outstanding
arrest warrant attenuated any taint caused by an illegal temporary detention.
DISPOSITION
The
judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE
PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
KLEIN,
P. J.
We concur:
KITCHING,
J.
ALDRICH,
J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1]
For instance “where the alleged
intervening factor between the illegal police conduct and the challenged
evidence was a volitional act by the defendant, such as resisting arrest or
flight.†(People v. Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 270.)
