People v. Barcenas

• Decision Date: 29 May 1967
• Docket Number: Cr. 11751
• Citation: 251 Cal.App.2d 405,59 Cal.Rptr. 419
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Pedro Pablo BARCENAS, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 419

59 Cal.Rptr. 419

251 Cal.App.2d 405

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Pedro Pablo BARCENAS, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 11751.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 4, California.

May 29, 1967.

Rehearing Denied June 12, 1967.

Hearing Denied July 26, 1967.

Pedro Pablo Barcenas, in pro. per., Alan E. Wellman, San Francisco, under appointment by Court of Appeal, for defendant and appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., Albert W. Harris, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., and Charlton G. Holland, Deputy Atty. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

JEFFERSON, Associate Justice.

The single contention urged by defendant in this appeal, following his conviction by the court of possession of marijuana for sale (Health & Saf.Code § 11530.5), is that the evidence which convicted him was secured through an illegal search and seizure. We conclude his position lacks merit.

On April 19, 1965, defendant walked up to the ticket counter for Trans World Airlines at Los Angeles International Airport. Mr. Look, a ticket agent, was working behind the counter at the time. Mr. Look had been informed by Los Angeles Police Officer Butler, of the Intelligence Division at the airport, to be on the lookout for Cuban aliens smuggling marijuana; they were traveling through Los Angeles en route to New York City; they carried new leather suitcases which would be overweight.

Defendant appeared to Mr. Look to be Latin-American. He purchased a ticket on a flight to New York City. Mr. Look check and weighed defendant's three suitcases. They appeared to be new leather suitcases and were overweight. After paying for his ticket and for the overweight charge, defendant was directed to Gate 35 where he would board his flight. He walked to the waiting area near Gate 35 and sat down.

When Mr. Look had attached the claim stubs to defendant's suitcases, he had placed them on a conveyor to the outbound luggage room, where baggage is collected according to flight number and placed on carts for loading. Immediately after defendant left the counter, Mr. Look called Officer Butler, told him what he had observed and arranged to meet him at the baggage room. There, Mr. Look pointed out the three suitcases to the officer. The officer bent over and smelled the suitcases. He detected a strong odor of marijuana coming from within the suitcases. He had had occasion to smell marijuana 'two hundred or more times' during his seventeen years on the force. In the last two years he had been at the airport, he had not been wrong in eleven separate instances of smelling marijuana in suitcases. Upon this discovery, they took the suitcases into an office and walked to Gate 35. Mr. Look pointed out defendant and the officer arrested him.

Defendant and the suitcases were taken to the airport police substation. Three keys were removed from defendant's person and used to open the suitcases. Inside was a large quantity of marijuana in brick form (enough to make about 218,000 cigarettes and with a retail value in excess of $100,000). The bricks were hot from internal combustion thus accounting for the particularly strong odor.

Ample evidence was presented to support the finding of the trial court that when the officer smelled the marijuana in the suitcases he had reasonable cause to arrest the person to whom the luggage belonged. (People v. Clifton, 169 Cal.App.2d 617, 619, 337 P.2d 871; People v. Bock Leung Chew, 142 Cal.App.2d 400, 402--403, 298 P.2d 118.) The officer's expertise in detecting, through his sense of smell, the presence of marijuana inside suitcases, was clearly established. At this point no search had yet taken place.

Defendant cannot seriously question the propriety of the officer's entry into the baggage room, which was at the request of an employee of the airport (Mr. Look), who obviously had authority to consent to such entry, and who accompanied him inside and pointed out the suitcases.

Defendant argues that, assuming the officer had reasonable cause to arrest the person who brought the luggage to the airport, he was not justified in relying on Mr. Look, an untested informant, to supply the...