People v. Escudero

• Decision Date: 21 March 1979
• Docket Number: Cr. 20393
• Citation: 592 P.2d 312,153 Cal.Rptr. 825,23 Cal.3d 800
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 592 P.2d 312 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Raymond Demetrio ESCUDERO, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 825

153 Cal.Rptr. 825

23 Cal.3d 800, 592 P.2d 312

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Raymond Demetrio ESCUDERO, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 20393.

Supreme Court of California.

March 21, 1979.

Deidra E. Griffiths, Sacramento, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Jack R. Winkler, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Arnold O. Overoye, Asst. Atty. Gen., James T. McNally and Susan Rankin Bunting, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

Defendant was charged by information with first degree burglary. (Pen.Code, §§ 459, 460.) After his motion to suppress the evidence under Penal Code section 1538.5 was denied, he entered a plea of guilty and a judgment of conviction was pronounced. In this appeal he challenges only the trial court's adverse ruling on his motion to suppress (Pen.Code, § 1538.5, subd. (m) ), claiming that his arrest was illegal and the evidence seized incident thereto must be excluded.

It is conceded that defendant was arrested without a warrant inside his place of residence. In People v. Ramey (1976) 16 Cal.3d 263, 275-276, 127 Cal.Rptr. 629, 545 P.2d 1333, we held that such an arrest is unreasonable per se in the absence of (1) consent to enter or (2) exigent circumstances. The People invoke both justifications, and the record supports the latter. The judgment must therefore be affirmed.

The facts are undisputed, and their chronology is important to our resolution of the points at issue. ¹

At 12:40 a. m. on the night in question defendant was surprised in the act of committing a burglary in the home of Mrs. Nancy Lane in the town of Elk Grove, a community in Sacramento County. He was discovered by Stephen Gage, a guest in the Lane home; defendant immediately ran from the house, and Gage began the chase on foot. Defendant then entered an older model maroon Pontiac and drove off, and Gage followed closely in his own car. After turning a few corners, defendant brought the Pontiac to a stop, jumped out, and ran behind the Native Sons Hall. Gage chased defendant around the building in his car, but finally lost sight of him. Gage then attempted to disable the Pontiac by letting the air out of a tire, but soon abandoned the idea as impractical. Instead he took the car's registration card, drove back to the Lane home, and telephoned the sheriff. In that call Gage gave the dispatcher the information on the registration card and described defendant as being a male of small or medium build, about five feet eight inches in height, with black hair, and wearing an unusual striped shirt.

At 12:53 a. m. Deputy Sheriffs Dillon and Dixon, on patrol in their radio car, received a message advising them of the burglary. They drove to the Lane home, arriving within five minutes. After taking Gage's description of the events they went directly to the Native Sons Hall but the Pontiac had gone. They reported this fact over the radio and requested additional sheriff's units to search the area. In the meantime, however, the dispatcher had transmitted the registration information to the Department of Motor Vehicles and learned the Pontiac had recently been sold to defendant Escudero, whose address was given as a ranch on Sloughhouse Road. The dispatcher broadcast this fact over the radio; Officers Dillon and Dixon received the broadcast, and immediately proceeded towards the ranch.

At 1:25 a. m. the dispatcher also telephoned the owners of the ranch, Mr. and Mrs. Perham, and verified that defendant worked there and owned a maroon Pontiac. Mrs. Perham first told the dispatcher that defendant was not home; but her son, who was also on the line, corrected her and informed the police that defendant had returned to the ranch. Upon request, Mrs. Perham gave a physical description of defendant, and it matched that of the burglar furnished by Gage. Following the telephone call Mrs. Perham noticed that defendant's Pontiac was indeed parked at the ranch.

Within 10 or 15 minutes thereafter i. e., by 1:40 a. m. at the latest three sheriff's cars with a total of six officers arrived at the Perham ranch. There were two residences on the property, a large house occupied by the Perhams and a separate dwelling known as the foreman's house where defendant lived. The officers explained to Mr. Perham that defendant was suspected of committing the Lane burglary. Perham promptly entered the foreman's house, told defendant that sheriff's deputies were there and wanted to talk to him, then returned outside and said to the officers, "Ray is dressed, go on in." He held the door open for the officers, and they entered immediately without asking defendant's consent.

The officers found defendant seated in the front room of the house, wearing the same distinctive shirt that Gage had seen on the burglar. They advised defendant of his rights, questioned him for a few minutes, then placed him under arrest.

I

The People contend that the warrantless entry by the deputy sheriffs into the house occupied by defendant was justified by the consent thereto given by Perham. There is no doubt Perham thought that the mere fact he owned the foreman's house gave him the absolute right to invite anyone he pleased to enter it, including the police. ² The question, however, is not what Perham thought, but whether the officers reasonably and in good faith believed that Perham in fact had the authority to consent to their entry into the foreman's house. (People v. Carr (1972) 8 Cal.3d 287, 298, 104 Cal.Rptr. 705, 502 P.2d 513, and cases cited.) The burden of proving that belief is on the People (People v. Roberts (1956) 47 Cal.2d 374, 377, 303 P.2d 721), and they failed to sustain it in the case at bar.

The burden could have been discharged by the introduction of "objective evidence" that Perham had "joint control (of) or access to the places or items to be searched" (People v. McGrew (1969) 1 Cal.3d 404, 412, 82 Cal.Rptr. 473, 478, 462 P.2d 1, 6), i. e., by showing that Perham and defendant were both living in the foreman's house at the time. The record, however, is otherwise. Although the Perhams had lived in the foreman's house while the main ranch house underwent remodelling, several days before these events they had moved back into the latter: Perham testified that on the night in question "We were living in the house we remodelled." On the other hand, Perham agreed on cross-examination that since he and his wife had moved out, defendant had been "actually residing in the foreman's house" and "had his clothes there and he stayed there." In these circumstances Perham was not a joint occupant of the foreman's house within the meaning of the rule here in issue.

Moreover, the true relationship of the parties appeared when Perham further admitted on cross-examination that defendant's right to reside in the foreman's house "was part of the arrangement (I) had with him as an employee." In other words, as part of the compensation for his labor defendant was allowed to live on the property in housing owned by his employer, and the latter in turn agreed to accept a portion of that labor in lieu of rent. This type of landlord-tenant relationship is not uncommon between agricultural employers and farmworkers in California. The issue is whether the relationship is exempted from the general rule that a landlord has no authority to consent to a police entry of premises occupied by a tenant.

As it has developed in the cases, the rule is as broad as necessary to protect the privacy interests at stake. To begin with, the principle does not turn on the character of the demised premises: it applies not only when the tenant leases an entire detached house (Chapman v. United States (1961) 365 U.S. 610, 616-617, 81 S.Ct. 776, 5 L.Ed.2d 828), but also when he rents an apartment (People v. Roberts (1956) supra, 47 Cal.2d 374, 377, 303 P.2d 721), an enclosed garage (People v. Verbiesen (1970) 6 Cal.App.3d 938, 942-943, 86 Cal.Rptr. 320), or a storage locker in a bowling alley (People v. Baker (1970) 12 Cal.App.3d 826, 836, 96 Cal.Rptr. 760). Nor does the rule depend on the duration of the tenancy: it applies both to a long-term lessee and to a transient guest who takes a room, however briefly, in a hotel (Stoner v. California (1964) 376 U.S. 483, 488-490, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856; People v. Burke (1962) 208 Cal.App.2d 149, 160-161, 24 Cal.Rptr. 912) or a motel (Krauss v. Superior Court (1971) 5 Cal.3d 418, 422, 96 Cal.Rptr. 455, 487 P.2d 1023). ³ By parity of reasoning, the rule is unaffected by the nature of the consideration given for the right to occupy the premises: it applies whether the tenant pays in money, as in the above-cited cases, or in services, as here or indeed whether his occupancy is permitted for any reason deemed sufficient by the owner. In each of the foregoing instances the owner voluntarily gives up the right to occupy the premises for the period of the tenancy, and the tenant in turn acquires a legitimate expectation of privacy (cf. Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 353, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576; People v. Edwards (1969) 71 Cal.2d 1096, 1104-1105, 80 Cal.Rptr. 633, 458 P.2d 713) in his use and enjoyment of the premises for the same period.

That privacy, of course, is not absolute: the cases also recognize that the tenant is generally deemed to give implied consent to reasonable entries by the owner or his agents, but only for certain narrowly limited purposes relating to the owner's interest in the property. For example, it is settled that a hotel guest is deemed to impliedly consent to hotel employees' entering his room at reasonable times to perform janitorial, maid, or repair services; but neither the employee nor the owner has implied consent to enter for the purpose of personally searching for contraband, weapons, or evidence of crime and because he lacks that authority, he has no power to consent to an entry by the police for the...