People v. Chatman, Cr. 2875
| Decision Date | 30 December 1958 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 2875 |
| Citation | 166 Cal.App.2d 627,333 P.2d 374 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Isiah CHATMAN, Defendant and Appellant. |
Howard A. Potts, Sacramento, for appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., by Doris H. Maier and William O. Minor, Deputy Attys. Gen., for respondent.
This is an appeal from a judgment declaring appellant guilty of violating Section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code. On February 3, 1958, appellant was the tenant of a room in a Sacramento hotel. About 10 P.M. four Sacramento police officers and one inspector of the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement forced their way into the room. They had no warrant for arrest or search. In the room they saw appellant and three others who were then engaged in 'capping' a white powder containing heroin. On a bedside table was a package containing 44 grains of the powder and various items being used in the 'capping' operation. There was also a hypodermic needle, an eye dropper and 14 paper bindles containing powder. The officers arrested appellant and he was later charged with possession of heroin. They seized the articles listed above and they were introduced in evidence at the trial. There was also introduced an extra judicial statement made by appellant to the officers in which he said that one of the four persons arrested had asked him for permission to use his room to cap some heroin; that this person asked appellant to help him with that work; that appellant agreed and was to receive therefore a small amount of the narcotic. At the trial appellant neither took the stand himself nor offered evidence in his own behalf. The trial court found appellant guilty.
The first witness for the prosecution was a chemist who testified that he had analyzed the white powder found in defendant's room and that the same contained heroin. He was followed by the inspector who testified that when the officers forced their way into the room they found appellant and the others there with the articles above described. The articles were then offered in evidence and objection was made to their admissibility as having been unlawfully seized. Counsel for the prosecution then further examined the inspector to determine the circumstances that lay back of the forcible entry into the appellant's room and the seizure of the articles found there. He testified that a few minutes before he entered the room he met an informer near the Sacramento police station who told him that appellant was in his room at that time with others and that they were then 'capping up', that is, placing the narcotic in caps or bindles; that he gathered the police to aid him and went to the room and broke in; that the informant had told him an hour before that one Nolen, who was in the room when the officers arrived there, had just returned from southern California with a large quantity of heroin; that he had known the informer for about a month; that prior to this occasion the informer had several times given him information about narcotic law infringements; that he had checked the information and found it to be reliable. At this point the witness was corss-examined by defense counsel. He was asked to identify the informant, but before the question could be answered counsel for the prosecution asked permission to examine further on voir dire. That was granted and the inspector further testified as follows: When he talked to the informer, the informer knew that he was a state narcotic inspector and he had told the informant he intended to use the information in his work. The informant, from the first, had asked if anyone would be told that he was giving information and had been assured that they would not and that the officer would not reveal the informer's identity. It was the policy of the bureau to receive information on those terms. Having gone that far, counsel for the prosecution informed the court that he believed the search and seizure had been justified; that the articles ought to be admitted in evidence, but that if the court ruled otherwise then the People were prepared to drop the prosecution of appellant rather than reveal the identity of the informer. Counsel for appellant then again took the witness under cross-examination. He asked the witness as to whom the informer had given information. Objection was interposed that to permit the answer would tend to identify the informer. The objection was sustained. Counsel for appellant then asked the witness if, on the first occasion he had received information, it had been about appellant, and the answer was negative. The inspector repeated, however, that he had checked the reliability of that first information although he had made no arrest, believing that he had not enough information to justify it. He said his investigation as to reliability had been accomplished by talking to other people and their answers had satisfied his mind that the person informed against was dealing in narcotics. The inspector testified further that he had paid the informer an award of $40 for the last information he had supplied; that on one other occasion he had made an arrest based upon the information of the informer. At this point counsel for appellant offered a general objection to any testimony concerning what the officers had seen in appellant's room and to the introduction in evidence of the articles seized there. The objections were overruled, the testimony of the inspector was admitted and the articles seized were received in evidence.
Appellant challenges the legality of the arrest and the resulting search and seizure. He says the evidence showed that the only and sole basis for the arrest of appellant was information given to Inspector Best by an informant to the effect that appellant and three other individuals were in the aforementioned hotel 'capping up' narcotics. In this appellant is mistaken. Regardless of the conduct of the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
United States v. Lodewijkx
...reasonable judgment, * * * to believe the person to be arrested had committed the felony?" See also People v. Chatman, 166 Cal.App. 2d 627, 333 P.2d 374, 376-377 (Dist.Ct. App.1958). Defendant argues that he is entitled to a jury trial on the issue of whether "a felony has been in fact comm......
-
People v. McMurray, Cr. 6520
...Priestly v. Superior Court, 50 Cal.2d 812, 819, 330 P.2d 39; People v. Robinson, 166 Cal.App.2d 416, 333 P.2d 120; People v. Chatman, 166 Cal.App.2d 627, 333 P.2d 374. Disclosure is required where the informer participated in the crime with which the defendant is charged; where he took no p......
-
People v. Rodriguez, Cr. 1508
...of reasonable and probable cause for the arrest and search. People v. Dewson, 150 Cal.App.2d 119, 128, 310 P.2d 162; People v. Chatman, 166 Cal.App.2d 627, 333 P.2d 374; People v. Boyd, 162 Cal.App.2d 332, 327 P.2d 913; Trowbridge v. Superior Court, 144 Cal.App.2d 13, 18, 300 P.2d While def......