People v. Rodriguez

• Decision Date: 10 October 2006
• Docket Number: No. B186661.,B186661.
• Citation: 143 Cal.App.4th 1137,49 Cal.Rptr.3d 811
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Guillermo RODRIGUEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

49 Cal.Rptr.3d 811

143 Cal.App.4th 1137

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Guillermo RODRIGUEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

No. B186661.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 7.

October 10, 2006.

Jonathan B. Steiner and Richard L. Fitzer, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, Los Angeles, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Jaime L. Fuster and Lance E. Winters, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

JOHNSON, J.

The issue in this case is whether evidence seized in a lawful search incident to a lawful arrest based upon an outstanding warrant should be suppressed if the police invented the ground for the traffic stop which led to the discovery of the warrant. The trial court ruled it did not need to decide whether the police made up their claim the defendant's car had a "burnt out" right brake light because any taint arising from the alleged unlawful stop was dissipated by the discovery of the arrest warrant prior to the search.

If it indeed happened, fabricating the grounds for a traffic stop and repeating this fabrication under oath at a suppression hearing "strikes at the very core of our system of law."¹ The subsequent discovery of lawful grounds to arrest and search the defendant does not dissipate the taint of such a flagrant violation of the defendant's constitutional rights and society's necessary trust in its law enforcement officials. Nor is this violation, if it occurred, one for which the suppression of evidence is too drastic a remedy. Quite the opposite is true. Failing to invoke the most drastic remedy available to a court would have the effect of legitimizing deceitful conduct on the part of the police and permitting them to conduct a traffic stop for any reason or no reason at all in contravention of leading United States and California Supreme Court opinions.² Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment and remand the cause to the trial court to rehear defendant's suppression motion and make a factual determination as to whether at the time of the traffic stop defendant's car had a burnt out brake light as the officers claim, or if they could reasonably believe it was burnt out.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

Two Bell Gardens police detectives assigned to the gang and narcotics unit stopped a car driven by Guillermo Rodriguez because of an allegedly "burnt out" brake light.³ There is no evidence the officers issued Rodriguez a traffic citation. Instead they ran a warrant check and found an outstanding no-bail warrant for Rodriguez's arrest. After taking Rodriguez into custody on the warrant the officers searched the car and discovered a bag containing methamphetamine. Rodriguez was subsequently charged with possession for sale, and transportation of, a controlled substance.

At the hearing on Rodriguez's motion to suppress evidence of the drugs his employer testified without contradiction that when he picked up Rodriguez's car at the police impound lot three days after the arrest both tail lights and brake lights were operational.

The trial court declined to make a factual determination as to whether the car's tail lights and brake lights were working when the police stopped Rodriguez. The court stated it found "the existence of the outstanding warrant is a sufficient basis to support the search, so the motion to suppress is denied."

After the trial court denied his motion to suppress, Rodriguez pled no contest to the charges. The trial court entered a judgment of conviction and signed a certificate of probable cause. Rodriguez filed a timely appeal.

DISCUSSION

I. IF THE EVIDENCE IN THIS CASE WAS OBTAINED THROUGH AN UNLAWFUL TRAFFIC STOP THE EVIDENCE MUST BE SUPPRESSED.

In Wong Sun v. United States⁴ the United States Supreme Court made it clear not all evidence discovered after an illegal arrest or detention must be suppressed. Although it ruled the evidence against one of the defendants in Wong Sun must be suppressed the court stated it was not holding "all evidence is `fruit of the poisonous tree' simply because it would not have come to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question in such a case is `whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.'"⁵

The concept of purging the taint "attempts to mark the point at which the detrimental consequences of illegal police action become so attenuated the deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule no longer justifies its costs."⁶ A decision whether to suppress evidence seized after an unlawful detention followed by a lawful arrest involves a balancing of the need to deter police conduct which results in a person's illegal detention with the state's legitimate interest in enforcing outstanding arrest warrants. "The question is whether the evidence was obtained by the government's exploitation of the illegality or whether the illegality has become attenuated so as to dissipate the taint."⁷ Relevant factors in this attenuation analysis "include the temporal proximity of the Fourth Amendment violation to the procurement of the challenged evidence, the presence of intervening circumstances and the flagrancy of the official misconduct."⁸ These factors have been applied in virtually every federal and state case involving a search following an alleged unlawful traffic stop.⁹

Applying this test to the present case the first and second factors cancel each other out. Although there is no evidence as to how long it took the officers to run the warrant check in this case, as a general rule these checks take only a few minutes. Furthermore, nothing happened in the time between the stop and the discovery of the warrant which changed the dynamics of the situation in a way one can say "purged" the stop of its alleged illegality. Thus the relatively short time between Rodriguez's detention and the search weighs in favor of suppression.¹⁰ On the other hand discovery of the outstanding warrant for Rodriguez's arrest was clearly a significant "intervening circumstance."¹¹ Thus, assuming the traffic stop was unlawful, the decision whether to suppress the resulting evidence turns on the "flagrancy of the official misconduct."

The prosecution usually prevails on the "flagrancy" factor because even if the constable blundered in determining he had a valid reason to detain the defendant there is rarely evidence "the constable crumbled hallowed protections due the accused."¹² This case is different, however. Here there is credible evidence the officers may have invented a justification for the traffic stop in order to have an excuse to run warrant checks on the driver and passenger. As Rodriguez's employer testified, when he picked up the car from the impound lot three days after Rodriguez's arrest the brake lights and tail lights were in working order. It is also worth noting the Bell Gardens police who stopped Rodriguez were not patrol officers—whose duties normally include enforcing traffic laws—but detectives assigned to the gang and narcotics unit—whose duties would not normally include issuing citations for minor traffic offenses. Finally, there is the undisputed fact the officers did not issue Rodriguez a citation for the broken brake light. By this analysis, we do not mean to imply we believe the officers in this case cooked up a reason to stop Rodriguez in order to investigate possible drug or gang activity. This is a question of fact for the trial court to determine on remand. Our point is that a material question of fact exists as to the legality of the stop and the trial court must resolve it.¹³

In discussing the three factors relevant to an inquiry under Wong Sun the United States Supreme Court singled out as "particularly" important "the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct[.]"¹⁴ It is difficult to imagine a more flagrant example of official misconduct than perjury by a police officer. As our Supreme Court has stated: "Perjury is qualitatively different from ordinary search and seizure or Miranda violations. It `involve[s] a corruption of the truth-seeking function of the trial process.'"¹⁵ The court spelled out its reasons for holding "[p]erjury by law enforcement officials is particularly pernicious."¹⁶ "Our entire criminal justice system," the court stated, "is built around the belief, and necessity, that law enforcement officers will testify truthfully. Courts generally believe the testimony of such persons rather than that of the accused[.] Deliberate, cynical perjury by law enforcement officials strikes at the very core of our system of law. It manipulates and thereby perverts the entire judicial process."¹⁷

It could be argued the perjury in this case, if there was perjury, did not occur at the time the detectives stopped defendant's vehicle but at the suppression hearing months later and therefore was too attenuated to count as a factor in the suppression determination. We do not find this argument persuasive. The Fourth Amendment contemplates the officer conducting a search or seizure will be able to justify it when called upon by a magistrate to do so. If the seizure is to take place under a warrant the officer is called upon to provide a justification in an affidavit presented to a neutral magistrate. No one would dispute perjury in a search warrant affidavit regarding the facts establishing probable cause would justify suppression of the evidence seized under the warrant. United States v. Leon so held.¹⁸ In the case of a warrantless seizure the suppression hearing is the equivalent of the affidavit for a warrant as it is the first opportunity for the officer to present his justification for the seizure and for a review of that justification...