People v. Rosas

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJune 8, 2020
DocketB295921
StatusPublished

This text of People v. Rosas (People v. Rosas) 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. Rosas, (Cal. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

Filed 6/8/20

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION SIX

THE PEOPLE, 2d Crim. No. B295921 (Super. Ct. No. 2017023660) Plaintiff and Respondent, (Ventura County)

v.

LUCIO SEDENO ROSAS,

Defendant and Appellant.

Lucio Sedeno Rosas appeals the judgment entered after he pleaded guilty to possessing methamphetamine with a prior conviction that required him to be registered as a sex offender. (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a); Pen. Code, 1 § 290, subd. (c).) In exchange for his plea, a misdemeanor charge of possessing drug paraphernalia, i.e., a methamphetamine pipe (Health & Saf. Code § 11364, subd. (a)) was dismissed. Imposition of sentence was suspended and appellant was placed on three years formal probation under Proposition 36 (§ 1210.1) with various terms and conditions.

All statutory references are to the Penal Code unless 1

otherwise stated. Appellant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the warrantless searches of his person and vehicle (§ 1538.5) because the People did not meet their burden to justify either search under the Fourth Amendment. We agree. Both searches were premised upon erroneous information that appellant was on probation. Even assuming that the officers who conducted the searches reasonably concluded from this information that appellant was on probation, they had no reason to believe he was subject to search terms as a condition of that probation. It is well-settled that the probation exception to the warrant requirement cannot be satisfied under these circumstances. (See, e.g., People v. Thomas (2018) 29 Cal.App.5th 1107, 1114.) Moreover, the People offered no evidence to meet their burden of proving that the evidence was nevertheless admissible under the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. Accordingly, we reverse. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY The relevant facts are derived from the transcript of the hearing on appellant’s suppression motion and other evidence admitted at the hearing. At around 2:00 a.m. on July 3, 2017, Oxnard Police Officers Ignacio Coronel and Christopher Salvio were dispatched to a residential address in the 700 block of Forest Park Boulevard in response to a report of a suspicious person in a passenger truck in front of the residence. When the officers arrived at the location, they saw appellant sitting in the driver’s seat of a parked truck with the driver’s side door open. As reflected in video footage captured on Officer Salvio’s body cam, 2 the officer approached appellant and asked him where

2 The video footage was admitted as a defense exhibit along with a transcript of the conversations it depicts.

2 he lived. Appellant replied that he lived just two houses away and had come outside to smoke a cigarette and listen to music. Appellant gave his name and address, said he did not have a driver’s license, and added that he had a state identification card but did not have it on him. During this exchange, Officer Coronel walked over to the front passenger window of the truck, shone a flashlight through the slightly-open window and into the front passenger compartment, and moved the flashlight around to illuminate the compartment. In response to further questioning, appellant provided Officer Salvio with his date of birth and said the truck belonged to his father Alberto Sedeno, with whom he lived. He also retrieved the truck’s registration card from the glove box and gave it to Officer Salvio. The registration card reflected that the truck was registered to Alberto Sedeno who lived at the address appellant had given. The officer asked appellant “Do you have any probation or parole or anything like that?” Appellant replied, “No.” Officer Salvio retained the registration card and called police dispatch to run a records check to confirm appellant’s identity and determine if he had any warrants or was on probation or parole. Officer Salvio continued to talk to appellant while waiting for this information. Approximately two minutes into the encounter, Officer Coronel turned off his flashlight but remained in his position by the front passenger window. As Officer Salvio continued to talk to appellant, Officer Coronel turned his flashlight on again, pointed the end of the light through the slightly-open front passenger window, and began moving the light around again to illuminate the interior.

3 Approximately four minutes into the encounter, the dispatcher verified appellant’s identity and address and stated that appellant was “on probation out of Kern County for [a] 647.6 [and] also a 290 registrant.” Officer Coronel, who heard everything the dispatcher was saying, turned off his flashlight and remained in his position by the front passenger window. Officer Salvio questioned appellant about his record and asked “What’d you do to get yourself registered as a 290?” Appellant replied that “[t]his one time [he] was walking the streets and [he] accidentally . . . grabbed [a] girl and tried to kiss her.” During this exchange, Officer Salvio proceeded to ask appellant for his middle name, height, weight, and eye color, and had him repeat his date of birth. After appellant conveyed this information, Officer Salvio asked Officer Coronel, “Anything on that end, Ignacio?” Officer Coronel replied, “No.” After a brief period of silence, Officer Salvio told appellant “you’re on probation, you told me no.” Appellant reiterated that he was not on probation and Officer Salvio replied, “You are on probation. They just told me you’re on probation.” Appellant repeated that he was not on probation and did not have to report to anyone and the officer interjected, “You don’t report, then you’re on summary probably.” After appellant once again verified his address, Officer Salvio said, “So, you don’t report to a P.O., but . . . you are on probation.” Appellant replied, “Oh, okay. I – I didn’t know about that.” Appellant added that when he had been on probation before he “would go and talk to [his] probation officer but . . . they stopped . . . a long time ago.” At that point, the body cam video footage ended. At the outset of the suppression hearing, the parties stipulated that appellant was not on probation and that the

4 information conveyed by the dispatcher to the contrary was erroneous. Officer Salvio testified that he decided to conduct a probation search of appellant based upon the information he had received from dispatch. In appellant’s pocket, the officer found a bag containing a substance that appeared to be methamphetamine. Officer Salvio then conveyed that information to Officer Coronel, who subsequently questioned appellant about the “crystalline substance” that had been found on his person. Under cross examination by defense counsel, Officer Salvio acknowledged that the dispatcher did not tell him that appellant was subject to search terms as a condition of his probation. Following recross-examination by defense counsel, the court questioned Officer Salvio as follows: The court: “[Dispatch] made no mention, one way or the other, whether [appellant] had search terms, I take it; is that correct? [¶] [Officer Salvio]: That is correct, your Honor. [¶] The Court: Did that cause you to assume that he had search terms? [¶] [Officer Salvio]: “Yes, your Honor. [¶] The court: Okay. Why did that cause you to assume that? [¶] [Officer Salvio]: At that time, your Honor, I was fairly – I was a fairly new officer and I believed probation to commonly be associated with supervised release, which usually includes search terms. [¶] The court: Okay. All right.

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Bluebook (online)
People v. Rosas, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-rosas-calctapp-2020.