People v. Solomon

• Decision Date: 19 November 1969
• Docket Number: Cr. 3557
• Citation: 1 Cal.App.3d 907,82 Cal.Rptr. 215
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. David Harold SOLOMON, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 215

82 Cal.Rptr. 215

1 Cal.App.3d 907

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. David Harold SOLOMON, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 3557.

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

Nov. 19, 1969.

Hearing Denied Jan. 14, 1970.

Norbert Ehrenfreund, San Diego, of Defenders, Inc., under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for defendant and appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., Elizabeth Miller and Melvin R. Segal, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

OPINION

GERALD BROWN, Presiding Justice.

David Harold Solomon appeals a judgment, after jury trial, convicting him of kidnapping (Pen.Code § 207) and second degree robbery (Pen.Code § 211).

About 3:30 a.m., January 22, 1968, in Imperial Beach, Solomon and two juvenile male companions he had met in Tijuana stopped a car driven by Pamela Knox by angling Solomon's car in front of her's, blocking its way. One of Solomon's companions asked Miss Knox for money. She said she had none. Solomon left the wheel of his car, told his companion to return to his car, told Miss Knox he had a knife, told her to move over in the seat and struck her on the cheek with his fist. He entered the car and drove two or three blocks. His companions followed in Solomon's car. Solomon demanded money. Miss Knox gave him a dollar saying it was all she had.

Solomon stopped Miss Knox's car. One of the boys came over from Solomon's car and Solomon handed him the dollar, instructing him to 'put this in the gas tank and then follow us.'

Miss Knox opened the car door. Solomon grabbed her, holding on as she got out. She screamed, Solomon put his hand over her mouth and knocked her to the sidewalk. A light came on in a nearby house. Solomon departed in his car with his companions.

Miss Knox went to the lighted house where its owners, Mr. and Mrs. Craft, took her in and called the police. Miss Knox told the Crafts what had happened.

Within an hour, Solomon and his companions hailed a policeman in Coronado asking him where they might find an open gas station. The officer had heard a radio report of Miss Knox's robbery describing the suspects as one block and two white adults in a dark green Mustang car. Solomon is black, his companions white and his car a dark green Mercury Cougar. The officer told Solomon to follow him to the police station where he could get them some gas. Solomon followed the officer to the police station where he and his companions were arrested and held as suspects in the kidnapping and robbery of Miss Knox.

In the course of pre-trial hearings, the court below ruled Solomon's arrest was illegal and a confession he made after arrest was suppressed. Miss Knox viewed Solomon and his companions at the station. She identified Solomon and one of his companions as the ones who had accosted her in Imperial Beach. The trial court ruled the line-up was illegal, impermissibly suggestive and forbade evidence of her pre-trial identification. The court also disallowed any in-trial identification of Solomon by the victim.

On appeal, Solomon contends the court should not have allowed fingerprint evidence matching his prints to those the police found on the left front window of Miss Knox's car. He argues the police took his prints following an arrest judicially declared to be illegal, thus during an illegal detention and in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. However, the prints of Solomon's fingers which were matched with the prints on the victim's car at trial were taken from Solomon at the jail after he had been bound over for trial at a preliminary hearing and arraigned. Solomon's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when the police took samples of his fingerprints during a judicially authorized detention. (See Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 1398, 22 L.Ed.2d 676.)

Solomon contends the court should not have allowed his two juvenile companions to testify because it was by 'unlawful police conduct' the identity of the boys was learned and because the boys gave statements under allegedly coercive conditions after they were arrested. The trial court ruled the detention of the boys, during which their names were learned, was legal as the officer had probable cause to detain them for investigation. When the police learned their names and ages during this investigation they had probable cause to arrest the juveniles for violating curfew. Circumstances short of probable cause for an arrest may justify temporary detention for investigation and questioning. (People v. Mickelson, 59 Cal.2d 448, 450, 30 Cal.Rptr. 18, 380 P.2d 658; People v. Manis, 268 A.C.A. 709,...