People v. Lopez
| Decision Date | 25 November 2019 |
| Docket Number | S238627 |
| Citation | 453 P.3d 150,8 Cal.5th 353,255 Cal.Rptr.3d 526 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Maria Elena LOPEZ, Defendant and Respondent. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Joshua A. Klein, Deputy State Solicitor General, Catherine Chatman, Rachelle A. Newcomb, R. Todd Marshall and Larenda R. Delaini, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Solomon Wollack, Pleasant Hill, CA, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Respondent.
Emily A. Rehm, Michael M. Epstein and Rachel E. Vanlandingham, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.
Acting on an anonymous tip about a motorist’s erratic driving, a police officer approached defendant Maria Elena Lopez after she parked and exited her car. When the officer asked if she had a driver’s license, she said she did not. Police then detained her for unlicensed driving and, without asking her name, searched the car for Lopez’s personal identification. They found methamphetamine in a purse sitting on the front passenger’s seat.
The trial court held the search was invalid under Arizona v. Gant (2009) 556 U.S. 332, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 ( Gant ), which narrowed the scope of permissible warrantless vehicle searches incident to a driver’s arrest. The Court of Appeal reversed. It held that the search was authorized under this court’s pre- Gant decision in In re Arturo D. (2002) 27 Cal.4th 60, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 581, 38 P.3d 433 ( Arturo D. ), which allowed police to conduct warrantless vehicle searches for personal identification documents at traffic stops when the driver failed to provide a license or other personal identification upon request.
We granted review to consider the application and continuing validity of the Arturo D. rule in light of subsequent legal developments. At the time Arturo D. was decided, no other state or federal court had recognized an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement for suspicionless traffic-stop vehicle searches. The same holds true today; California remains the only state to have recognized such an exception. Considering the issue in light of more recent decisions from both the United States Supreme Court and our sister states, we now conclude that the desire to obtain a driver’s identification following a traffic stop does not constitute an independent, categorical exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. To the extent Arturo D. held otherwise, we conclude that rule should no longer be followed. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for further proceedings.
On the morning of July 4, 2014, City of Woodland Police Officer Jeff Moe responded to an anonymous tip concerning erratic driving. The tip described the car, a dark-colored Toyota, and the area in which it was driving. Unable to locate the vehicle, Officer Moe asked dispatch to run a computer search of the license plate, then drove by the address where the car was registered. Not seeing the vehicle, he resumed his duties.
Around 1:30 p.m., Officer Moe received a second anonymous report concerning the same car. The tipster identified the car’s location and asserted the driver, whom the tipster identified as "Marlena," "had been drinking all day." Again unable to locate the car, Officer Moe returned to the address where the car was registered. This time, he parked and waited. A few minutes later, defendant Maria Elena Lopez drove up and parked in front of the house.
Moe did not observe any traffic violations or erratic driving. But believing the driver to be "Marlena," Officer Moe approached the car. Moe testified at the suppression hearing that Lopez saw him, looked nervous, got out of the car, and began walking away from him. Moe did not smell alcohol or note any other signs of intoxication. But because he "wanted to know what her driving status was based on the allegations earlier, plus [he] wanted to identify who she was," Moe asked Lopez if she had a driver’s license. Lopez said that she did not. Without asking Lopez for her name or other identifying information, Moe detained her by placing her in a control hold. When Lopez tried to pull away, Moe handcuffed her.
Officer Moe then asked Lopez "if she had ... any identification possibly within the vehicle." When Lopez responded "there might be," a second officer on the scene opened the passenger door, retrieved a small purse from the passenger seat, and handed it to Moe. Moe then searched the purse and found a baggie containing methamphetamine in a side pocket.
Lopez was charged with misdemeanor violations of possessing methamphetamine ( Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a) ) and driving when her license to drive had been suspended or revoked ( Veh. Code, § 14601.2, subd. (a) ). She filed a motion to suppress evidence ( Pen. Code, § 1538.5, subd. (a)(1) ), arguing she had been unlawfully detained and her purse unlawfully searched.
The trial court granted the suppression motion. The court concluded the initial contact between Lopez and Officer Moe after she exited her vehicle was consensual. Once Lopez told Moe she did not have a license, the officer also had probable cause to detain and arrest her for driving without a valid license. (See Veh. Code, § 12500, subd. (a) [].) But the trial court concluded that the ensuing search of Lopez’s vehicle was invalid because neither of the justifications for conducting a vehicle search incident to arrest under Gant , supra , 556 U.S. 332, 129 S.Ct. 1710, was present. Gant held that a vehicle search incident to arrest is justified only if it is reasonable to believe the suspect can gain access to weapons inside the vehicle or that evidence of the offense of arrest might be found inside the vehicle. ( Id. at p. 335, 129 S.Ct. 1710.) Here, Lopez was handcuffed at the rear of her car when the search took place and could not reach any weapons inside the car. Nor was there any likelihood a search of the car would produce evidence of Lopez’s driving without a license in her possession.1 With the evidence suppressed, the trial court dismissed the case.
The Court of Appeal reversed the suppression ruling. The appellate court explained that Gant was not applicable because Lopez had not been formally arrested, only detained, at the time of the search. ( People v. Lopez (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 815, 827–828, 208 Cal.Rptr.3d 838.) The authority for the search was therefore not the search incident to arrest exception at issue in Gant , but the traffic-stop identification-search exception recognized in Arturo D ., supra , 27 Cal.4th 60, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 581, 38 P.3d 433. ( Lopez , at pp. 825–826, 208 Cal.Rptr.3d 838.) Once Lopez told Officer Moe that she did not have a driver’s license, Officer Moe had cause to believe Lopez had driven without a license in violation of the Vehicle Code. ( Id. at p. 825, 208 Cal.Rptr.3d 838 ; see Veh. Code, § 12500, subd. (a).) Under Arturo D. , the police were then permitted to search Lopez’s vehicle for other forms of identification in order to ensure that any citation and notice to appear for the Vehicle Code violation reflected Lopez’s true identity. ( Lopez , at p. 826, 208 Cal.Rptr.3d 838.) If Arturo D. "is still good law," the Court of Appeal concluded, "the search in this case was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." ( Lopez , at p. 825, 208 Cal.Rptr.3d 838.)
We granted review.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." In general, a law enforcement officer is required to obtain a warrant before conducting a search. ( Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton (1995) 515 U.S. 646, 653, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 132 L.Ed.2d 564.) Warrantless searches "are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." ( Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, fns. omitted; accord, People v. Redd (2010) 48 Cal.4th 691, 719, 108 Cal.Rptr.3d 192, 229 P.3d 101 [].) Whether a particular kind of search is exempt from the warrant requirement ordinarily depends on whether, under the relevant circumstances, law enforcement’s need to search outweighs the invasion of individual privacy. ( Riley v. California (2014) 573 U.S. 373, 385, 134 S.Ct. 2473, 189 L.Ed.2d 430 ; Delaware v. Prouse (1979) 440 U.S. 648, 654, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 ; Camara v. Municipal Court (1967) 387 U.S. 523, 536–537, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930.)
In Arturo D. , supra , 27 Cal.4th 60, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 581, 38 P.3d 433, we considered the existence and scope of an exception permitting officers to conduct a warrantless vehicle search when a driver pulled over for a traffic infraction is unable to produce the required documentation in response to an officer’s request. Arturo D. involved two consolidated cases in which law enforcement officers had detained drivers for traffic infractions and the drivers could produce neither a driver’s license nor the vehicle’s registration in response to the officers’ requests. In one case, the officer entered the defendant’s truck and reached under the driver’s seat. The officer did not locate any relevant documents but did discover a box that later was found to contain methamphetamine. In the other case, the officer entered the defendant’s car and looked first in the glove compartment and then under the front passenger seat, finding a wallet that contained a baggie of methamphetamine. ( Arturo D. , at pp. 65–67, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 581, 38 P.3d 433.)
Arturo D. upheld both searches. The opinion concluded that when a driver has been detained for a traffic infraction and fails...
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