People v. Mathews

224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 469, 16 Cal. App. 5th 601, 2017 WL 4801523, 2017 Cal. App. LEXIS 932
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal, 5th District
DecidedOctober 25, 2017
DocketA146652
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 469 (People v. Mathews) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal, 5th District primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Mathews, 224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 469, 16 Cal. App. 5th 601, 2017 WL 4801523, 2017 Cal. App. LEXIS 932 (Cal. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

Humes, P.J.

*603A jury convicted defendant Damari Mathews of second degree robbery and firearms offenses after he robbed the victim and shot himself as he was trying to escape, and the trial court sentenced him to 13 years in prison. On appeal, Mathews contends that the court erroneously (1) refused to suppress evidence obtained from the hospital where he was being treated, allegedly in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights; (2) denied his request for personnel information about two police witnesses under Pitchess v. Superior Court (1974) 11 Cal.3d 531, 113 Cal.Rptr. 897, 522 P.2d 305 ( Pitchess ); and (3) calculated his presentence credits.

In the published portion of this decision, we conclude that the trial court properly denied the motion to suppress based on the estoppel principle announced in People v. Watkins (2009) 170 Cal.App.4th 1403, 89 Cal.Rptr.3d 135 ( Watkins ). We hold that when a defendant gives a false name to a police officer, and a record check of that name fails to reveal that the defendant is in fact subject to a probation search condition, the defendant is estopped from challenging the legality of an ensuing search or seizure that would have been authorized had the officer been aware of the condition. We also reject Mathews's remaining claims and affirm, except that we order the correction of a clerical error in the abstract of judgment.

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL

BACKGROUND

Shortly before 6:00 p.m. on the evening of September 21, 2013, the victim, a man in *472his early sixties, was walking in San Leandro with his grandson and their family dog. As the victim was throwing away some garbage, he noticed two men standing nearby. One of them, whose face was mostly covered, approached the victim and "tried to grab [the victim's] things." The victim surrendered the contents of his pockets, which included $38, a phone card, *604and an identification card, and the man then struck the victim on the head with a gun and fled with his companion.

After the two men were out of the victim's line of sight, the victim heard a "boom sound" like a "gunshot." Other witnesses also heard the sound of a gunshot from the direction of the scene of the robbery. Witnesses then saw two men, one of whom appeared to have an injury to his lower body and was holding a gun, running through the neighborhood. Some of the witnesses remembered seeing the same two men get out of a light-colored sedan a few minutes earlier. The same sedan picked the men up and drove off. No witness was ultimately able to identify Mathews as either suspect.

At around 5:50 p.m., a silver sedan was recorded dropping Mathews off at Highland Hospital in Oakland. The timing of some of the subsequent events at the hospital is unclear, and we discuss these timing issues in more detail when addressing Mathews's Fourth Amendment claim. Generally, however, Officer Keith Ballard-Geiger and Officer Pantoja of the San Leandro Police Department arrived at the hospital within minutes and made contact with Mathews in a trauma room. Officer Ballard-Geiger observed a perforation in Mathews's scrotum and a wound to his shin. The officer also searched a bag of Mathews's clothing, which included a pair of jeans with blood in the crotch area and a small, bloodstained hole in the shin area.

Officer Ballard-Geiger also seized some possessions of Mathews's, including a cell phone, that hospital staff had stored in a safe. A subsequent forensic examination of the phone demonstrated that it was used in the vicinity of the robbery to make a call at 5:40 p.m. and "traveled east from the location ..., got on the freeway on [Highway] 580, traveled northbound, and terminated somewhere near Highland Hospital."

Mathews was charged with one count of second degree robbery, with an accompanying allegation of a principal's personal use of a firearm, one count of possession of a firearm by a felon, and one count of *473carrying a loaded firearm on one's person in a city.1 Before trial, he filed a motion under section 1538.5 to suppress the clothing, Officer Ballard-Geiger's observations of his wounds, and the cell phone and evidence derived from it. He argued that the evidence was obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Mathews also filed a Pitchess motion to obtain discovery of the personnel files of Detective Joshua Brum, who wrote a police report that referred to the events at Highland Hospital, and Officer Ballard-Geiger. The *605trial court denied both motions, and the jury convicted Mathews of all the charges and found true the enhancement allegation.

The trial court sentenced Mathews to 13 years in prison, comprised of a term of three years for robbery and a consecutive term of ten years for the accompanying enhancement, a concurrent term of eight months for firearm possession by a felon, and a term of eight months, stayed, for carrying a loaded firearm on one's person in a city.2

II.

DISCUSSION

A. Mathews Is Not Entitled to Relief on His Fourth Amendment Claim.

Mathews claims that the trial court prejudicially erred by denying the motion to suppress. We disagree. The motion was properly denied as to the cell phone and resulting evidence, and any error related to Officer Ballard-Geiger's observations of Mathews's clothes and wounds was harmless.

1. Additional facts.

Officer Ballard-Geiger, who was the only witness to testify at the suppression hearing, stated that at 5:44 p.m. on the day in question, he and Officer Pantoja were dispatched to the scene of the robbery after receiving a report of "a possible shooting."3 Shortly after they arrived, dispatch reported that there were two possible male suspects and that "a shooting victim in a silver vehicle had possibly left the scene." Dispatch also "advised [the officers] that there was a shooting victim ... at Highland [Hospital]," and they were told to go there.

The officers arrived at the hospital at 5:52 p.m. and entered the emergency area, which included "two trauma rooms." They were met by Deputy Bixby of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department, who told them that the patient who "had been dropped off with the gunshot wounds" was in one of the trauma rooms and had identified himself as "Omari Johnson." At around 6:09 p.m., Officer Pantoja radioed for a record check on the name "Omari Johnson."

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Related

People v. Mathews
California Court of Appeal, 2018
People v. Mathews
229 Cal. Rptr. 3d 879 (California Court of Appeals, 5th District, 2018)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
224 Cal. Rptr. 3d 469, 16 Cal. App. 5th 601, 2017 WL 4801523, 2017 Cal. App. LEXIS 932, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-mathews-calctapp5d-2017.