People v. Jose O.
| Decision Date | 13 October 2011 |
| Docket Number | F061531 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | In re JOSE O., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JOSE O., Defendant and Appellant. |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
OPINION
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Stanislaus County. Nan Cohan Jacobs, Judge.
Michael Cobden, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Doris A. Calandra and Carlos A. Martinez, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Following the denial of his motion to suppress evidence (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 700.1), appellant, Jose O., a minor, admitted allegations that he committed two counts of felony possession of a dangerous weapon (Pen. Code, § 12020, subd. (a)(1), count 1(brass knuckles), and count 2 (butterfly knife)). At the subsequent disposition hearing, the juvenile court reduced both counts to misdemeanors, adjudged appellant a ward of the court, and placed him on probation.
On appeal, appellant's sole contention is that the court erred in denying his suppression motion. We will affirm.
At approximately 8:41 p.m. on August 26, 2010, City of Ceres Police Officer Jeremy Lewis was on duty by himself, in a police car, when he saw a car that "attracted [his] attention."2 The car, the officer explained, Thereafter, Officer Lewis stopped the car, and saw that there were two male adults in the front seat, the driver and a passenger, and that appellant and a small child were in the backseat.
After obtaining driver's licenses from the adults, and after appellant, who did not have a driver's license, gave his name and date of birth, Officer Lewis returned to his patrol car, "ran all the names," and learned that the driver was the subject of an outstanding misdemeanor arrest warrant. At about that time, Officer Brian Peterson arrived on the scene. At that point, Officer Lewis decided to have all four persons get out of the car, arrest the driver, and search the vehicle for weapons.
Shortly thereafter, the adult passenger, whose name was Juan Nilla, Jr. and who was wearing a red jersey with the number 14 on it, "admitted to being an active Northerner gang member." Norteno gang members "usually" wear some item of red clothing, and Nilla's apparel further "raise[d] [the officer's] suspicion that [Nilla was] a gang member." As a result, Officer Lewis, who had "concerns for [his] safety," decided to conduct a patsearch of Nilla to determine if he had any weapons.
Officer Peterson testified to the following: He heard Nilla identify himself as a "Northerner" and he asked Nilla and appellant to exit the car. Appellant was wearing a red baseball cap and a set of red rosary beads. "[G]ang members typically are ones known to carry potential weapons ...." Officer Peterson conducted a patsearch of appellant, during which he felt, in one of appellant's pants pockets, what the officer thought was a set of brass knuckles. He placed appellant in handcuffs, reached into appellant's pocket and removed what was, in fact, a set of brass knuckles.
In his moving papers, appellant argued suppression of evidence was required for two reasons. First, he argued, "there was no legal justification to detain [appellant]" because appellant "had nothing to do with" the basis for the vehicle stop or the warrant for the driver's arrest, and there was no evidence that appellant "was doing anything illegal or even suspicious." (Unnecessary capitalization omitted.) Second, he asserted that the patsearch conducted by Officer Peterson violated appellant's Fourth Amendmentrights because "there are no facts ... to support any objectively reasonable conclusion that [appellant] was armed." The People, in their opposition papers, disputed both points, arguing that both the detention and the patsearch were constitutionally reasonable. At the hearing on the suppression motion, defense counsel argued the second of his points and made no mention of the first.
(In re Raymond C. (2008) 45 Cal.4th 303, 307.) "The People have the burden to prove the detention was justified." (People v. Benites (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 309, 320.)
Appellant first argues that the vehicle stop in the instant case was constitutionally unreasonable—and that therefore all evidence discovered as result of the stop should have been suppressed—because the prosecution did not establish that Officer Lewis had reasonable cause to believe the driver of the car violated the law. Specifically, he notes that Officer Lewis's stated reason for stopping appellant's car—that the car "had yellow lights and not white lights, which is illegal"—does not establish the driver violated the law because Vehicle Code section 25950 provides: "The emitted light from all lamps ... visible from in front of a vehicle, shall be white or yellow ...." (Italics added.) Appellant may not raise this claim on appeal.
In People v. Williams (1999) 20 Cal.4th 119 (Williams), our Supreme Court examined the specificity with which a defendant must make a motion to suppressevidence pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5. "[W]hen the basis of a motion to suppress is a warrantless search or seizure, the requisite specificity is generally satisfied, in the first instance, if defendants simply assert the absence of a warrant and make a prima facie showing to support that assertion." (Williams, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 130.) Once the defendant meets the foregoing specificity requirement, "[t]he prosecution ... has the burden of proving some justification for the warrantless search or seizure ...." (Id. at p. 136.)
But, the court stated further, (Williams, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 130, italics added.) "Defendants cannot ... lay a trap for the prosecution by remaining completely silent until the appeal about issues the prosecution may have overlooked." (Id. at p. 131.) "Defendants who do not give the prosecution sufficient notice of [the] inadequacies [in the prosecution's proposed justification for a warrantless search or seizure] cannot raise the issue on appeal." (Id. at p. 136.) "'This is an elemental matter of fairness in giving each of the parties an opportunity to adequately litigate the facts and inferences relating to the adverse party's contentions.'" (Ibid.)
To the extent appellant challenged his detention in the proceeding below, he did so solely on the ground that his conduct did not provide a reasonable basis to conclude thathe was engaged in illegal activity. In the trial court, the People, in response to that contention, argued that appellant was a passenger in a car stopped for a Vehicle Code violation, and therefore the detention was lawful. Now for the first time, on appeal, appellant asserts, in effect, that he has "detect[ed] a critical gap in the prosecution's proof and/or "a flaw in [the prosecution's] legal analysis" (Williams, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 130), i.e., he claims the vehicle stop was unlawful. But appellant did not raise this point in the trial court. Therefore, because he was "completely silent until the appeal" (Id. at p. 131) on the legality of the vehicle stop, under Williams he may not urge this point on appeal.
Appellant argues that notwithstanding our Supreme Court's unqualified statement in Williams, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 136 that "Defendants who do not give the prosecution sufficient notice of [the] inadequacies [in the prosecution's proposed justification for a warrantless search or seizure] cannot raise the issue on appeal" (italics added), this court may, in its discretion, address appellant's challenge to the lawfulness of the vehicle stop, and should do so. (See People v. Williams (1998) 17 Cal.4th 148, 161, fn. 6 [...
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