People v. Williams, Cr. 10929

• Decision Date: 28 July 1967
• Docket Number: Cr. 10929
• Citation: 67 Cal.2d 226,430 P.2d 30,60 Cal.Rptr. 472
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 430 P.2d 30 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James Barnett WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant. In Bank

Page 472

60 Cal.Rptr. 472

67 Cal.2d 226, 430 P.2d 30

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James Barnett WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 10929.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

July 28, 1967.

Luke McKissack, Los Angeles, for defendant and appellant.

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

SULLIVAN, Justice.

Defendant was charged by information with burglary (Pen.Code, § 459). The information also charged a prior felony conviction (grand theft) in Arizona. Defendant pleaded not guilty and denied the prior. Trial by jury was waived. At the trial defendant admitted the prior conviction. The court found defendant guilty of burglary in the second degree. He appeals from the judgment of conviction and from the order denying his motion for new trial, ¹ contending (1) that certain evidence introduced against him was obtained by means of an illegal search, and (2) that the trial court, on its own motion, should have determine whether or not the prior conviction was obtained in violation of defendant's constitutional right to counsel. We have concluded that neither of these contentions has merit and that the judgment should be affirmed.

During the early morning hours of November 12, 1965, a men's clothing store in Fullerton was forcibly entered and 29 suits were taken. About 5:30 a.m. Gordon Kreitz, a police officer in the area, received a radio call to the effect that the burglar alarm was ringing at the store and proceeded toward that location. When Officer Kreitz was several blocks from his destination he observed the headlights of a car approaching him from a point about a block and a half from the burglarized store. There were no other moving cars on the street. The automobile, a 1957 Plymouth driven by defendant, passed the police car and proceeded down the street. Officer Kreitz made a U-turn and followed the vehicle. After observing defendant make a number of turns in the course of a few blocks, the officer activated his red light and siren. There ensued a high-speed chase which ended when the Plymouth 'spun out' in an intersection and defendant fled on foot, leaving his car.

Officer Kreitz, together with officers in two other patrol units who had joined in the case, approached the abandoned vehicle. It was not damaged, and the key remained in the ignition. He opened the unlocked trunk and observed a stack of 25 to 30 men's suits on wooden hangers. Thereupon he detailed an officer 'to stand by the vehicle, make a complete inventory, and have the vehicle impounded.' Kreitz and the remaining officers then conducted a search on foot in the neighborhood and apprehended defendant 15 to 20 minutes later in a vacant house about a block away. They arrested defendant and took him to the police station.

Defendant's car was then taken to a police storage garage, where its contents were inventoried. ² The trunk contained 29 suits bearing the label of the burglarized men's store. There were also in the trunk a black golf cap, a Halloween mask, a pair of work gloves, a pair of overshoes, a pair of tin shears, two screwdrivers, a large packing-case pry bar, a tire tool, and a round steel bar twenty inches in length. ³ No warrant to search defendant's vehicle was obtained at any time.

It is clear from the foregoing that Officer Kreitz had probable cause to arrest defendant for burglary. The officer had knowledge that a burglar alarm had been triggered. He first observed defendant at a point near the burglarized premises, driving away from the area. The hour was early and there were no other moving cars on the streets. As soon as Officer Kreitz began to follow defendant, the latter commenced evasive action, and the activation of the officer's siren and light brought about defendant's frantic and reckless attempt to escape which culminated in the hasty abandonment of the vehicle in the middle of an intersection. The combination of these factors was sufficient to justify an arrest.

The search of defendant's vehicle conducted at the scene was incident to the arrest. The two events were substantially contemporaneous, and the fact that the search occurred first in time did not render it unlawful. (See People v. Cockrell (1965) 63 Cal.2d 659, 666, 47 Cal.Rptr. 788, 408 P.2d 116; People v. Torres (1961) 56 Cal.2d 864, 866, 17 Cal.Rptr. 495, 366 P.2d 823; People v. Ingle (1960) 53 Cal.2d 407, 413, 2 Cal.Rptr. 14, 348 P.2d 577.) Further, the arrest and search took place within the same general area. Of no legal significance is the fact that defendant, through his efforts to escape, succeeded in separating himself from the car by a distance of about one block. (See People v. Pressley (1966) 242 Cal.App.2d 555, 559--560, 51 Cal.Rptr. 563.) A defendant's absence from the scene does not of itself render illegal a search which, in view of the totality of surrounding circumstances, is reasonable. (See Crawford v. Bannan (6th Cir.1964) 336 F.2d 505, 506--507; People v. Robinson (1965) 62 Cal.2d 889, 895, 44 Cal.Rptr. 762, 402 P.2d 834; People v. Green (1965) 235 Cal.App.2d 506, 45 Cal.Rptr. 371.)

We further conclude that the subsequent inventory and seizure at the police impound 'should be deemed a continuation of the search lawfully begun at the time and place of arrest.' (People v. Webb (1967) 66 A.C. 99, 118, 56 Cal.Rptr. 902, 915, 424 P.2d 342, 355.) Although the factors supportive of this determination are not wholly identical to those involved in Webb, we consider that the totality of circumstances here present requires the same result. In Webb the search was interrupted at the scene of arrest and resumed at the police impound primarily due to the threat of crowd disorder endangering the preservation of evidence; here such action was undertaken in order to permit convenient cataloguing and reduction to possession of articles discovered during the initial search. We consider the latter reason for postponement as adequate as the former. Since the officers could lawfully have taken possession of the evidence at the scene of the initial search, the fact that for reasons of convenience they actually did so at a different time and place does not of itself render the entire continuing search process unreasonable. (See Price v. United States (1965) 121 U.S.App.D.C. 62, 348 F.2d 68, 70; Rodgers v. United States (8th Cir.1966) 362 F.2d 358, 362; People v. Evans (1966) 240 Cal.App.2d 291, 298--299, 49 Cal.Rptr. 501.) It also appears that here, as in Webb, defendant's automobile was under constant police surveillance during the interval of postponement, and the delay was not of unreasonable duration.

As indicated above, the case of People v. Evans, supra, 240 Cal.App.2d 291, 49 Cal.Rptr. 501, is supportive of our conclusion as to the propriety of interruption and postponement of the search herein; it is also supportive of the further conclusion that the search was not rendered unreasonable by the fact that certain articles, the presence of which in defendant's trunk was alluded to in trial testimony (see fn. 3, ante), were not discovered at the initial search but only after the car had been removed to the impound. In Evans police stopped defendants on suspicion that the car in which they were driving had been stolen. Plainly visible in the back seat of the car were articles which the officers came to suspect were the fruits of a...