People v. Ewell CA2/8

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedOctober 30, 2023
DocketB311450
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Ewell CA2/8 (People v. Ewell CA2/8) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Ewell CA2/8, (Cal. Ct. App. 2023).

Opinion

Filed 10/30/23 P. v. Ewell CA2/8 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

THE PEOPLE, B311450

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA400028) v.

JOHN WESLEY EWELL,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Lisa B. Lench, Judge. Affirmed.

Sharon Fleming, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle and David E. Madeo, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

_________________________ Appellant John Wesley Ewell moved to suppress evidence obtained in connection with his October 23, 2010 arrest; to quash and traverse the search warrant issued that same day for his residence and vehicle; and to suppress evidence found in the ensuing searches. After the trial court denied his motions, appellant pled no contest to four counts of first degree robbery in violation of Penal Code1 section 211 and four counts of murder (§ 187) with robbery and special circumstance allegations pursuant to section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17).2 He was sentenced to four terms of life without the possibility of parole for the murders, and four mid-terms of four years for the robbery convictions, stayed pursuant to section 654. He now appeals the denial of those motions. Appellant was arrested after officers investigating the home invasion robbery-murders of Leamon and Robyn Turnage reviewed video footage from four locations where a Turnage ATM card was being used. Investigating officers concluded that appellant was the person using it. Appellant contends there was no probable cause for his warrantless arrest because there were no reasonable grounds to believe he was the person using Robyn Turnage’s ATM card. Investigators obtained a search warrant for appellant’s home and car, based on essentially the same facts which prompted his arrest. Appellant contends the search warrant was facially invalid for essentially the same reasons as the arrest. Appellant brought a contemporaneous motion to traverse the warrant, contending the affidavit supporting the warrant

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. 2 The People had sought the death penalty against appellant.

2 includes statements made with reckless disregard for the truth. He further contends the warrant was invalid because it failed to describe the items to be seized with reasonable particularity. Finally, appellant contends the officers exceeded the scope of the warrant when they seized a day planner which contained the address of another robbery-murder victim, Hanna Morcos, and that all items related to the Morcos murder seized after that search were the fruit of the poisonous tree. Appellant seeks suppression of all seized evidence as a remedy for what he characterizes as the officers’ flagrant disregard for the scope of the warrant. We see no error in the trial court's denial of all the motions and so affirm the judgment. BACKGROUND On September 24, 2010, appellant murdered Hanna Morcos and stole items, notably foreign coins, from the home on West 137th Street in Hawthorne. On October 13, 2010, appellant murdered Denise Roberts and stole items from her home on South Hoover Street, two houses down from appellant’s residence. On October 21, 2010, appellant murdered Leamon and Robyn Turnage and stole items from their home on West 142nd Street in Hawthorne. Appellant bound the wrists or ankles of all four victims. The Morcos and Roberts murders were unsolved when Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) officers went to the Turnage home in the later afternoon of October 22, 2010, to investigate a possible double homicide and discovered the Turnages had been murdered. Robyn Turnage was bound with black electrical tape around her wrists; there was also black electrical tape around her head. Leamon had black electrical tape around his head, and his

3 hands were tied behind his back with a white cord or string. A yellow nylon rope was under and around his body. Empty boxes suggested jewelry had been taken. Robyn’s purse had been emptied out in the living room and Leamon’s wallet was open on the kitchen table. Credit/debit cards appeared to be missing from both.3 Investigators noticed a Bank of the West checkbook, contacted a police detective specializing in credit card crimes and asked if he had a source in the banking industry, specifically Bank of the West. At some point in the investigation, on either October 22 or 23, Detective Hecht spoke with Mohammad Khan, a tenant in a back guest house on the Turnage property. Khan told Detective Hecht that at about 11:30 a.m. on October 21 Leamon Turnage came to Khan’s unit with a man in a blue baseball hat, blue work shirt and dark pants. Turnage said the man needed to check the property for a gas leak. Khan described the “gas man” as a black male in his early 50’s with a thin build and a thin mustache. Detective Hecht got the impression from Khan that the man was just “smelling” for gas.” Khan said they did not smell any gas and left very quickly. In the very early morning hours of October 23, 2010, Bank of the West representative Hayley McCormick contacted Detective Hecht. She drove to a bank branch, opened it up and logged onto the bank’s computer equipment to search for activity. She told investigators that Robyn Turnage’s Bank of the West ATM card was being used at ATMs in the area.

3 Later in the investigation, after the crime scene was released back to the family, family members found several credit cards under a bed in the house.

4 Investigators learned from a Bank of the West employee that bank records showed the Turnage ATM card had been used at 4:24 p.m. on October 21, 2010 at R&F Liquor, at 10:25 a.m. on October 22, 2010 at a Shell gas station at 854 West El Segundo Boulevard in Gardena, and at 10:36 a.m. on October 22, 2010 at a 7-11 store at 861 West Rosecrans Avenue in Gardena. Detective Hecht went to the three locations and viewed surveillance video. Video from R&F Liquor showed appellant entering and leaving the store twice. 4 One of the exit times was 4:24 p.m. That location did not have a camera focused on the ATM itself. Video from the Shell station showed appellant conducting an ATM transaction from 10:28 to 10:30 a.m. Video from the 7-11 showed appellant arriving at the store at 10:40 a.m. That location did not have a camera filming the actual ATM or an outdoor camera. At the Shell station, appellant is seen on video entering and exiting a red car with a black primer hood and black right front fender; the car is also seen in the R&F Liquor video, and it is reasonable to infer appellant is driving it in the video. Sometime later, on October 23, 2010, Detective Hecht learned from Bank of the West that the Turnage ATM card had been used again at the same Shell station and the same 7-11, and at an ARCO station at 11259 South Vermont, at 6:54 a.m., 7:00 a.m. and 7:35 a.m. respectively. Detective Hecht viewed videos from the locations, and saw the same black male, believed

4 To be clear, the person in the videos is a black male with a thin build and a thin mustache. It was Detective Hecht’s opinion that this same man was in all the videos, and that the man was appellant.

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Bluebook (online)
People v. Ewell CA2/8, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-ewell-ca28-calctapp-2023.