People v. Wright

• Decision Date: 23 March 1967
• Docket Number: Cr. N
• Citation: 249 Cal.App.2d 692,57 Cal.Rptr. 781
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James Edward WRIGHT, Defendant and Appellant. o. 11889.

Page 781

57 Cal.Rptr. 781

249 Cal.App.2d 692

The PEOPLE of the State of California, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James Edward WRIGHT, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. No. 11889.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 5, California.

March 23, 1967.

On Modification March 24, 1967.

Rehearing Denied April 5, 1967.

Hearing Denied May 17, 1967.

Richard H. Levin, Los Angeles, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., Walter R. Jones, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respondent.

KAUS, Presiding Justice.

The only question on this appeal is whether a security guard employed by the Los Angeles County General Hospital belongs to the 'authorities' who must have advised a suspect of his constitutional rights before an incriminating statement by the suspect may be admitted in evidence. (Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 472, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694; People v. Dorado, 62 Cal.2d 338, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361.)

Defendant had apparently burglarized an automobile which was parked at the Los Angeles County General Hospital. Security guards employed by the hospital took him to their office where they 'detained him while awaiting the arrival of the police, which had been called.' Sometime after this detention started, one of the guards asked defendant: 'Well, why did you take this stuff?' He replied: 'I saw it. It was attractive. I took it.' He had never been advised of his constitutional rights.

Although the Attorney General argues fairly plausible that the defendant's reply would have been admissible even if made to an arresting peace officer under the doctrine first announced in United States v. Konigsberg, 3 Cir., 336 F.2d 844, 853, and followed in several California decisions, (see People v. Perez, 65 Cal.2d 709, 716 ^*, 56 Cal.Rptr. 312, 423 P.2d 240 and cases cited therein), we think perhaps the defendant has the better of that argument and will therefore assume that, had the security guard been a peace officer, a warning would have had to be given.

Neither Miranda nor Dorado purport to catalogue the persons who must give the respective warnings prescribed by those decisions. Miranda involved four separate cases in each of which the interrogating officers were policemen. (Ibid., 384 U.S., pp. 491--499, 86 S.Ct. 1602.) The interviewers in Dorado came within the definition of 'peace officer' of section 817 of the Penal Code. Miranda speaks variously of 'law enforcement agency' (Ibid., p. 442, 86 S.Ct. 1602), 'law enforcement officers' (Ibid., p. 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602) 'police interrogation procedures' (Ibid., p. 457, 86 S.Ct. 1602), 'police' (Ibid., p. 465, 86 S.Ct. 1602) and 'authorities' (Ibid., p. 472, 86 S.Ct. 1602.) In Dorado the California Supreme Court uses the words 'authorities' (Ibid., 62 Cal.2d pp. 353--354, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361) and 'law enforcement officials' (Ibid., p. 355, 42 Cal.Rptr. 169, 398 P.2d 361.)

On this appeal the Attorney General concedes that the mere fact that the security guard was not a 'peace officer' within the meaning of section 817 of the Penal Code does not answer the problem.

Thus in People v. Polk, 63 Cal.2d 443, 449, 47 Cal.Rptr. 1, 5, 406 P.2d 641, 645, the person who elicited an incriminating statement was not a peace officer but a psychiatrist selected by the District Attorney to examine the defendant. 'She (the psychiatrist) was thus an agent of the prosecution with no more right than any such agent to elicit admissions from defendants without their being informed of their rights.' On the other hand it is clear that private persons who convey incriminating statements to the prosecution are not included in the term 'authorities.' In People v. Price, 63 Cal.2d 370, 376--379, 46 Cal.Rptr. 775, 406 P.2d 55, a statement given to a television news reporter during an interview was held admissible, although the reporter had to get permission from a police officer in whose custody defendant was detained before being able to interview him.

Counsel for defendant has not found any case--and neither have we--where the interrogator was not the agent of a governmental department, the very function of which was to enforce the law. The purpose of a hospital is to make sick people well. The fact that the particular hospital here in question was owned and operated by a governmental agency is fortuitous. Private businesses employ security officers to protect persons and property on their premises, whose guns are just as menacing and whose badges just as shiny as those hired by public agencies, whatever their function may be. ¹ In People v. Crabtree, 239 Cal.App.2d 789, 49 Cal.Rptr. 285, a confession was made to a security agent employed by a market. It was held admissible because he was a private citizen and it was not 'the authorities (which) had carried out a process of interrogations that lent itself to eliciting incriminating statements.' (Ibid., p. 790, 49 Cal.Rptr. p. 286.)

It does not matter that a particular employee's duties may be confined to the protection of persons and property on his employer's premises or that his employer may be the state, a political subdivision thereof or a local entity. What does matter is whether he is employed ² by an agency of government, federal, state...