People v. Mandola
| Decision Date | 20 March 1967 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 12274 |
| Citation | 57 Cal.Rptr. 737,249 Cal.App.2d 599 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Phillip MANDOLA, Defendant and Appellant. |
Donald S. Emmer, Los Angeles, under appointment by Court of Appeal, for appellant.
Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., S. Clark Moore. Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.
Defendant was found guilty of two counts of receiving stolen property. Probation was denied and he was sentenced to concurrent terms in the state prison. He appeals.
On the nignt of November 6, 1965 the Robert Larner Medical Group premises were broken into and among the items found missing the next morning was a check protector. Another burglary took place on the same premises on the night of November 27, 1965. Among the items found missing the next morning was a Monroe calculator.
Sometime thereafter Officer Cron went to an apartment at 280 South Bixel to serve a misdemeanor warrant on defendant Mandola. His knock was answered by Mandola, but when the officer inquired whether anyone by that name lived in the apartment, Mandola said 'No,' he was just visiting and his name was Hough. Mandola appeared nervous. Asked to produce some writing whih would show the name of the person renting the apartment, Mandola then admitted that he was the person named on the warrant. Cron told him he would have to come with him. Mandola put on his shoes. He then said 'I will have to get my coat' and stepped toward the officer who was standing next to a closet door. Cron opened the door, but Mandola pointed to a coat which was on a chair. Cron handed him the coat. As they left the apartment he noticed a large adding machine on the floor of the closet. He asked Mandola about the machine. Mandola said he had never seen it before in his life. The officer then opened the closet fully. In addition to the Monroe adding machine he observed a 'posting machine' and a Thermofax reproducing machine. He then put the defendant under arrest, informed him of his constitutional rights 1 and took himt to the police vehicle where he left him with his partner.
Cron then returned to the apartment and conducted a complete search which turned up various other articles not germane to this appeal. At the police station Mandola claimed that he had obtained the articles found in his apartment from a Mexican in a downtown bar for $75.00. In a later statement he lowered the price to $50.00.
The apartment where Mandola was arrested had been originally rented to a codefendant--Hough--but Mandola had been seen there on several occasions, having apparently moved in at some point.
Two days after his arrest Mandola was interviewed by Officer Shelburne. He repeated his story about having purchased the articles from a Mexican for $75.00. He denied having committed any burglaries and said 'that the only thing he was guilty of, was receiving stolen property.' He said that certain items, among which was the check protector, were stored in the basement of the apartment house in question.
The next day Officer Shelburne visited the apartment house and on request the manager took him to the basement where the check protector was found.
At the trial, where the evidence was submitted on the transcript of the preliminary hearing, objection was made to the introduction of all items seized at the apartment house. The basis for the objection was that they had been obtained as the result of an exploratory search. The objection was sustained as to all items but photographs of a Monroe calculator and the check protector.
The only contention on appeal is that the initial 'search' of the closet was illegal. We assume that if it had been, the balance of the items discovered would come under the heading of 'fruit of the poisonous tree.' At the preliminary hearing the question of the officer's motivation in opening the closet was investigated at some length. The key questions and answers were the following:
It will be recalled that Officer Cron did not take any immediate advantage of the fact that there was an open closet door. It just happened that as he and Mandola left the apartment, he noticed the adding machine in the closet.
In upholding the seizure we can do no better than Judge Auerbach, the magistrate who answered defense counsel's argument at the preliminary hearing as follows:
'When the officer was persistent, he finally acquiesced, admitted his identity.
'He apparently was not fully prepared to be arrested, and so he was in the apartment.
'When the officer came into this apartment, he had a perfect right to take every safeguard to protect himself because it is very frequently when you arrest somebody, he wants to go into another room to change his clothes, or put his effects in order; the officer does not know what might be in the other room; he doesn't know whether somebody else might be lurking in some other room, and might constitute a hazard to him.
'He has a right at every stage that he is trying to make an arrest, especially upon a warrant, to protect himself.
'This officer hadn't the faintest notion of what might be in that room, and was not looking around.
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People v. Marshall
...257 A.C.A. 401, 406, 64 Cal.Rptr. 888; People v. Allison (1967) 249 Cal.App.2d 653, 656, 57 Cal.Rptr. 635; People v. Mandola (1967) 249 Cal.App.2d 599, 604, 57 Cal.Rptr. 737; People v. Jolke (1966) 242 Cal.App.2d 132, 148, 51 Cal.Rptr. 171; People v. Davis (1961) 188 Cal.App.2d 718, 723, 10......
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People v. Walker
...the glove compartment himself, rather than to risk the possibility that defendant would pull a weapon out of it. (See People v. Mandola (1967) 249 Cal.App.2d 599, 602--603), 57 Cal.Rptr. When the glove compartment was opened the revolvers were in plain view. Carrying such weapons concealed ......