People v. Brooks

234 Cal. App. 2d 662, 44 Cal. Rptr. 661
California Court of Appeal·Decided May 26, 1965·No. 4604·Published·Cited by 36 cases

Opinion

234 Cal.App.2d 662 (1965)
44 Cal. Rptr. 661

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
LIONEL R. BROOKS, Defendant and Appellant.

Docket No. 4604.

Court of Appeals of California, First District, Division One.

May 26, 1965.

*665 Fred W. Armstrong, under appointment by the District Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Thomas C. Lynch, Attorney General, Albert W. Harris, Jr., and John F. Kraetzer, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

SIMS, J.

Defendant appeals from judgment entered upon his conviction of one charge of possession of marijuana (Health & Saf. Code, § 11530) on December 21, 1962, of charges of possession of heroin (id., § 11500), possession of marijuana (id., § 11530) and sale of marijuana (id., § 11531) on *666 July 2, 1963, and of a charge of possession of heroin (id., § 11500) July 11, 1963.

He originally appeared with the public defender, was arraigned on the indictment containing the first charge and on an information setting forth the last four charges and entered his pleas of guilty to counts I and III of the latter. Counts II and IV of the information and the indictment were dismissed. At a hearing on his motion for probation he was denied probation, was sentenced to the state prison, and was granted a one-week's stay of execution. He then substituted private counsel and a motion to set aside the judgment was granted, the dismissed counts and indictment were reinstated and he entered a plea of not guilty to each charge. Thereafter the indictment containing the first charge was consolidated with the information for trial. Motions to dismiss count IV of the information under Penal Code, section 995 and to suppress evidence were both denied.

The December 1962 Offense

On December 21, 1962, at about 4 a.m., defendant was going down Buchanan Street toward McAllister Street in the City of San Francisco to catch a bus to his place of employment at the Rincon Annex Post Office where he worked the 4:30 to 1:30 p.m. shift. As he passed near the corner of Golden Gate and Buchanan he heard, "That's him. Get him." This cry, otherwise described as "There he goes" or "There he is. That's him" emanated from the wife of the owner of a service station which had been held up earlier that morning, and stirred into action two police officers and two special patrolmen who were at the scene. They immediately took the defendant into custody at gunpoint and searched him for a gun and handkerchief which the victim had described as being used in the robbery. Four cigarettes were found which proved to be marijuana. No gun was found, and although the bulk when first felt by the searching officer could have been a knife, he realized before he extracted it from the right side outer pocket of the defendant's overcoat that it was not a weapon but four separated pieces of some substance. The accuser then came over and advised the officers that defendant was not the man who held up the service station.

[1] Defendant concedes that the officers had a right to stop the defendant for interrogation and search him for weapons. (People v. Mickelson (1963) 59 Cal.2d 448, 450-451 [30 Cal. Rptr. 18, 380 P.2d 658]; People v. Martin (1956) 46 Cal.2d 106, 108 [293 P.2d 52].) He asserts, however, that *667 insofar as the search exceeded a superficial search for concealed weapons it was illegal and that the contraband thereby secured cannot be used in evidence against him. (See People v. Schaumloffel (1959) 53 Cal.2d 96 [346 P.2d 393]; People v. Gale (1956) 46 Cal.2d 253, 257 [294 P.2d 13]; and People v. Mills (1957) 148 Cal. App.2d 392, 402-404 [306 P.2d 1005].) Defendant's reliance on the foregoing authorities is misplaced. This is not a case of detention for interrogation on suspicion. Here a felony, robbery, had been committed and the officers had reasonable cause to believe that the defendant, identified as such, was the perpetrator. There was reasonable cause for the arrest which was effected. (People v. Ingle (1960) 53 Cal.2d 407, 412-413 [2 Cal. Rptr. 14, 348 P.2d 577]; Gorlack v. Ferrari (1960) 184 Cal. App.2d 702, 703 [7 Cal. Rptr. 699]; People v. Jackson (1960) 183 Cal. App.2d 562, 570 [6 Cal. Rptr. 884]; and Pen. Code, § 837, subd. 3.) The arrest being legal, the search predicated thereon for the gun and handkerchief used in the robbery was proper. (People v. Ingle, supra, 53 Cal.2d 407, 413; People v. Jackson, supra, 183 Cal. App.2d 562, 569-571.) The fact that the search revealed evidence of an offense other than that for which the arrest was made does not render the search illegal or preclude the use of the evidence discovered against the defendant in a prosecution for the second offense (People v. Ghimenti (1965) 232 Cal. App.2d 76, 81 [42 Cal. Rptr. 504]; People v. Beard (1962) 199 Cal. App.2d 67, 68 [18 Cal. Rptr. 350]; People v. Lopez (1961) 196 Cal. App.2d 651, 655 [16 Cal. Rptr. 728]; People v. Nebbitt (1960) 183 Cal. App.2d 452, 461 [7 Cal. Rptr. 8]; People v. Gonzales (1960) 182 Cal. App.2d 276, 280 [5 Cal. Rptr. 920]; People v. Simpson (1959) 170 Cal. App.2d 524, 530 [339 P.2d 156]; People v. Ortiz (1956) 147 Cal. App.2d 248, 251-252 [305 P.2d 145]; and see People v. Roberts (1956) 47 Cal.2d 374, 379 [303 P.2d 721]; and Harris v. United States (1947) 331 U.S. 145, 154 [67 S.Ct. 1098, 91 L.Ed. 1399]), nor does the fact that it subsequently developed that the person arrested did not commit the offense for which the original arrest was made. (See People v. Burgess (1959) 170 Cal. App.2d 36, 41 [338 P.2d 524].)

[2a] At the time the officer extracted the four cigarettes from defendant's clothing, he asked him if they were marijuana and the defendant stated yes they were. In response to a question where he got them, the defendant stated that he bought them from another gentleman that he knew only by the name of Moe.

*668 [3a] The probation officer who interviewed defendant between his plea of guilty to two counts of the indictment and the time the report was rendered and probation was denied, testified in respect of the December arrest as follows: "Let me say that he first told me that he had been arrested at sometime in a service station as a suspect in a — as a suspect in a robbery or questioned in regards to a robbery, at which time the police discovered some marijuana in his possession, and he felt that it wasn't fair.... He said he had just purchased them for his own personal use."

The defendant took the witness stand and denied possession of any marijuana cigarettes on this occasion; denied he was asked any questions or gave any statement about marijuana cigarettes at the time of his arrest; and denied that he made the statements attributed to him by the probation officer.

No objection was made to the testimony concerning the statements at the time of the arrest.

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People v. Brooks, 234 Cal. App. 2d 662, 44 Cal. Rptr. 661 (Cal. Ct. App. 1965).

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