People v. Racklin

• Decision Date: 19 May 2011
• Docket Number: Nos. A128857,A128858.,s. A128857
• Citation: 2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 7220,11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5993,124 Cal.Rptr.3d 735,195 Cal.App.4th 872
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Leroy RACKLIN, Defendant and Appellant.

195 Cal.App.4th 872

124 Cal.Rptr.3d 735

11 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5993

2011 Daily Journal D.A.R. 7220

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Leroy RACKLIN, Defendant and Appellant.

Nos. A128857, A128858.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

May 19, 2011.

Meredith J. Watts, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Seth K. Schalit, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Laurence K. Sullivan, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, for Respondent.

MARGULIES, J.

Defendant Leroy Racklin appeals from a judgment imposing a four-year term in state prison following the revocation of his probation. He contends the trial court erred in considering evidence in the revocation hearing of an admission elicited from him by police officers in violation of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694( Miranda ). We find the Miranda exclusionary rule does not apply in probation revocation proceedings, and defendant failed in any event to meet his burden of proving prejudice. We therefore affirm the judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Defendant's Drug Convictions

In exchange for the dismissal of various enhancement allegations and a three-year term of probation, defendant pleaded guilty to a charge of transportation and/or sale of cocaine base (Health & Saf.Code, § 11352, subd. (a)) in superior court case No. 202772. He was released on probation on September 10, 2007.

Following new arrests in September and October 2007, and the filing of new criminal charges on October 18, 2007 in superior court case No. 203741, the district attorney moved to revoke defendant's probation. On November 26, 2007, defendant admitted a probation violation in case No. 202772 and pleaded guilty to a felony sale of a substance falsely represented to be a controlled substance (Health & Saf.Code, § 11355) in case No. 203741. In return, the prosecution agreed to defendant's reinstatement on modified terms of probation in the old case, the dismissal of the enhancement allegations and a grant of a three-year term of probation in the new case, and a concurrent jail term condition of probation in each case. On January 9, 2008, the court imposed the probation terms and conditions per the agreement.

B. Contested Probation Violation

Defendant was arrested on July 25, 2008, after cocaine base weighing 30.67 grams was found in a probation search of his apartment. The district attorney moved for an order revoking defendant's probation. Probation was administratively revoked and defendant was remanded into the sheriff's custody pending a probation revocation hearing. At the revocation hearing on December 5, 2008, by stipulation, the People submitted their case-in-chief on the transcript of a preliminary hearing and reserved the right to call rebuttal witnesses.

On July 25, 2008, at 2:24 a.m., San Francisco Police Officer Antonio Carrasco and his partner, Officer Christopher Cotter, stopped their patrol car at the Neil Hotel on Mission Street. They approached defendant, who was with two other individuals, told him he was loitering, and asked if he was on probation or parole. Defendant told the officers he had a probation search condition, which the officers confirmed by performing a records check. Defendant also had a probation condition not to loiter in that area, which was notorious for cocaine base sales. Carrasco searched defendant's person and found nothing. Carrasco asked him why he was in the area, and defendant told him he lived at the Neil Hotel.

The officers accompanied defendant to a room in the hotel, which he confirmed was his, and produced a key to the room. In a probation search of the room the officers found a black bag containing three rocks weighing 30.67 grams, which later tested positive for cocaine base. When the drugs were found, Carrasco turned to defendant and asked, “ ‘Is this yours?’ ” Defendant responded, “ ‘Yes. They are.’ ” Defendant's girlfriend, Latenia Johnson, was in the room when police got there, but she was not questioned about the drugs.

Officer Cotter later read defendant his rights under Miranda at the police station, at which time he declined to make a statement. The magistrate overruled defendant's Miranda objection to Carrasco's testimony that he had admitted the narcotics were his. Defendant was held to answer on charges of felony possession of cocaine base for sale and misdemeanor contempt of a stay-away order. These criminal charges were ultimately dismissed after the prosecution elected to proceed only on the revocation motion.

The defense called Latenia Johnson at the revocation hearing. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself. The People and the court declined to grant her immunity from prosecution based on her testimony, and the court sustained her invocation of the privilege.

Defendant testified somebody had asked him for a cigarette as he was returning home from the store on the night in question. At that moment, the police arrived, jumped out of their vehicle, and proceeded to question him. He explained that his probation conditions included a “walk-though ... between 16th and 17th” Avenue, and that he was on his way inside his hotel where he lived when the police detained him. They handcuffed him, went through his pockets, and took him upstairs to his room where Johnson had been waiting for at least an hour while he was on his run to the store. She already had the door open when they arrived at his room.

The police ordered Johnson to “put [her] stuff down and step out [of] the room.” Defendant told the officers, “She doesn't live here with me,” but they insisted she step out of the room. Defendant watched as the police searched his room, including Johnson's purse that she left on top of the bed. Defendant testified they found some money and drugs in the purse, as well as a crack pipe, two lighters, and some single baggies. According to defendant, the police counted the money out and told him it was about $800 to $900. They kept asking him whose room it was, and whose money and drugs were in the purse. Defendant denied ever telling police the drugs were his. He remained in handcuffs during the questioning.

In rebuttal, Officer Cotter testified “a lot” of money was found in Johnson's purse. However, the drugs were found in a smaller black pouch, which the officers searched on the bed after seizing it from beneath the sink in the room. The officers showed the drugs to defendant, and asked him who they belonged to. He said, “They are mine.” Cotter confirmed defendant was later given a Miranda admonition, and declined to give a statement at that time.

C. The Trial Court's Rulings

At the conclusion of the revocation hearing, the court considered defendant's Miranda objection to the testimony that he admitted the drugs were his, which had been interposed following his testimony. The court agreed with defendant's claim he was in custody before he made the asserted admission, and should have been admonished earlier. It nonetheless found the Miranda objection was inapplicable in the revocation proceeding because the testimonydid not establish “a scenario that shocks the conscience.”

The court found no loitering violation, but did find a probation violation based on the 30 grams of cocaine base found in the room: “[H]aving read the preliminary hearing transcript in this case which had Officer Carrasco's testimony with regard to the incident and having heard the evidence today and operating, as I must, on the preponderance-of-evidence standard ..., I do find that by preponderance of the evidence, that this defendant is in violation of his probation.... [¶] [ ] I think the fact of the 30 grams of cocaine in the room that he admits is his room, that they have evidence is his room, and given his statements and given the circumstances of this, I think that the drugs in that room is sufficient to be a violation of the probation.”

D. Sentencing and Appeal

The court sentenced defendant to a four-year state prison term in superior court case No. 202772 and to a concurrent two-year prison term in superior court case No. 203741. These timely appeals followed. On defendant's motion, we have consolidated the appeals for purposes of briefing, oral argument, and decision.

II. DISCUSSION

Defendant contends the trial court prejudicially erred in determining the officers' Miranda violation did not compel the exclusion of the testimony that he admitted the drugs belonged to him. We reject defendant's position on two grounds. First, the exclusionary remedy for a Miranda violation applies in criminal trials, but not in probation revocation proceedings under both California and federal law. Second, defendant failed in any event to meet his burden of demonstrating the asserted Miranda error was prejudicial.

A. Applicable Legal Standards

Article I, section 28 of the California Constitution, enacted by initiative in June 1982, provides in relevant part as follows: “Except as provided by statute hereafter enacted by a two-thirds vote of the membership in each house of the Legislature, relevant evidence shall not be excluded in any criminal proceeding, including pretrial and post conviction motions and hearings....” (Cal. Const. art. I, § 28, subd. (f)(2), italics added.) This provision “was intended to permit [the] exclusion of relevant, but unlawfully obtained evidence, only if exclusion is required by the United States Constitution.” (In re Lance W. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 873, 890, 210 Cal.Rptr. 631, 694 P.2d 744( Lance W.), italics added.) Thus, under Proposition 8, “[F]ederal constitutional standards govern review of issues related to the suppression of evidence seized by the police.” ( People v. Rege (2005) 130 Cal.App.4th 1584, 1588, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d 922.) Absent statutory authorization, no evidence may be excluded as a remedy for a Fifth Amendment violation unless...