People v. Silas CA3

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 16, 2016
DocketC078187
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Silas CA3 (People v. Silas CA3) 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. Silas CA3, (Cal. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

Filed 5/16/16 P. v. Silas CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Sacramento) ----

THE PEOPLE, C078187

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. 14F02009)

v.

RAYMOND LAMONT SILAS,

Defendant and Appellant.

After the trial court denied his motion to suppress, defendant Raymond Lamont Silas pled no contest to possession of counterfeit marks for sale and possession of methamphetamine for sale and admitted one prior strike conviction. On appeal, he contends the trial court erred when the court denied his motion to suppress because he did not consent to the search of his girlfriend’s car, the search of the car was not a valid inventory search, and the search of his cell phone on the scene of the traffic stop did not fall within the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule.

1 We conclude the search of the car was a valid inventory search, but agree with defendant that the on-scene search of the cell phone did not fall within the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. Accordingly, we will reverse and remand for further proceedings. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND On March 25, 2014, Sacramento Police Officers Mark Redlich and Matt Hoffman pulled over a car defendant Raymond Lamont Silas was driving, which belonged to his girlfriend, after defendant did not use his turn signal when he turned into the parking lot of an apartment complex. When defendant stopped the car, it was blocking traffic into and out of the apartment complex. Officer Redlich approached defendant and asked for his identification. Defendant gave Officer Redlich a California identification card but told Officer Redlich he did not have a driver’s license because it was suspended. Officer Redlich asked defendant to step out of the car and then took defendant over to his patrol car. Based on defendant’s admission that his driver’s license was suspended, Officer Redlich’s intention was to conduct an inventory of the car and have it towed. While defendant was standing next to the door of the patrol car in handcuffs, Officer Redlich said to him, “Is there anything illegal in the car? Nothing? Okay. We’re gonna end up going through it okay. You cool with that?” Officer Redlich testified that defendant responded by giving consent to search the car. Officer Redlich then conducted a records check and confirmed defendant’s license was suspended for driving under the influence. Officer Redlich testified that it was the department’s “common policy . . . to tow vehicles when people are driving on [a] suspended license.” The officer explained that pursuant to this policy, when someone has a suspended license he tows the car unless there is an “articulable fact” justifying not towing the vehicle, such as “there [are] infants or small children in a vehicle and it [i]s pouring down rain, or if there is someone with a severe type of disability that would be stranded on the side of the road.”

2 Officer Hoffman testified that the officers towed the car because defendant “was driving on a suspended driver’s license [¶] [and] the vehicle was stopped in the middle of the parking lot, obstructing traffic from the entrance and people as they parked into their spaces.” Officer Hoffman stated that another articulable reason for not towing a car might be if there was “a passenger that had a valid driver’s license . . . and he was cooperating on something else . . . [he] might let the passenger take custody of the vehicle . . . .” During the stop, while the inventory search of the car was already underway, defendant’s girlfriend, Anneke Pruitt, approached the officers and demanded that they give her the car. Officer Hoffman testified that they did not give Pruitt her car because of her “hostility towards the police and not having anything to do with [the] scene.” During the inventory search, Officer Redlich found a “black mesh see-through bag that contained [about 49] sports brand hats” in the backseat of the car. He also searched defendant’s trunk and found another see-through mesh bag containing about 20 “sports jerseys” and “a black garbage bag . . . that contained leather belts.” He also found 10 pairs of pants in the car. He thought all of the clothing items were counterfeit and was suspicious because of the number of clothing items, because the clothing items were for various teams of a single sport, and because the stickers on the hats did not have holograms on them. After he found the various apparently counterfeit items in the car, Officer Redlich conducted a search of defendant’s cell phone while on the scene of the traffic stop, as a search incident to defendant’s arrest, but he could not remember where he found the phone. For his part, Officer Hoffman could not recall who found the phone or where it was found. It is unclear what evidence, if any, Officer Redlich located in this initial warrantless search of the phone. After the inventory search and the search of the cell phone, police officers obtained a search warrant and searched an apartment shared by defendant and Pruitt,

3 where they found more counterfeit clothing, methamphetamine, a box of plastic baggies, and a digital scale. During the search of a second address, the police also found additional counterfeit items. Officers also apparently obtained a search warrant to search the cell phone found during the traffic stop and found text messages they believed referred to the sale of narcotics and the sale of clothing. Defendant was charged with possession of counterfeit marks for sale, possession of methamphetamine for sale, driving a car without a valid driver’s license, driving a car with a driver’s license suspended for driving under the influence of an alcoholic beverage and a drug, driving a car with a suspended driver’s license, and driving a car not equipped with a functioning ignition interlock device. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence against him, including all counterfeit items found during the search of the car, as well as “the methamphetamine, baggies, digital scale, and the counterfeit goods” found at the apartment and “all data obtained from [his] cell phone and any fruits thereof” on the ground that there was no justification for the initial warrantless search and seizure. The People responded (among other things) that the search of the car was a valid inventory search and a valid consent search. In a supplemental brief, defendant argued (among other things) that the search was not a valid inventory search because it was not conducted pursuant to standardized criteria or an established routine and because no community caretaking function was served by impounding the car. The trial court (the Honorable Pamela Smith-Steward) viewed and listened to an audio-video recording of the traffic stop and then heard the testimony of Officers Redlich and Hoffman. When the officers had finished testifying, the prosecutor told the court she had not anticipated that neither of the officers would remember where the cell phone was found, and she asked the court “for a little more time to see whether or not an inevitable discovery argument can be made, depending on what the content of the search warrant is with regard to the cell phone, what information was in that search warrant.” Defense

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People v. Silas CA3, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-silas-ca3-calctapp-2016.