People v. Montes

• Decision Date: 03 December 1956
• Docket Number: Cr. 5687
• Citation: 146 Cal.App.2d 530,303 P.2d 1064
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Gilbert Manuel MONTES, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 1064

303 P.2d 1064

146 Cal.App.2d 530

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Gilbert Manuel MONTES, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 5687.

District Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 2, California.

Dec. 3, 1956.

John H. Marshall and Harold J. Ackerman, Los Angeles, for appellant, by John H. Marshall, Los Angeles.

Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Doris H. Maier, J. M. Sanderson, Deputy Attys. Gen., for respondent.

MOORE, Presiding Justice.

Convicted of having possession of marijuana, Health and Safety Code, § 11500, and of a prior conviction, a misdemeanor, defendant appeals from the judgment and from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

The Narcotics Detail of the Sheriff's Office having been informed by a reliable, confidential person that appellant was dealing in and using heroin and marijuana, placed the latter's home under surveillance on January 11, 1956, about six thirty in the evening. He was on his premises. Officer Vega observed a coupe arrive at the home; saw appellant enter his back door, return to the car, contact its occupant and give him a package. At 7:10 p. m. appellant contacted parties in a sedan. He entered his house, returned and gave some object to the occupants of that car also.

The officers recessed from their watch and pursued both automobiles. As they approached the coupe, a package containing marijuana was thrown from that vehicle. When they searched the sedan, two brown paper bags of marijuana were found. The officers returned at 7:45 p. m. At that time as appellant arrived in a station wagon, they placed him under arrest and searched the house and the premises outside. They found no narcotics in abundance, but in a box, within a drawer of a kitchen cabinet they found a druggist's scale containing fragments of marijuana. About twenty feet from the back door they found a vial containing the same narcotic. The officers had twice observed appellant near the spot where the vial was found, to wit, when the coupe and the sedan separately entered his premises. Appellant admitted the scale belonged to him and testified that no one had used it except his thirteen-year-old son.

Appellant contends that the vial and the scale were not properly admissible for the reason that they were fruits of an illegal search; also, that if properly received, the evidence was insufficient.

The search of appellant's premises and the seizure of the scale and vial were not illegal. They were incidental to a lawful arrest. Officer Vega knew appellant as a narcotic addict. His informant concerning Montes' recent activities was known to the officer to be reliable. Previous arrests had been justifiably made after acting upon this informant's advice. Before they had watched appellant's home an hour, two callers had driven into appellant's driveway and that occupants of both conveyances contacted him under suspicious circumstances. Each visiting car was followed by the officers. From one a package of marijuana was thrown to the ground; in the other on the front seat were two packages of the same leafy substance.

A valid arrest may be made solely by reason of information communicated by a reliable informant. People v. Gonzales, 141 Cal.App.2d 604, 297 P.2d 50; Trowbridge v. Superior Court, 144 Cal.App.2d 13, 300 P.2d 222. Furthermore, the officers had observed the behavior of appellant as the visitors in the two automobiles arrived and later found both cars bore away packages of marijuana. Such evidences afforded reasonable ground for the search of the premises as well as for the arrest of appellant. The arrest was valid and the search was incidental thereto. Willson v. Superior Court, 46 Cal.2d 291, 295, 294 P.2d 36.

Appellant contends that the search was unlawful in that it continued through the night of January 12 and for a part of the next day. The constitutional guaranty contains no specification against a continued search. It a search is authorized by either a search warrant or by information of a reliable informant that a felony has been or is being committed, an officer may, under circumstances such as occurred in this case, continue reasonably to explore every avenue that may lead to a discovery of the contraband article. Where the officer believes from reliable evidence that an arrestee has become a chronic culprit, and possesses evidence of his crime, no pains should be spared to uncover the object of his endeavors.

Neither is the search of a home unreasonable because the wife the children are present and witness the conduct of the officers. A man's family is a part of him. When he...