People v. Diaz

• Decision Date: 03 January 2011
• Docket Number: No. S166600.,S166600.
• Citation: People v. Diaz, 51 Cal.4th 84, 244 P.3d 501, 119 Cal.Rptr.3d 105, 11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 107 (Cal. 2011)
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Gregory DIAZ, Defendant and Appellant.

51 Cal.4th 84

244 P.3d 501

119 Cal.Rptr.3d 105

11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 107

2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 109

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Gregory DIAZ, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S166600.

Supreme Court of California

Jan. 3, 2011.

Lyn A. Woodward, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Donald E. DeNicola, Deputy State Solicitor General, Lawrence M. Daniels, Paul M. Roadarmel, Jr., and Victoria B. Wilson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

CHIN, J.

[244 P.3d 502, 51 Cal.4th 88]

We granted review in this case to decide whether the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution permits law enforcement officers, approximately 90 minutes after lawfully arresting a suspect and transporting him to a detention facility, to conduct a warrantless search of the text message folder of a cell phone they take from his person after the arrest. We hold that, under the United States Supreme Court's binding precedent, such a search is valid as being incident to a lawful custodial arrest. We affirm the Court of Appeal's judgment.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

About 2:50 p.m. on April 25, 2007, Senior Deputy Sheriff Victor Fazio of the Ventura County Sheriff's Department witnessed defendant Gregory Diaz participating in a police informant's controlled purchase of Ecstasy. Defendant drove the Ecstasy's seller to the location of the sale, which then took place in the backseat of the car defendant was driving. Immediately after the sale, Fazio, who had listened in on the transaction through a wireless transmitter the informant was wearing, stopped the car defendant was driving and arrested defendant for being a coconspirator in the sale of drugs. Six tabs of Ecstasy were seized in connection with the arrest, and a small amount of marijuana was found in defendant's pocket. Defendant had a cell phone on his person.

Fazio transported defendant to a sheriff's station, where a detective seized the cell phone from defendant's person and gave it to Fazio. Fazio put it with the other evidence and, at 4:18 p.m., interviewed defendant. Defendant denied having knowledge of the drug transaction. After the interview, about 4:23 p.m., Fazio looked at the cell phone's text message folder and discovered a message that said "6 4 80." ¹ Based on his training and experience, Fazio interpreted the message to mean "[s]ix pills of Ecstasy for $80." Within minutes of discovering the message (and less than 30 minutes after the cell phone's discovery), Fazio showed the message to defendant. Defendant then admitted participating in the sale of Ecstasy.

Defendant was charged with selling a controlled substance (Health & Saf.Code, § 11379, subd. (a)). He pleaded not guilty and moved to suppress the fruits of the cell phone search—the text message and the statements he made when confronted with it—arguing that the warrantless search of the cell phone violated the Fourth Amendment. The trial court denied the motion, explaining: "The defendant was under arrest for a felony charge involving the sale of drugs. His property was seized from him. Evidence was seized from him. [¶] ... [I]ncident to the arrest[,] search of his person and everything that that turned up is really fair game in terms of being evidence of a crime or instrumentality of a crime or whatever the theory might be. And under these circumstances I don't believe there's authority that a warrant was required." Defendant then withdrew his not guilty plea and pleaded guilty to transportation of a controlled substance. The trial court accepted the plea, suspended imposition of sentence, and placed defendant on probation for three years.

The Court of Appeal affirmed, finding that under governing high court precedent, because the cell phone "was immediately associated with [defendant's] person at the time of his arrest," it was "properly subjected to a delayed warrantless search." We granted defendant's petition for review.

DISCUSSION

The Fourth Amendment provides that "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Under this provision, as the United States Supreme Court has construed it, warrantless searches—i.e., "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate"—"are per se unreasonable ... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." ( Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, fns. omitted.)

One of the specifically established exceptions to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement is "a search incident to lawful arrest." ( United States v. Robinson (1973) 414 U.S. 218, 224, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 ( Robinson ).) This exception "has traditionally been justified by the reasonableness of searching for weapons, instruments of escape, and evidence of crime when a person is taken into official custody and lawfully detained. [Citation.]" ( United States v. Edwards (1974) 415 U.S. 800, 802-803, 94 S.Ct. 1234, 39 L.Ed.2d 771 ( Edwards ).) As the high court has explained: "When a custodial arrest is made, there is always some danger that the person arrested may seek to use a weapon, or that evidence may be concealed or destroyed. To safeguard himself and others, and to prevent the loss of evidence, it has been held reasonable for the arresting officer to conduct a prompt, warrantless 'search of the arrestee's person and the area "within his immediate control"....' [Citations.] [¶] Such searches may be conducted without a warrant, and they may also be made whether or not there is probable cause to believe that the person arrested may have a weapon or is about to destroy evidence. The potential dangers lurking in all custodial arrests make warrantless searches of items within the 'immediate control' area reasonable without requiring the arresting officer to calculate the probability that weapons or destructible evidence may be involved. [Citations.]" ( United States v. Chadwick (1977) 433 U.S. 1, 14-15, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 ( Chadwick ).) ²

The People argue that the warrantless search in this case of the cell phone's text message folder was valid as a search incident to defendant's lawful arrest.³ Defendant disagrees, arguing that the search " was too remote in time" to qualify as a valid search incident to his arrest.⁴ IN MAKING THIS ARGument, he emphasizes that the phone "was exclusively held in police custody well before the search of its text message folder."

Resolution of this issue depends principally on the high court's decisions in Robinson,Edwards, and Chadwick. In Robinson, a police officer arrested the defendant for driving with a revoked operator's permit. ( Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at p. 220, 94 S.Ct. 467.) The officer conducted a patdown search and felt an object he could not identify in the breast pocket of the defendant's coat. He removed the object, which turned out to be a crumpled up cigarette package. He felt the package and determined it contained objects that were not cigarettes. He then opened the package and found 14 heroin capsules. ( Id. at pp. 222-223, 94 S.Ct. 467.) The high court held that the warrantless search of the package was valid under the Fourth Amendment. ( Robinson, supra, at p. 224, 94 S.Ct. 467.) It explained that, incident to a lawful custodial arrest, police have authority to conduct "a full search of the [arrestee's] person." ( Id. at p. 235, 94 S.Ct. 467.) This authority, the court continued, exists whether or not the police have reason to believe the arrestee has on his or her person either evidence or weapons. "A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search [of the person] incident to the arrest requires no additional justification. It is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and ... in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a 'reasonable' search under that Amendment." ( Ibid.) Applying these principles, the court held: "The search of [the defendant's] person ... and the seizure from him of the heroin, were permissible under established Fourth Amendment law.... Having in the course of a lawful search come upon the crumpled package of cigarettes, [the officer] was entitled to inspect it; and when his inspection revealed the heroin capsules, he was entitled to seize them as 'fruits, instrumentalities, or contraband' probative of criminal conduct. [Citations.]" ( Id. at p. 236, 94 S.Ct. 467, fns. omitted.)

In Edwards, after lawfully arresting the defendant late one night for attempting to break into a post office, police took him to jail and placed him in a cell. ( Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at p. 801, 94 S.Ct. 1234.) Ten hours later, suspecting that his clothes might contain paint chips from the window through which he had tried to enter, police made the defendant change into new clothes and held his old ones as evidence. ( Id. at p. 802, 94 S.Ct. 1234; see also id. at p. 810, 94 S.Ct. 1234 (dis. opn. of Stewart, J.).) Subsequent examination of the old clothes revealed paint chips matching samples taken from the window. ( Id. at p. 802, 94 S.Ct. 1234.) The high court held that both the warrantless seizure of the clothes and the warrantless search of them for paint chips were valid as a search incident to lawful arrest. ( Id. at pp. 802-809, 94 S.Ct. 1234.) It expressly rejected the argument that, because the search occurred ...