People v. Govea

Decision Date23 June 1965
Docket NumberC,Cr. 4619,Cr. 4617
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
PartiesPEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Roy Hernandez GOVEA, Defendant and Respondent. PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Joe Villegas COTA and Sylvester Villegas Cota, Defendants and Respondents. PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Candido Sanchez CORONA and Max Galviz Macias, Defendants and Respondents. r. 4618,

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., of the State of California, Edward P. O'Brien, Derald E. Granberg, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for appellant.

Eugene Epstein, (under appointment of the District Court of Appeal) Salinas, for respondents Roy Hernandez Govea, Joe Villegas Cota, Sylvester Villegas Cota, and Candido Sanchez Corona.

Robert J. Pia, (under appointment of the District Court of Appeal) Salinas, for respondent Max Galviz Macias.

SULLIVAN, Presiding Justice.

Defendants were charged in three indictments, all returned on February 14, 1964, with various violations of the narcotics laws. In each of the above causes the motion of the respective defendant or defendants to set aside the indictment was granted (Pen.Code § 995) and the People appeal.

In 1/Crim. 4617 defendant Roy Hernandez Govea was charged with possession of marijuana (Health & Saf.Code § 11530). In 1/Crim. 4618 defendants Joe Villegas Cota and sylvester Villegas Cota were charged with possession of heroin (Health & Saf.Code § 11500). In 1/Crim. 4619, defendants Candido Sanchez Corona and Max Galviz Macias were charged with possession of marijuana (Health & Saf.Code § 11530) in count one and possession of heroin (Health & Saf.Code § 11500) in count two. All of the offenses were charged as having been committed on January 30, 1964 and, although made the subject of three separate proceedings in the court below, can be set forth in a single statement of facts and disposed of here by considering issues common to two or more of the appeals rather than by discussing each appeal independently.

On January 30, 1964, a search warrant was issued to Detective Charles Walker of the Salinas Police Department by a judge of the Municipal Court of the Salinas Judicial District, County of Monterey, authorizing the immediate search in the daytime or in the nighttime of the premises located at 53 Hacienda Street, Salinas, occupied by Joe Cota, for heroin, marijuana or other contraband narcotic substances.

Walker's affidavit for the warrant set forth the following facts as constituting probable cause to believe that Cota was then in the possession of narcotics on the premises: That Joe Cota was a known narcotics violator with previous convictions for sale and possession of marijuana; that on January 27, 1964, in the nighttime, Walker went to Cota's above premises with 'Operator X,' thoroughly searched said operator before the latter entered the premises, found no narcotic substances on his person, kept him under constant surveillance thereafter, observed Operator X enter the premises and remain there for several minutes, and then received from him a substance which was later determined to be heroin; that while Operator X was inside the premises, Walker overheard by means of an electronic hearing device a transaction for the sale of heroin; that Walker knew that Joe Cota had been living at the above address for two months; and that said operator informed him that Joe Cota had provided the heroin and identified a picture of the Joe Cota known by Walker.

At the same time 1 a similar search warrant was issued to Detective Walker by the same judge authorizing the search of the premises located at 114 Carr Street, Salinas, occupied by Willie Mendoza. Walker's affidavit for this warrant was almost identical to his affidavit for the Cota warrant. The only substantial difference was that it alleged that Mendoza was a known narcotics user, recently returned from the California Narcotics Rehabilitation Center where he underwent treatment for addiction to heroin; and that the transaction for the sale of heroin between 'Operator X' and Mendoza took place on January 2, 1964 in the nighttime on Mendoza's above premises.

At about 6:30 p. m. on January 30, the day the warrants were issued, State Narcotics Agent Ojeda, Salinas Police Sergeant Rodman and Deputy District Attorney Chang went to Cota's residence on Hacienda Street and, using field glasses, proceeded to keep it under surveillance. 2 Ojeda testified before the grand jury that at about 7:15 p. m. he saw a car drive into Cota's driveway, a person alight from the passenger side and enter the back door of the residence, another person emerge from the back door and appear to talk with and hand something to the driver of the car, the original passenger return to the car and the car drive away.

Ojeda, together with Rodman, pursued the car and, after sounding a siren, brought it to a stop at a nearby intersection. They then took the two occupants out of the car, searched them thoroughly, and, finding no contraband on their persons, searched the automobile. Ojeda found a small white paper bindle in the center of the front seat. The contents of the bindle were later identified as heroin. The driver of the car was defendant Corona and the passenger was defendant Macias.

When the officers found the paper bindle they asked Corona and Macias if each knew what it was, but both defendants denied knowledge or ownership of the contraband. The two suspects were then taken back to the Cota residence, whereupon Corona admitted that the bindle contained heroin, that it belonged to him and that he had brought it from Mexicali.

Meanwhile, the car in which Corona and Macias had been arrested was impounded by a police officer who had been instructed to take it to the Police Department parking lot, to lock it and to watch it. Ojeda and Sergeant Rodman unlocked the car about six hours later, searched it and found two small brown paper bags and one waxpaper bag, all of which contained marijuana.

Agent Ojeda testified before the grand jury that he pursued and arrested the two men because he believed a felony had taken place in the Cota residence; that from his experience and many observations of 'passes' of narcotics, he believed that a sale or delivery of narcotics had occurred at the time the car was driven up to the Cota home and something appeared to be delivered to if from the premises; and that he based this belief in part on previous observations and a previous search of the Cota home, previous 'run-ins' with all the Cota brothers and reliable information from other officers that there was narcotics traffic in the Cota home.

As already stated, the grand jury returned an indictment (in 1/Crim. 4619) charging Corona and Macias with possession of both marijuana and heroin.

About thirty minutes after Corona and Macias were stopped and searched, the Cota residence was entered and searched. Detective Walker testified before the grand jury that he and other officers 3 went to the residence and Agent Armenta knocked on the back door. Joe Cota opened the door, Armenta informed him that he was a police officer and Walker and Armenta went inside. Defendant Sylvester Cota asked Walker if he had a search warrant and Walker replied that he did, showing him the warrant which he had in his possession. Walker then started searching the house. He found two or three packages in the kitchen containing a hypodermic needle, a syringe and a charred spoon used by narcotics addicts for injecting narcotics.

Captain Ashton testified before the grand jury that immediately after Walker entered the house, he entered through the front door. He walked over to a couch where Sylvester Cota and his father were sitting, reached over the couch, picked up a coat and searched it. He found a cellophane type of paper of bag containing a standard type of paper folded as a bindle containing a substance later identified as heroin. Ashton asked who was the owner of the coat, Sylvester Cota said the coat was his, but the father (Alejandro Cota) said, within Joe Cota's hearing distance, that the jacket belonged to Joe. Joe Cota himself told Mr. Chang at that time that the coat was his.

Agent Armenta testified that in the course of his search of the house he found on a couch in the living room a brown bag with a plastic or waxpaper bag in it containing marijuana. He overheard Joe Cota speak to Sylvester in Spanish telling him that he, Sylvester, should take the blame for everything. Sylvester had announced, either before or after the conversation in Spanish with his brother, that the jacket was his, that everything of a narcotic nature on the premises was his. Later on Joe spoke in Spanish to everyone present, saying that the 'other two defendants [Corona and Macias] had better not say anything regarding any of the narcotics if they knew what was good for them.' Armenta also testified that Joe Cota, after being taken into custody, 'appeared to pop somthing into his mouth and swallow it' and that, upon being questioned about this, Cota said 'that he was only fooling, that he didn't really put anything in his mouth, he was just trying to give his brother Sylvester a chance to get rid of anything that might be in the house.'

Armenta further testified that he searched an upstairs bedroom which the Cota boys' mother said was used by the boys. He found strips of paper resembling those ordinarily used as bindles and a thin copper wire which is usually used to keep a hypodermic needle from getting clogged.

As already stated, the grand jury returned an indictment (in 1/Crim. 4618) charging both Joe and Sylvester Cota with possession of heroin.

In the early hours of the morning on January 31, 1964, Agent Armenta and other officers 4 went to 114 Carr Street in...

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