Mozzetti v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 30 April 1971
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 484 P.2d 84 Sharon Rae MOZZETTI, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Respondent; The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest. Sac. 7882.

Page 412

94 Cal.Rptr. 412

4 Cal.3d 699, 484 P.2d 84

Sharon Rae MOZZETTI, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT OF SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Respondent The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest.

Sac. 7882.

Supreme Court of California In Bank.

April 30, 1971.

Rehearing Denied June 9, 1971.

Miller & Ford and James T. Ford, Sacramento, for petitioner.

No appearance for respondent.

Thomas C. Lynch and Evelle J. Younger, Attys. Gen., Roger E. Venturi, Daniel J. Kremer and Michael V. Franchetti, Deputy Attys. Gen., for real party in interest.

MOSK, Justice.

When authorized by statute to remove from the highway and store a vehicle until the owner subsequently reclaims it, police officers routinely compile a complete inventory of the contents of the vehicle prior to storage. Petitioner, charged with possession of marijuana, seeks a writ of mandate to compel the respondent superior court to suppress evidence seized when police inventoried the contents of her automobile. We consider whether this common police practice constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

On August 28, 1970, petitioner, while driving in Sacramento, was involved in a two-car collision. She sustained injuries in the accident and was promptly removed to the hospital by ambulance. When police arrived at the scene, they determined that petitioner's vehicle was blocking the roadway and arrangements were made to have the car towed to police storage, pursuant to Vehicle Code, sections 22651, subdivisions (b) and (g), and 22850. ¹

In accordance with standard procedure, Officer Nichols of the Sacramento Police Department was instructed to prepare an inventory of the contents of petitioner's automobile prior to having it towed to police storage facilities. Nichols filled out an inventory form which listed the vehicle's equipment, such as mirrors and radio, and all of its contents in the front and back seats, the glove compartment, and the trunk.

In the course of his inventory, the officer saw a small suitcase on the back seat of the car. Finding the suitcase unlocked he opened it, apparently to determine if it contained any articles of value. Inside he found a plastic bag containing a quantity of marijuana. Because petitioner's automobile was a convertible, at the conclusion of the inventory several items found in the car's interior, including the suitcase, were locked in the trunk. The car was then towed to a police storage garage and the keys were later turned over to the petitioner. The marijuana, of course, was seized.

On October 13, a preliminary hearing was held and petitioner was bound over for trial on an information charging her with one count of possession of marijuana. Petitioner moved to suppress the evidence against her, the bag of marijuana found in the suitcase; the motion under Penal Code, section 1538.5 was denied. She now seeks mandamus to compel the suppression of the evidence on the ground that the inventory made of her automobile was a search without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The Attorney General makes no contention that petitioner consented to a search of her automobile, or that there was probable cause to believe the vehicle contained contraband or evidence of crime. And, since there was no arrest, it is not claimed her vehicle could be searched incident to a valid arrest. Rather, the People rely on a series of cases in the Courts of Appeal purporting to validate inventory searches whenever the police are authorized to remove and store vehicles. (Martinez v. Superior Court (1970) 7 Cal.App.3d 569, 87 Cal.Rptr. 6; People v. Andrews (1970) 6 Cal.App.3d 428, 85 Cal.Rptr. 908; People v. Havenstein (1970) 4 Cal.App.3d 710, 84 Cal.Rptr. 528; People v. Superior Court (1969) 2 Cal.App.3d 304, 309, 82 Cal.Rptr. 766; People v. Hunter (1969) 1 Cal.App.3d 461, 464, 81 Cal.Rptr. 750; People v. Marchese (1969) 275 Cal.App.2d 1007, 80 Cal.Rptr. 525; People v. Superior Court (1969) 275 Cal.App.2d 631, 80 Cal.Rptr. 209; Bramlette v. Superior Court (1969) 273 Cal.App.2d 799, 806, 78 Cal.Rptr. 532; People v. Sesser (1969) 269 Cal.App.2d 707, 75 Cal.Rptr. 297; People v. Laursen (1968) 264 Cal.App.2d 932, 941, 71 Cal.Rptr. 71; People v. Norris (1968) 262 Cal.App.2d Supp. 897, 68 Cal.Rptr. 582; People v. Roth (1968) 261 Cal.App.2d 430, 68 Cal.Rptr. 49; People v. Harris (1967) 256 Cal.App.2d 455, 63 Cal.Rptr. 849; People v. Gil (1967) 248 Cal.App.2d 189, 56 Cal.Rptr. 88; People v. Garcia (1963) 214 Cal.App.2d 681, 29 Cal.Rptr. 609; People v. Odegard (1962) 203 Cal.App.2d 427, 21 Cal.Rptr. 515; People v. Myles (1961) 189 Cal.App.2d 42, 48, 10 Cal.Rptr. 733; People v. Nebbitt (1960) 183 Cal.App.2d 452, 7 Cal.Rptr. 8; People v. Simpson (1959) 170 Cal.App.2d 524, 339 P.2d 156; People v. Ortiz (1956) 147 Cal.App.2d 248, 305 P.2d 145.)

Although the foregoing cases provide no persuasive rationale to justify the practices which their holdings and dicta validated, two principal theories emerge as the basis of the doctrine urged by the People in the instant case to permit police to inventory the contents of vehicles lawfully in their custody under the removal and storage sections of the Vehicle Code. First, it is said that an 'inventory' of the type conducted here and in the cited cases is not a 'search' as the term is used in the constitutional sense and, therefore, the procedure need not be justified within the rubric of the Fourth Amendment. Second, it is argued in the alternative that, even if an inventory is a search, it is reasonable and thus constitutional under the Fourth Amendment. We proceed to an analysis of both of these asserted justifications for the inventory procedure employed here.

In structuring the concept that an inventory is not police activity within the scope of the Fourth Amendment, the People reason that searches in the constitutional sense are conducted for the purpose of discovering evidence of crime or contraband to be used in criminal prosecutions. The sole purpose of the inventory in this case and in all routine police inventories, we are told, is to identify the contents of the vehicle incident to the assumption of police custody. Rather than ferreting out evidence of crime, police inventories serve to protect the owner of the vehicle, the police, and the storage bailee by identifying the contents of the vehicle and ensuring their proper care by the police and the storage bailee. The inventory is an aid to the vehicle owner because it provides him with a detailed list of the items taken into custody by the police and stored at the police garage, and it protects both the police and the storage bailee from subsequent unfounded claims of loss or damage.

In distinguishing between an inventory and a search, reliance is placed on People v. Norris (1968) supra, 262 Cal.App.2d Supp. 897, 68 Cal.Rptr. 582, which explains a source of the constricted definition of a searched espoused by the People: 'In the case at bar the trial court made an express finding that the officer's activity (making an inventory of the contents of an automobile involved in a collision, prior to towing the vehicle to police storage) was not a search. * * * We believe that finding is supported by the law and the evidence and affirm primarily on that ground.

'Black's Law Dictionary (4th ed. 1951) defines a search as: 'An examination of a man's house or other buildings or premises, or of his person, with a view to the discovery of contraband or illicit or stolen property, or some evidence of guilt to be used in the prosecution of a criminal action for some crime or offense with which he is charged.'

'Webster's New International Dictionary (2d ed.) gives this definition: 'To subject to a thorough inspection for an article or articles presumably concealed.'

'This requirement that a search implies a seeking for contraband or evidence of guilt which has been concealed to use it in the prosecution of a criminal action * * * appears to be the factor that distinguishes (a search from an inventory).' (Id. at pp. 898--899, 68 Cal.Rptr. at p. 583.)

It is apparent from the foregoing and other decisions that the several Courts of Appeal have adhered to a circumscribed, semantic approach in defining the scope of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Such a concept was expressly rejected by the United States Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889. Responding to the government's view that police stop-and-frisk activity was not within the scope of the Fourth Amendment, the court stated: 'In our view the sounder course is to recognize that the Fourth Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon personal security, and to make the scope of the particular intrusion, in light of all the exigencies of the case, a central element in the analysis of reasonableness. (Citations.) This seems preferable to an approach which attributes too much significance to an overly technical definition of 'search'. * * *

'The distinctions of classical 'stop-and-frisk' theory thus serve to divert attention from the central inquiry under the Fourth Amendment--the reasonableness in all the circumstances of the particular governmental invasion of a citizen's personal security. 'Search' and 'seizure' are not talismans. We therefore reject the notions that the Fourth Amendment does not come into play at all as a limitation upon police conduct if the officers stop short of something called a 'technical arrest' or a 'full-blown search. " (Id. at p. 18 fn. 15, p. 19, 88 S.Ct. at p. 1878.)

In applying the strictures of the Fourth Amendment to administrative searches in Camara v. Municipal Court (1967) 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930, the Supreme Court unequivocally rejected any narrowing of the scope of the Fourth Amendment to 'the typical policeman's search for the fruits and instrumentalities of crime. * * * It is surely anomalous...