People v. Lawson

• Decision Date: 14 November 1969
• Docket Number: Cr. 7565
• Citation: 81 Cal.Rptr. 883,1 Cal.App.3d 729
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William LAWSON, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 883

81 Cal.Rptr. 883

1 Cal.App.3d 729

PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William LAWSON, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 7565.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 4, California.

Nov. 14, 1969.

Hearing Denied Jan. 8, 1970.

A. Wallace Tashima, San Francisco, under appointment of the Court of Appeal, for appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., Robert R. Granucci, Horace Wheatley, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for respondent.

DEVINE, Presiding Justice.

Appellant pleaded guilty to violation of section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code (possession of heroin). He had made a motion to suppress the evidence, which was denied, and therefore he is entitled to appellate review despite his plea of guilty. (Pen.Code, § 1538.5, subd. (m).)

On January 3, 1968, at approximately 2:15 a.m., four uniformed police officers went to the door of 102 Haight Street, San Francisco, in an attempt to locate one Sigmund Sprintz, who was known to one of the officers, Daniels, as a narcotics peddler and who was suspected as the perpetrator of a recently attempted murder and possible robbery. The officers had received information at about one a.m. from an untested informant that Sprintz was residing there. The informant said that he had seen Sprintz in the building on the afternoon of January 2. There was a teletype warrant out for Sprintz' arrest, and this was know to the officers. It was also known to the police that immediately following the crimes for which the warrant had been issued, witnesses had seen Sprintz entering the apartment at 102 Haight Street.

On January 3, 1968, the victim of the attempted murder was in critical condition at a hospital. The informant had told the police the 'exact apartment,' No. 102, where Sprintz was supposed to be living. The officers found, while they were checking for No. 102, that the apartments downstairs in the building were not numbered. The officers suspected that Sprintz would be there at the time of their visit. They were not looking for appellant Lawson.

The officers rang the door bell and one Thomas Mitchell answered. Officer Daniels told Mitchell that he would like to speak to the owner of the apartment and Mitchell said 'O.K.' and turned and walked upstairs; the officers followed him. The police asked Mitchell what he was doing on the premises and he replied that he was visiting. They made no further inquiry quiry of him. Officer Daniels testified: 'We didn't known it was a flat at that time. We thought it was more apartments like the lower level, so we followed him upstairs into the apartments.' Actually the downstairs seems to have consisted of several apartments but the upstairs was a flat. Mitchell went straight ahead into the kitchen and the police followed him. Mitchell started called for 'Bill' or 'Bill Love' (a name sometimes used by appellant). He called in the direction of the bedroom, the door of which was open. Officer Daniels saw appellant lying on a bed and saw a ballon and a spoon, which the officer recognized as narcotics paraphernalia. Appellant jumped up from the bed, demanded a search warrant, and attempted to close the door. The officer pushed open the door and arrested appellant. A search was made, and in a coin-type purse which was in a cabinet of the bed's head-board a yellow ballon was found which contained heroin.

It is convenient to discuss the seizure of the evidence and the events which preceded it in reverse chronological order. The search and finding of the heroin in the purse were incident to the arrest and are not rendered unlawful by Chimel v. California (1966) 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, because the Chimel holding is not retroactive. (People v. Edwards, 71 A.C. 1141, 80 Cal.Rptr. 633, 458 P.2d 713.) Next, as to the entry of the bedroom from the kitchen: there was nothing unlawful about this particular entry because the objects which are customarily used in the administering of narcotics were in plain sight. What is in plain...