People v. Glaser, S042656

• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Citation: 902 P.2d 729,11 Cal.4th 354,45 Cal.Rptr.2d 425
• Decision Date: 12 October 1995
• Docket Number: No. S042656,S042656
• Parties: , 902 P.2d 729, 64 USLW 2302, 95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8067, 95 Daily Journal D.A.R. 13,816 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Ronny GLASER, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 425

45 Cal.Rptr.2d 425

11 Cal.4th 354, 902 P.2d 729, 64 USLW 2302,

95 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8067,

95 Daily Journal D.A.R. 13,816

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Ronny GLASER, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S042656.

Supreme Court of California.

Oct. 12, 1995.

[11 Cal.4th 359] Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General, George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, Michael J. Weinberger and Joel Carey, Deputy Attorneys General, for plaintiff and respondent.

Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson as amici curiae on behalf of plaintiff and respondent.

[902 P.2d 730] Peter Dodd, Hornbrook, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

WERDEGAR, Judge.

May police officers searching a private home pursuant to a search warrant briefly detain a person who enters onto the premises at the same time as officers are beginning the search? Under the circumstances [11 Cal.4th 360] of this case, we conclude the officers' initial detention of defendant was justified by the need to determine defendant's identity and connection to the premises and to protect the officers' own safety.

Following the superior court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence (Pen.Code, § 1538.5), defendant Ronny Glaser pled no contest to a charge of possession of methamphetamine (Health & Saf.Code, § 11377, subd. (a)) and was sentenced to state prison. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding defendant's suppression motion should have been granted. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand the cause to that court for further proceedings.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The facts are taken from the evidence presented at the hearing on defendant's motion to suppress. Michael Murray, an investigator for the Glenn County District Attorney assigned to the Glenn County Narcotics Task Force, testified he and five other officers from various agencies executed a search warrant at the home of Gregory Wagenman on February 19, 1993. The search began sometime between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. The evening was dark and the weather stormy. The residential search was apparently for illegal drugs or associated items. ¹

As the search party approached the residence, Murray saw defendant, in a pickup

truck, pass them on the road. When the officers arrived at the residence the pickup was parked in the driveway. The driveway led to the backyard of the house, which was entered through a gate located about 50 feet from the house itself. Murray estimated defendant[902 P.2d 731] arrived 20 seconds before the searchers. When the officers arrived, defendant had alighted from his truck and was "about to open the gate."

Murray, the only officer to testify at the suppression hearing, did not witness defendant's initial detention. Upon arrival Murray went inside to help secure the interior of the house. When he returned to the driveway three or four minutes later, he found defendant already detained at gunpoint by Officer Hughes and Lieutenant Oliver.

Defendant testified he was "at the gate" when he first saw and heard Officer Hughes. He did not recognize Hughes, who was in plain clothes, as [11 Cal.4th 361] a police officer and did not see the officer's gun. Defendant was "standing in a dark spot and he [Hughes] yelled something," but defendant did not understand what he was saying: "I heard him say a phrase at one point, I thought he was talking about the weather because it was stormy, probably a good two minutes before I actually understood what he was talking about when he said, get down on the ground." On cross-examination, defendant denied he was under the influence of drugs at the time of his detention, but explained he had "just woke[n] up."

Eventually defendant understood he was being ordered to lie face down on the gravel driveway. According to defendant, Hughes told him "to get down on the ground immediately, at gunpoint and said if I did not do so he would blow my brains out." Defendant obeyed, and Hughes then cuffed his hands behind his back. Another officer arrived within five minutes, and about a minute later defendant was allowed to stand up and was led into the house. Defendant testified he first saw Murray inside the house, but conceded Murray may have been present while he was detained outside as well.

We are concerned here only with the validity of the initial period of detention by Officer Hughes, ending when Murray returned to the driveway area. The propriety of defendant's continued detention from that point on, and of the ensuing patdown and other searches, was not decided by the Court of Appeal or raised in the petition, and we decline to decide that question. The events following Murray's return to the driveway, therefore, will be described only briefly and only to provide factual context. Information acquired by the police after the initial detention, of course, is not relevant to the legality of that detention.

Murray, shining his flashlight on defendant's face, recognized him; he knew defendant had been arrested on narcotics and weapons charges during a previous search of the Wagenman residence and that defendant had at some point suffered a felony conviction and been committed to the California Rehabilitation Center. Murray watched as Hughes patted defendant down for weapons, removing from his coat pocket a glass pipe suitable for smoking methamphetamine and marijuana. Murray then contacted and detained a woman who was sitting in defendant's pickup truck. Defendant was taken inside and further detained. Murray subsequently searched defendant's truck, in which he found syringes and a police scanner radio, and defendant's person, on which he found three packets of methamphetamine powder.

Defendant was charged with possession and use of methamphetamine (Health & Saf.Code, §§ 11377, subd. (a), 11550, subd. (a)) and use of a scanner to intercept police radio communications (Pen.Code, § 636.5). He [11 Cal.4th 362] moved in the superior court to suppress the evidence found in the searches of his truck and person. The court ruled both the initial detention and the subsequent searches proper. The court expressly found that the residence was being searched pursuant to warrant, that Hughes detained and "secured" defendant at the gate "for purposes of officer's safety," and that Murray observed and recognized defendant while he was being detained outside the house.

Defendant pleaded no contest to the possession charge, and the remaining charges were dismissed. Defendant appealed his conviction on grounds of erroneous denial of the suppression motion. (See Pen.Code, § 1538.5, subd. (m).) The Court of Appeal reversed. The court agreed with defendant's contention "the police did not have articulable suspicion to detain him as he was merely a visitor at the Wagenman residence." Relying

[902 P.2d 732] on People v. Gallant (1990) 225 Cal.App.3d 200, 275 Cal.Rptr. 50, the court held "a policy of securing everyone within the vicinity of the area to be searched for officer safety cannot supplant the requirement that articulable suspicion support each detention." Further concluding that the subsequent searches of the truck, the metal box and defendant's person were tainted by the initial illegal detention, the court declined to reach any other issues involving the legality of those searches

We granted review on the People's petition, which raised only the single issue decided by the Court of Appeal, to wit, the legality of defendant's initial detention.

DISCUSSION

I

The standard of appellate review of a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress is well established. We defer to the trial court's factual findings, express or implied, where supported by substantial evidence. In determining whether, on the facts so found, the search or seizure was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, we exercise our independent judgment. (People v. Leyba (1981) 29 Cal.3d 591, 596-597, 174 Cal.Rptr. 867, 629 P.2d 961; People v. Lawler (1973) 9 Cal.3d 156, 160, 107 Cal.Rptr. 13, 507 P.2d 621.)

The superior court's express factual findings are supported by substantial evidence; indeed, they are largely undisputed. There is no dispute the officers had a warrant to search the Wagenman residence or that Officer Hughes stopped defendant at the gate to the backyard.

[11 Cal.4th 363] The People do not dispute that Hughes effected a detention of defendant and, hence, a seizure of his person. (See Florida v. Royer (1983) 460 U.S. 491, 498, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 [a detention, unlike a consensual encounter, is a "seizure" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment]; Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 19, fn. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879, fn. 16, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 [a seizure occurs when an officer restrains a person's liberty by force or show of authority]; accord, People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224, 229, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 569, 885 P.2d 982.) They argue the detention was not "unreasonable" (U.S. Const., 4th Amend.) because defendant's presence at the search site, as the search began, justified a brief detention to determine his connection to the premises and to ensure police safety during the search. Defendant, in contrast, argues that as a mere visitor to the residence, without any obvious connection to the suspected criminal activities, he was not subject to any detention at all.

To decide whether relevant evidence obtained by assertedly unlawful means must be excluded in a trial for crimes allegedly committed after June 8, 1982, we look exclusively to whether its suppression is required by the United States Constitution. (People v. Souza, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 232, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 569, 885 P.2d 982; In re Lance W. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 873, 885-890, 210 Cal.Rptr. 631, 694 P.2d 744.) In the present case, we find the analytical framework needed to resolve this question in two leading decisions of the United States Supreme Court.

In the landmark case of Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S....