People v. Stoner

• Citation: 422 P.2d 585,65 Cal.2d 595,55 Cal.Rptr. 897
• Decision Date: 26 January 1967
• Docket Number: Cr. 10153
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 422 P.2d 585 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joseph Lyle STONER, Defendant and Appellant. In Bank

Page 897

55 Cal.Rptr. 897

65 Cal.2d 595, 422 P.2d 585

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joseph Lyle STONER, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 10153.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Jan. 26, 1967.

Robert L. Kern, Covina, under appointment by Supreme Court, for defendant and appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., and David S. Sperber, Deputy Atty. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

TRAYNOR, Chief Justice.

Defendant's conviction of robbery in the first degree (Pen.Code, §§ 211, 211a) was reversed by the United States Supreme Court on the ground that illegally seized evidence was admitted at his trial. (Stoner v. State of California, 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856.) Upon retrial, defendant was again convicted of robbery in the first degree. He appeals from the judgment.

At 8 p.m. on October 25, 1960, two men, one with a gun, entered the Budget Town Market in Monrovia and ordered David Greeley, a clerk at the checkout counter, to put the money from the cash register in a paper bag. They forced Greeley and another clerk to lie on the floor and then left. When the police arrived, Greeley told them that the man with the gun was wearing a gray sweater or jacket, gray pants, a gray shirt, a gray work hat, and horn-rimmed glasses, and was holding a gray .45 caliber automatic.

The day after the robbery, a person who lived next door to the Budget Town Market found a checkbook in her yard, which she gave to the manager of the market, who in turn gave it to the police. Using the account number printed on the checks, the investigating officers obtained defendant's name and discovered that he had previously been convicted of murder and robbery. They showed a photograph of defendant to the clerks at the store and received a tentative identification of him as the man who had held the gun. The officers then went to the Mayfair Hotel where they believed defendant was staying. When the night clerk told them that defendant must be out because his room key was in his mailbox, the officers explained that they were trying to find defendant to arrest him on suspicion of robbery and asked permission to enter his room. The clerk took the officers to the room, unlocked the door and admitted them. The officers searched the room and found a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, several gray sweaters and jackets, and a gray .45 caliber automatic.

On Saturday, October 29, defendant was arrested in Las Vegas and waived extradition. Although the investigating officers from Monrovia arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday night, they did not begin the return trip immediately because they wished to determine whether defendant's confederate was also in town. On Monday, October 31, the officers brought defendant to California. At his request, they stopped in Pomona so that he might talk to his parole officer. They then took him to the Temple City jail where he spent the night. On Tuesday morning defendant appeared in a showup and was told to put on the glasses, a sweater that had been taken from his room, and a hat. Greeley identified him at this time as the robber who had held the gun. Later that morning the investigating officers interrogated defendant and obtained an oral confession. Shortly after noon he was brought before a magistrate and arraigned.

At defendant's first trial, the various items taken from his hotel room were introduced into evidence. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed the judgment of conviction, holding that these items were inadmissible on the ground that the police had violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution when they searched defendant's room. At defendant's second trial, the prosecution did not introduce any of the items that the police found in defendant's hotel room. It relied primarily on defendant's oral confession and Greeley's courtroom identification. Defendant took the stand and denied that he had committed the robbery. His former sister-in-law testified that defendant was at her house at 8 p.m. on the night of October 25, 1960.

Defendant contends that the trial court erred in admitting the confession into evidence on the ground that it is a product of the illegal search and seizure and was therefore 'a fruit of the poisonous tree.' (Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341, 60 S.Ct. 266, 268, 84 L.Ed. 307; see Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 391--392, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319.)

In Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 475, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441, the United States Supreme Court considered statements of a defendant made after the police had unlawfully entered his home and illegally arrested him. It held that once the 'verbal evidence * * * derives so immediately' from the misconduct, it must be excluded. This court has excluded extrajudicial statements of the victim of an illegal search and seizure when it appeared that the statements were induced or impelled by the unlawful acts. (People v. Bilderbach 62 Cal.2d 757, 768, 44 Cal.Rptr. 313, 401 P.2d 921; see People v. Dixon, 46 Cal.2d 456, 458, 296 P.2d 557; People v. Macias, 180 Cal.App.2d 193, 197--198, 4 Cal.Rptr. 256.) In other jurisdictions extrajudicial statements are excluded when they are 'the product' of (People v. Rodriguez, 11 N.Y.2d 279, 286, 229 N.Y.S.2d 353, 357, 183 N.E.2d 651, 653) or obtained 'under the compulsion of the things so seized' (Takahashi v. United States (9th Cir.) 143 F.2d 118, 122; see Commonwealth v. Spofford, 343 Mass. 703, 707--708, 180 N.E.2d 673, 676; People v. Bilderbach, supra, 62 Cal.2d at 767--768, 44 Cal.Rptr. 313, 401 P.2d 921; Broeder, Wong Sun v. United States: A Study in Faith and Hope (1963) 42 Neb.L.Rev. 483, 548).

Although there is conflicting testimony as to the details of what occurred between the time of defendant's arrest and his confession, the uncontradicted facts (see People v. Trout, 54 Cal.2d 576, 583, 6 Cal.Rptr. 759, 354 P.2d 231, 80 A.L.R.2d 1418; People v. Berve, 51 Cal.2d 286, 290, 332 P.2d 97) compel exclusion of the confession as a fruit of the illegal search and seizure. Officer Collins, one of the investigating officers from Monrovia, testified that when he and his partner arrived in Las Vegas, they told defendant that he was suspected of robbing the Budget Town Market and that his room at the Mayfair Hotel had been entered. The officer recalled that they told defendant their reasons for accusing him of the crime but he could not remember whether they had specifically informed defendant that a gun, eyeglasses, and cothing similar to those seen by witnesses to the robbery had been taken from defendant's room and that he had been tentatively identified as one of the robbers from his photograph. It was 'possible' that they 'might have' mentioned all these details to their prisoner. Either in Las Vegas or on the trip back to Monrovia, defendant told the officers that he wished to talk to his parole officer in Pomona. The officers called ahead to make an appointment. Defendant and his parole officer met in the Pomona jail on Monday afternoon and discussed the possibility that defendant's parole would be revoked because a gun had been found in his room. Upon leaving the jail, the parole officer told the investigating officers that defendant should have time to think since he was considering whether or not to make various admissions.

Sometime on Monday, defendant requested permission to telephone his wife. According to defendant, the officers told him that he could not telephone anyone and especially not his wife. When he repeated his request, they told him that he could talk with his relatives after he confessed. Officer Collins testified that he told defendant that he preferred that defendant not telephone his wife since she might alert his confederate in the crime and that at no time did he forbid defendant from making a telephone call although he certainly wished to keep him out of contact with the outside world so that defendant could think about making a confession. On Monday night, defendant's wife telephoned the police station. An officer told her that the Temple City jail had no facilities for visiting with the prisoners and that she could talk to her husband at the arraignment on the following day.

On Tuesday morning, at an interrogation that followed the showup, defendant confessed to having participated in the robbery. He testified that before he confessed the officers showed him his gun and glasses and told him that if he confessed no charges would be pressed and he would be returned to prison only for violating the conditions of his parole. Officer Collins testified that no promises were made and that defendant was shown the gun and glasses only after he admitted robbing the Budget Store Market. Defendant was told, however, that the police had taken a gun from his room.

It appears that from the time defendant was arrested in Las Vegas until he confessed, the investigating officers used the items they had illegally seized to induce him to confess. In Las Vegas, he was told that his room in the Mayfair Hotel had been searched. He learned from the investigating officers that incriminating evidence had been found there. By the time he had talked with his parole officer, he knew that the police had his gun. At the showup, if not before, he discovered that his glasses and sweater had been seized. From the time that he was arrested in Las Vegas until the time he was arraigned, he talked with none of his relatives and received no legal advice. ¹ During this 72-hour period, defendant saw only police officers, his parole officer, and perhaps some other prisoners. Finally, the record does not show that defendant was informed, at any time before he confessed, that he had a right to remain silent.

Under these circumstances there was no break in the chain between the illegal search and seizure and defendant's confession. It was not 'sufficiently...