People v. Belvin

• Decision Date: 28 August 1969
• Docket Number: Cr. 15622
• Citation: 275 Cal.App.2d 955,80 Cal.Rptr. 382
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Rosita Esther BELVIN, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 382

80 Cal.Rptr. 382

275 Cal.App.2d 955

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Rosita Esther BELVIN, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 15622.

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

Aug. 28, 1969.

Donald F. Roeschke, ^* Woodland Hills, for appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., Rose-Marie Gruenwald, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

FLEMING, Associate Justice.

Rosita Belvin appeals a judgment of conviction for possession of heroin (Health & Saf.Code, § 11500), contending that evidence at her trial had been seized during an illegal search and that statements used against her had been obtained in violation of her rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694.

In January 1968 defendant was wanted by the authorities as a parole violator. The police also had information she was involved with narcotics and living with a dope peddler named Jesse Hill. Officer Welch, two other police officers, and two parole officers went to defendant's address, and when she responded to their knock on the door, an officer told her, 'Police officers. You're under arrest. Open the door.' Defendant opened the door, walked to the bedroom, and sat down on a bed. On the floor by the bed next to where she sat was a purse. Two other women were in the bedroom, seated opposite the defendant. The officers took the three women into the living room for security purposes, and defendant was told she was under arrest for violation of parole. Officer Welch picked up the purse from the floor, noted it was exceptionally heavy, opened it, and found several rolls of coins inside and two balloons of heroin in its zippered compartment. He took the purse into the living room, removed a roll of coins from the purse, and asked defendant if these were her coins. She replied they were. Officer Welsh then advised her of her constitutional rights under Miranda v. Arizona, Supra, and commented that the heroin was probably hers too. Later Jesse Hill arrived at the house, and in the presence of defendant he was told he was under arrest for violation of parole and for possession of heroin. At that point defendant spoke up and said that Hill did not live there and that 'everything in the house was hers.'

At her trial defendant unsuccessfully sought to exclude from evidence: the heroin, her statement about the coins, and her statement that everything in the house was hers.

1. Defendant attacks the search of her purse, arguing, first, the search was without a warrant, without probable cause, and without relationship to her arrest for violation of parole, and, second, the search violated the rights of the two other women in the house.

We start with the proposition that the police, when arresting a parole violator, have sufficient authority to search the person of the violator and any immediate extensions of the person, whether or not they have probable cause to believe they will find evidence of other parole violations or other crimes. (People v. Hernandez, 229 Cal.App.2d 143, 40 Cal.Rptr. 100, 8 A.L.R.3d 1092.) Without a search warrant, however, they cannot conduct a general search of the place where the arrest takes place. The limitations on search incident to arrest have been recently restated by the United States Supreme Court in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, an opinion which specifies the areas to which such a search may extend. 'When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer's safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee's person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary item must, of course, be governed by a like rule. A gun on the table or in a drawer in front of one who is arrested can be as dangerous to the arresting officer as one concealed in the clothing of the person arrested. There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee's person and the area 'within his immediate control'--construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.' (Id., at p. 763, at p. 2040 of 89 S.Ct., at p. 694, of 23 L.Ed.2d.)

It is apparent from Chimel that a search of an arrested person is limited to the person of the arrestee and the area under that person's immediate control and that the boundaries of the area of immediate control are now more closely circumscribed than they have been in the past. (Cf. Harris v. United States, 331 U.S. 145, 67 S.Ct. 1098, 91 L.Ed. 1399; United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653.) But it is equally evident that normal extensions of the person remain subject to search and that articles customarily carried by an arrested person fall within the area of his immediate control. In the category of such articles we include...