Castaneda v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County

• Citation: 26 Cal.Rptr. 364
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Decision Date: 16 November 1962
• Parties: Henry CASTANEDA, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California for the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Respondent, PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest. Civ. 26671.

Page 364

26 Cal.Rptr. 364

Henry CASTANEDA, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of California for the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, Respondent, PEOPLE of the State of California, Real Party in Interest.

Civ. 26671.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

Nov. 16, 1962.

As Modified Nov. 19, 1962.

Frank C. Wood, Jr., Los Angeles, for petitioner.

William B. McKesson, Dist. Atty., Los Angeles County, Harry Wood, Robert J. Lord, Deputy Dist. Attys., for real party in interest.

ASHBURN, Justice.

Prohibition, with alternative writ granted. Petitioner's basic claim in unlawful search and seizure. The point has been protected at all stages of the criminal case, People v. Castaneda, Superior Court No. 260487, in which petitioner was charged with possession of a narcotic in violation of § 11500 Health and Safety Code, a felony. Motion was made in the superior court pursuant to § 995, Penal Code, ¹ to set aside the information upon the grounds of (1) lack of probable cause in that all evidence introduced by the district attorney at the preliminary hearing had been obtained by means of an unlawful search and seizure, and (2) error in excluding from evidence a certified copy of an order of the United States District Court suppressing said evidence. The motion having been denied petitioner brings this prohibition proceeding under § 999a, Penal Code. ²

Petitioner's counsel invokes the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961), thereby prying loose the lid upon a veritable Pandora's box. In that case it was held 'that all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is * * * inadmissible in a state court', by virtue of the absorption by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court further said, at page 660, 81 S.Ct. at page 1694: 'Having once recognized that the right to privacy embodied in the Fourth Amendment is enforceable against the States, and that the right to be secure against rule invasions of privacy by state officers is, therefore, constitutional in origin, we can no longer permit that right to remain an empty promise. Because it is enforceable in the same manner and to like effect as other basic rights secured by the Due Process Clause, we can no longer permit it to be revocable at the whim of any police officer who, in the name of law enforcement itself, chooses to suspend its enjoyment. Our decision, founded on reason and truth, gives to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees him, to the police officer no less than that to which honest law enforcement is entitled, and, to the courts, that judicial integrity so necessary in the true administration of justice.' ³

In Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960), the court had said: 'In determining whether there has been an unreasonable search and seizure by state officers, a federal court must make an independent inquiry, whether or not there has been such an inquiry by a state court, and irrespective of how any such inquiry may have turned out. The test is one of federal law, neither enlarged by what one state court may have countenanced, nor diminished by what another may have colorably suppressed.' (p. 224, 80 S.Ct. p. 1447.)

Counsel for petitioner brings the matter into focus by arguing that the question of lawfulness of the instant search and seizure had been adjudicated by the United States District Court in a criminal case there pending wherein defendant was charged with having 'knowingly and unlawfully received, concealed and facilitated the concealment and transportation of 17 grams, 880 milligrams of heroin, a narcotic drug, which, as the defendant then and there well knew, previously had been imported into the United States of America contrary to United States Code, title 172'; that petitioner's motion to suppress the seized evidence was granted as to 'any and all narcotic substances or alleged narcotic substances discovered during the search of the home of the Defendant, Henry Castaneda, on the evening of November 21, 1961, and that no part of the same or any evidence pertaining thereto be thereafter used in court in the proceedings against the defendant herein'; that the question thereby became res judicata and any prosecution in the State court for possession of the same narcotics constitutes double jeopardy; in other words, that this seizure of evidence presents a federal constitutional question upon which State courts are bound by decisions of federal courts thereon.

It is established law that decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States upon federal questions, constitutional or statutory, are binding upon State courts to such an extent that prior decisions of a State court are to be overruled so far as they are inconsistent with a ruling upon the same matter by the United States Supreme Court. (Miller & Lux v. Board of Supervisors, 189 Cal. 254, 266, 208 P. 304; Ivanhoe Irrigation District v. All Parties & Persons, 53 Cal.2d 692, 709, 715, 3 Cal.Rptr. 317, 350 P.2d 69; Mapp v. Ohio, supra, 367 U.S. 643, 655, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081; Urie v. Thompson, 337 U.S. 163, 173, 69 S.Ct. 1018, 93 L.Ed. 1282; Carpenter v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 109 Cal.App.2d 18, 21, 240 P.2d 5; 21 C.J.S. Courts § 206, p. 365; 14 Am.Jur. § 117, p. 336.) But this rule does not extend to decisions of the lower federal courts. The matter is well stated in Rohr Aircraft Corp. v. County of San Diego, 51 Cal.2d 759, 336 P.2d 521 (reversed on other grounds, 362 U.S. 628, 80 S.Ct. 1050, 4 L.Ed.2d 1002). At page 764 of 51 Cal.2d, at page 524 of 336 P.2d: 'Plaintiff contends, however, that we must reverse the judgment on the authority of the [Board of County Com'rs of] Sedgwick [County, Kan. v. United States] case, supra [D.C.], 105 F.Supp. 995 , even though we disagree with the decision of the Court of Claims. It is true that we are bound by interpretations of federal statutes by the United States Supreme Court. U.S.Const., art. VI, cl. 2. In our opinion, however, the decisions of the lower federal courts on federal questions are merely persuasive. [Citations.] Although the parties have cited no decision of the United States Supreme Court directly passing upon the point, plaintiff argues that in any event our own decisions require us to follow the Court of Claims. Plaintiff relies on general statements to the effect that this court must accept the construction placed upon federal statutes by the federal courts. Those statements were made, however, either in the light of controlling United States Supreme Court decisions [citations] or in cases where this court had no disagreement with the position taken by the lower federal courts. [Citations.]

'Where lower federal court precedents are divided or lacking, state courts must necessarily make an independent determination of federal law. Any rule which would require the state courts to follow in all cases the decisions of one or more lower federal courts would be undesirable, as it would have the effect of binding the state courts where neither the reasoning nor the number of federal cases is found persuasive. Such a rule would not significantly promote uniformity in federal law, for the interpretation of an Act of Congress by a lower federal court does not bind other federal courts except those directly subordinate to it. [Citations.] We therefore conclude that the courts of this state may decline to follow the decision of the Court of Claims, as the reasoning of that decision is not persuasive.' The overruling of this case upon other grounds does not impair the logic or the authority of the above quoted portions, which are well supported by respectable authority. See, 21 C.J.S. Courts § 206, p. 377; Annotation in 147 A.L.R. 857, 858; 69 United States Law Review, p. 449: 'State Courts and decisions of lower Federal Courts on federal questions.' It is also true that the statutory federal courts (court of appeals and district court) do not have jurisdiction to review action of the state courts. (United States ex rel. Parker v. Carey, 7 Cir., 135 F.2d 205, 206; cert. denied, 320 U.S. 755, 64 S.Ct. 61, 88 L.Ed. 449; Cooper v. Hutchinson (D.C.N.J.), 88 F.Supp. 774, 784.)

People v. Cahan, 44 Cal.2d 434 at 439-440, 282 P.2d 905, at 908, 50 A.L.R.2d 513 (1955), which established the exclusionary rule for the State of California, rested primarily upon the doctrine of Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782, our Supreme Court saying: 'The decision of the United States Supreme Court in Wolf v. People of State of Colorado that the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth does not require states like California that have heretofoe admitted illegally seized evidence to exclude it now. The exclusionary rule is not 'an essential ingredient' of the right or privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, but simply a means of enforcing that right, which the states can accept or reject: 'Granting that in practice the exclusion of evidence may be an effective way of deterring unreasonable searches, it is not for this Court to condemn as falling below the minimal standards assured by the Due Process Clause a State's reliance upon other methods which, if consistently enforced would be equally effective.' Italics added. Wolf v. People of State of Colorado, supra, 338 U.S. 25, at p. 31, 69 S.Ct. at page 1362. * * * It would appear, therefore, that despite earlier statements of the United States Supreme Court that the Fourth or the Fifth Amendment barred the use of evidence obtained through an illegal search and seizure [citations], 'the federal exclusionary rule', in the words of Mr. Justice Black, 'is not a command of the Fourth Amendment but is a judicially created rule of evidence which Congress might negate.' Concurring opinion in Wolf...