People v. ARIAS

• Decision Date: 06 November 2008
• Docket Number: No. S155571.,S155571.
• Citation: 45 Cal.4th 169,195 P.3d 103,85 Cal.Rptr.3d 1
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. John R. ARIAS, Defendant and Appellant.

45 Cal.4th 169

195 P.3d 103

85 Cal.Rptr.3d 1

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.John R. ARIAS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S155571.

Supreme Court of California

Nov. 6, 2008.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.

Richard M. Doctoroff, San Francisco, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Assistant Attorney General, Seth K. Schalit, John H. Deist, Laurence K. Sullivan and Jill M. Thayer, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

CHIN, J.

Health and Safety Code section 11366.8, subdivision (a), ¹ prohibits the possession of a “false compartment” “with the intent to ... conceal ... or transport a controlled substance within the false compartment.” Subdivision (d) defines “false compartment” as “any box, container, space, or enclosure that is intended for use or designed for use to conceal, hide, or otherwise prevent discovery of any controlled substance within or attached to a vehicle, including, but not limited to, any of the following: [¶] (1) False, altered, or modified fuel tanks. [¶] (2) Original factory equipment of a vehicle that is modified, altered, or changed. [¶] (3) Compartment, space, or box that is added to, or fabricated, made, or created from, existing compartments, spaces, or boxes within a vehicle.”

We granted the People's petition for review in order to determine whether a violation of section 11366.8(d) requires that a defendant add to, or modify, a vehicle's original factory equipment, as opposed to using an existing premarket enclosure, such as a glove compartment, or hiding controlled substances behind a factory-installed panel in the vehicle. For the reasons discussed below, we interpret section 11366.8 to exclude from its definition of “false compartment” a vehicle's original factory equipment that has not been modified, altered, or changed in any way. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On May 25, 2005, Martinez Police Officer Nick Voyvodich stopped a 1996 Lexus because it lacked a front license plate. He searched the car after he had its driver and sole occupant, John R. Arias, exit the vehicle. Voyvodich first examined the “headliner,” a fabric-covered area between the sunroof and the car's frame. Unfastening Velcro strips attached to the fabric, he pulled down the headliner and looked into its interior. Finding nothing, he next looked at the area under the driver's seat, which also was empty.

When he looked up, Voyvodich noticed a plastic ball containing a white crystalline substance sticking out of a “gap” between the dashboard and steering column. Voyvodich pulled off the “loose” dashboard panel located “just above [a seated driver's] left knee” and removed the plastic, which contained three baggies containing a white substance. The space under the steering column and behind the dashboard contained wiring circuitry, and Voyvodich testified that it “didn't appear to be a storage area” or to have “a hand release or anything like a button on the glove compartment.” He noted that the panel easily “clipped” in and out, apparently to allow access to the wiring for “people working on the car.” Voyvodich testified it “would be hard to pull out” the baggies through the gap, that he would have needed “to manipulate [them] a lot.” When Voyvodich searched defendant, he found cash in three bundles stacked in a “crisscross fashion” that contained $300, $320, and $380, respectively, plus a separate folded bundle of cash in the amount of $425.

The baggies contained methamphetamine; they weighed 27.72, 23.01, and 3.31 grams respectively. A narcotics expert testified that, in his opinion, defendant possessed the drugs for sale. The expert based his opinion on the amount found in each baggie, the cash bundles that suggested separate sales in quarter-ounce amounts, and the fact that defendant did not appear to be under the influence of a drug or in possession of drug paraphernalia.

Defendant's mother owned the Lexus defendant had been driving. When asked “Did you personally do anything to the inside of the Lexus to change or modify any aspect of ... it so that you could put drugs in there?” defendant testified, “No, my mother would kill me if I did anything like that.”

As relevant to the single issue before this court, a jury found defendant guilty of “a violation of [section] 11366.8(a) of the California Health and Safety Code (possessing false compartment) as set forth in count three of the indictment.” The jury also found defendant guilty of transporting methamphetamine (§ 11379, subd. (a)), and possessing methamphetamine for sale (§ 11378). Defendant was sentenced to state prison for seven years, including a four-year concurrent term for possessing a false compartment.

The Court of Appeal reversed defendant's conviction for possessing a false compartment. It concluded the trial court gave an erroneous instruction defining “false compartment” and that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to prove that defendant used or possessed a false compartment within the meaning of section 11366.8. We granted the People's petition for review.

II. DISCUSSION

Section 11366.8 provides as follows: “(a) Every person who possesses, uses, or controls a false compartment with the intent to store, conceal, smuggle, or transport a controlled substance within the false compartment shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail for a term of imprisonment not to exceed one year or in the state prison. [¶] (b) Every person who designs, constructs, builds, alters, or fabricates a false compartment for, or installs or attaches a false compartment to, a vehicle with the intent to store, conceal, smuggle, or transport a controlled substance shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months or two or three years. [¶] (c) The term ‘vehicle’ means any of the following vehicles without regard to whether the vehicles are private or commercial, including, but not limited to, cars, trucks, buses, aircraft, boats, ships, yachts, and vessels. [¶] (d) The term ‘false compartment’ means any box, container, space, or enclosure that is intended for use or designed for use to conceal, hide, or otherwise prevent discovery of any controlled substance within or attached to a vehicle, including, but not limited to, any of the following: [¶] (1) False, altered, or modified fuel tanks. [¶] (2) Original factory equipment of a vehicle that is modified, altered, or changed. [¶] (3) Compartment, space, or box that is added to, or fabricated, made, or created from, existing compartments, spaces, or boxes within a vehicle.”

With respect to this section, the trial court instructed the jury that “[e]very person who possesses, uses, or controls a false compartment with the intent to store, conceal, smuggle or transport a controlled substance within the false compartment is guilty of a violation of Health and Safety Section 11366.8(a).

In order to prove this crime, each of the following elements must be proved: One, a person possessed, used, or controlled a false compartment; two, that person had the specific intent to conceal, smuggle or transport a controlled substance within the false compartment; a false compartment is a space in a vehicle that is neither designed nor intended for storage or transportation of personal items, but is, nevertheless, used to conceal controlled substances even without any modification of the physical configuration of the space.” (Italics added.)

The portion of the trial court's instruction italicized above was based on the interpretation of the statutory definition of false compartment set forth in People v. Gonzalez (2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 1405, 11 Cal.Rptr.3d 434 ( Gonzalez ), a case in which brothers were jointly tried and convicted of several drug offenses. One brother, who was separately convicted of possession of a false compartment, contended the plain language of section 11366.8 required a change to the “ ‘equipment’ ” of the 1990 Ford Thunderbird he was entering when arrested, “ ‘not simply placing something in a pre-existing space.’ He argue[d] that without evidence ‘the original factory equipment of the [automobile] had been “modified, altered, or changed,” ’ his conviction of a violation of section 11366.8 cannot stand.” ( Gonzalez, supra, 116 Cal.App.4th at p. 1413, 11 Cal.Rptr.3d 434.) His argument rested on the fact that the examples of “false compartment” listed in subdivision (d) all refer to a modification, alteration, or change of a vehicle's original factory equipment. The Gonzalez court, however, found “nothing in the language of section 11366.8 that requires a modification, fabrication or alteration of the ‘original factory equipment’ of the vehicle,” and concluded that a “false compartment” is “a space in a vehicle that is neither designed nor intended for storage or transportation of personal items, but is nevertheless used to conceal controlled substances, even without any modification of the physical configuration of the space.” ( Id. at p. 1414, 11 Cal.Rptr.3d 434.) In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on the fact that “the statute specifies that a false compartment includes but is not limited to [the] enumerated examples,” and on the general rule of statutory construction that “[u]se of the language ‘including, but not limited to’ in the statutory definition is a phrase of enlargement rather than limitation.” ( Ibid.)

In the present case, the Court of Appeal concluded that “[t]he history of section 11366.8 makes clear that the definition of ‘false compartment’ adopted in Gonzalez, supra, 116 Cal.App.4th 1405, 1414, 11 Cal.Rptr.3d 434, and the basis of the jury instruction challenged in this case, is incompatible with the purpose of the statute.” For the reasons stated below, we agree with the Court of Appeal that “the...