People v. Manis

268 Cal. App. 2d 653, 74 Cal. Rptr. 423, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 1723
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 7, 1969
DocketCrim. 14292
StatusPublished
Cited by126 cases

This text of 268 Cal. App. 2d 653 (People v. Manis) 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. Manis, 268 Cal. App. 2d 653, 74 Cal. Rptr. 423, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 1723 (Cal. Ct. App. 1969).

Opinion

FLEMING, J.

Second degree burglary. Appellant contends, first, that evidence at his trial derived from an illegal detention; second, that evidence was obtained in violation of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 [16 L.Ed.2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 A.L.R.3d 974] ; and third, that his confession was erroneously considered by the trial court.

About noon on 24 January 1967 during a heavy rainstorm, Officer Gaines, a burglary investigator for the Los Angeles Police Department, saw appellant without a raincoat walk by his patrol car, heading west on Eighth Street and carrying what appeared to be a new portable typewriter ease. Because many burglaries in that area involved stolen typewriters, and because appellant was apparently exposing a new portable typewriter to a heavy downpour (most typewriter cases are not waterproof), Officer Gaines and his partner followed. Appellant continued west on Eighth Street and then north on Alvarado Street toward an area of several pawnshops. From time to time he looked back in the officers’ direction. 1 After appellant crossed Seventh Street the officers drove past him, and when they did so appellant reversed his direction, returned to Seventh Street, and headed west. As the officers made a U-turn to go back to Seventh Street, appellant turned into MaeArthur Park. At that point the officers left their car, and stopped appellant in the tunnel under Wilshire Boulevard.

*658 Officer Gaines, after identifying himself, asked appellant where he was going. Santa Monica, the latter replied. How would he get there? Walk. What was in the case he had set down? Radios. Did he have a receipt for the radios? “No,” said appellant, “I stole them.” The police arrested appellant and advised him of his constitutional rights. Four radios with Bullock’s department store tags were found in the case. Appellant told the officers he had spent the previous night in Bullock’s and walked out of the store that morning with the radios in the ease.

At the preliminary hearing a saleswoman for Bullock’s testified the radios in appellant’s possession were those missing from the store on the morning of 24 January. She had been the last person to leave the radio department the previous night and had forgotten to lock up. For reasons not apparent from the record, the court in the preliminary hearing ruled appellant’s confession of burglary inadmissible and ordered it stricken, but did permit appellant’s pre-arrest admission of theft, “I stole them,” to stand.

The cause was submitted to the trial court on the transcript of the preliminary hearing, supplemented by appellant’s testimony on the circumstances of his arrest. Appellant was convicted of second degree burglary.

Appellant’s first two claims are interrelated. Initially, he argues there was insufficient cause to detain him on the street and therefore all evidence resulting from that detention—the radios, the case, and his admission of theft—was illegally obtained and hence inadmissible. In the alternative, he argues that if sufficient cause for his detention existed, then his admission of theft was improperly elicited during a custodial interrogation because of the failure to give the warning required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 [16 L.Ed.2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 A.L.R.3d 974].

Appellant’s argument requires us to again consider what circumstances justify temporary detention of a suspect and what action the police may take during a period of detention.

Temporary Detention

The law in California on the subject of temporary detention for investigation may be briefly summarized. Circumstances short of probable cause for an arrest may justify temporary detention of a person by a peace officer for investigation and questioning. (People v. Mickelson, 59 Cal.2d 448, 450 [30 Cal.Rptr. 18, 380 P.2d 658]; People v. Martin, 46 *659 Cal.2d 106, 108 [293 P.2d 52].) The circumstances which allow temporary detention are those which “indicate to a reasonable man in a like position that an investigation is necessary to the discharge of his duties.” (People v. Gibson, 220 Cal.App.2d 15, 20 [33 Cal.Rptr. 775].)

Earlier doubts about the constitutionality of temporary detention on less-than-probable-cause-for-arrest have been largely dispelled by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 [20 L.Ed.2d 889, 88 S.Ct. 1868], There the court sustained a police officer’s accost and frisk of loiterers on the street who were behaving suspiciously and were suspected by the officer of planning a holdup. The court recognized “that a police officer may in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner approach a person for purposes of investigating possibly criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest.” (392 U.S. at p. 22 [20 L.Ed.2d at pp. 906-907].) In upholding the validity of the police officer’s protective search for weapons, the court said: “It does not follow that because an officer may lawfully arrest a person only when he is apprised of facts sufficient to warrant a belief that the person has committed or is committing a crime, the officer is equally unjustified, absent that kind of evidence, in making any intrusions short of an arrest.” (392 U.S. at p. 26 [20 L.Ed.2d at p. 909 ].) Explicit in the decision is approval of police investigation “where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot ...” (392 U.S. at p. 30 [20 L.Ed.2d at p. 911].)

The validity of any particular temporary detention involves a determination of fact. While the circumstances which justify temporary detention may be bewilderingly diverse, still we have acquired a rough picture of the situations in which such detention is warranted. “First, there must be a rational suspicion by the peace officer that some activity out of the ordinary is or has taken place. Next, some indication to connect the person under suspicion with the unusual activity. Finally, some suggestion that the activity is related to crime.” (People v. Henze, 253 Cal.App.2d 986, 988 [61 Cal.Rptr. 545].) We have heretofore outlined some of the factors which, separately, or in combination, justify the use of tiie power to temporarily detain for investigation. (People v. Sense, supra.) The ease at bench furnishes another example of circumstances sufficiently suspicious and out of the *660 ordinary to properly suggest to the police that the activity of a particular person may be connected with crime. Appellant was walking without a raincoat in heavy rain, making no attempt to protect what appeared to be a valuable piece of machinery.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
268 Cal. App. 2d 653, 74 Cal. Rptr. 423, 1969 Cal. App. LEXIS 1723, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-manis-calctapp-1969.