Opinion
E051909
08-26-2011
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. SALVADOR BARRASA, Defendant and Appellant.
Leonard J. Klaif, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Barry Carlton and Scott C. Taylor, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
(Super.Ct.No. FVA027477)
OPINION
APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Jon D. Ferguson, Judge. Affirmed.
Leonard J. Klaif, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Barry Carlton and Scott C. Taylor, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
After defendant and appellant Salvador Barrasa waived his right to a trial by a jury, the trial court found him guilty of possession of methamphetamine while armed with a firearm (Health & Saf. Code, § 11370.1, subd. (a); count 1); possession of methamphetamine for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11378; count 2); and having a false compartment in a motor vehicle (Health & Saf. Code, § 11366.8, subd. (a); count 3). The trial court also found true that defendant was personally armed with a firearm (Pen. Code, §§ 12022, subd. (c), 1203.073, subd. (b)(2)) in the commission of count 2. He was sentenced to a total term of four years four months in state prison with credit for time served. Defendant's sole contention on appeal is that the trial court erred in denying his suppression motion. We reject this contention and affirm the judgment.
I
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Because defendant's sole issue on appeal involves the denial of his suppression motion, the factual background is taken from the hearing on the suppression motion.
Defendant filed a suppression motion pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5, claiming his detention was unlawful because the police had no articulable facts suggesting that a crime was occurring or was about to occur. The People subsequently filed their opposition, arguing the detention was lawful because the narcotics transaction occurred in the officer's presence.
A hearing on defendant's suppression motion was held on January 29, 2009. At that hearing, Officer Summer Ing of the narcotics division for the Fontana Police Department testified that on August 4, 2006, about 8:00 p.m., she was conducting a narcotics surveillance from her unmarked vehicle and wearing plain clothes in the area of Archibald and Interstate10 in the City of Ontario when she saw defendant drive into the parking of a Baker's restaurant and park about 40 feet away from her. Officer Ing noticed that defendant had a passenger in his vehicle and that defendant and his passenger sat in the vehicle for a few minutes. The parking lot was well lit.
Approximately five minutes later, a second vehicle approached and parked near defendant's vehicle. Defendant exited his vehicle and approached the other vehicle. Officer Ing then saw defendant exchange currency for a white plastic bag the size of a baseball. Based on her training and experience, Officer Ing believed that "a hand-to-hand transaction of narcotics had just been conducted." Officer Ing and her backup officer thereafter approached defendant on foot and identified themselves as police officers. In response, defendant immediately attempted to flee from the area but ran into another officer, who was approaching from a different direction.
Officer Ing asked defendant if she could conduct a patdown search for weapons. Defendant replied in the affirmative. After feeling a large round object in defendant's front pocket, Officer Ing asked defendant what the object was. Defendant answered that it was methamphetamine. Officer Ing then asked defendant if she could retrieve the item. After defendant gave the officer permission to remove the object, Officer Ing retrieved and examined the item. The item appeared to be methamphetamine.
Defendant subsequently gave his consent to search his person and vehicle. A search of defendant's wallet revealed $620 in U.S. currency. A search of defendant's vehicle revealed a loaded handgun and nine Ziploc baggies containing methamphetamine. The items were found in a small hole placed in between the driver and passenger seats, where a center console would normally be.
At the time of the suppression hearing, Officer Ing had completed over 160 hours of training in narcotics, attended seven narcotics training classes, investigated 200-250 narcotics-related cases, and had testified as a narcotics expert about 50 times.
Following argument from counsel, the trial court denied defendant's suppression motion. The court found the initial contact and the subsequent detention, patdown search, and search of the vehicle were justified under the Fourth Amendment.
II
DISCUSSION
Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his suppression motion because he was unlawfully detained, and therefore his consent to search his person and vehicle was invalid. We disagree.
The standard an appellate court employs in its review of a denial of a motion to suppress evidence is well settled. In evaluating a challenge to the trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to its factual findings, whether express or implied, if they are supported by substantial evidence. (People v. Sardinas (2009) 170 Cal.App.4th 488, 493.) We then exercise our independent judgment to decide what legal principles are relevant, independently apply them to the facts, and determine as a matter of law whether there has been an unreasonable search and/or seizure. (People v. Glaser (1995) 11 Cal.4th 354, 362.)
Not every encounter between the police and a citizen is protected by the Fourth Amendment. (In re Christopher B. (1990) 219 Cal.App.3d 455, 460.) Police contacts with individuals fall into three broad categories: (1) consensual encounters; (2) detentions; and (3) formal arrests. (In re Manuel G. (1997) 16 Cal.4th 805, 821.) A consensual encounter does not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny, but a detention requires an "articulable suspicion that the person has committed or is about to commit a crime." (Ibid.)
A consensual encounter "may properly be initiated by police officers even if they lack any 'objective justification.'" (People v. Hughes (2002) 27 Cal.4th 287, 327.) Hence, a detention does not occur when a police officer merely approaches a person on the street, or here, in a parked vehicle, and asks a few questions. (In re Manuel G., supra, 16 Cal.4th at p. 821.) In determining whether an encounter is consensual, a court considers all the circumstances to determine whether a reasonable person would have felt free to decline the police officer's request to talk or to otherwise terminate the encounter. (Ibid.) "'"The test is necessarily imprecise, because it is designed to assess the coercive effect of police conduct, taken as a whole, rather than to focus on particular details of that conduct in isolation."' [Citation.]" (Ford v. Superior Court (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 112, 124.) We must make a realistic assessment of defendant's encounter with the police based upon the totality of the specific facts presented to us. (People v. Bouser (1994) 26 Cal.App.4th 1280, 1287.) "What constitutes a restraint on liberty such that a person would conclude that he is not free to leave varies with the particular police conduct at issue and the setting in which the conduct occurs." (People v. Ross (1990) 217 Cal.App.3d 879, 884.)
In this case, defendant acknowledges that he was not detained until he ran from Officer Ing and into another officer. He argues, however, that the trial court erred in finding the detention was justified based upon Officer Ing's observations. We find that the officers had reasonable suspicion to detain defendant under the totality of circumstances. A police officer may temporarily detain a suspect "based only on a 'reasonable suspicion' that the suspect has committed or is about to commit a crime." (People v. Bennett (1998) 17 Cal.4th 373, 387.) "A detention is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when the detaining officer can point to specific articulable facts that, considered in light of the totality of the circumstances, provide some objective manifestation that the person detained may be involved in criminal activity." (People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224, 231.) An officer may use certain commonsense conclusions about human behavior to establish a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. (U.S. v. Cortez (1981) 449 U.S. 411, 417 [101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d ].)
The concept of reasonable suspicion cannot be reduced to "'a neat set of legal rules.' [Citation.]" (United States v. Sokolow (1989) 490 U.S. 1, 7 [109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1].) "The guiding principle in determining the propriety of an investigatory detention is 'the reasonableness in all the circumstances of the particular governmental invasion of a citizen's personal security.' [Citations.] In making our determination, we examine 'the totality of the circumstances' in each case. [Citations.]" (People v. Wells (2006) 38 Cal.4th 1078, 1083.)
An officer may rely on "the modes or patterns of operation of certain kinds of lawbreakers" in determining whether there is reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory detention, because "a trained officer draws inferences and makes deductions -- inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person." (U.S. v. Cortez, supra, 449 U.S. at p. 418.) Therefore, in order to make a determination of reasonable suspicion, officers may "draw on their own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available to them that 'might well elude an untrained person.' [Citations.]" (U.S. v. Arvizu (2002) 534 U.S. 266, 273 [122 S.Ct. 744, 151 L.Ed.2d 740].) "The specialized knowledge of a police officer experienced in police narcotics work may render suspicious what would appear innocent to a layman." (People v. Maltz (1971) 14 Cal.App.3d 381, 390.)
The detention here was reasonable. The record shows that Officer Ing had a reasonable, articulable suspicion that defendant committed a crime or was about to commit one. While conducting a narcotics surveillance, Officer Ing, an experienced narcotics officer, saw defendant pull into a parking lot and sit in his car for a few minutes. Approximately five minutes later, a second vehicle approached and parked near defendant's vehicle. Officer Ing then observed defendant exit his vehicle and approach the other vehicle. She then saw defendant exchange currency for a white plastic bag the size of a baseball. Based on her training and experience, Officer Ing believed defendant engaged in a hand-to-hand drug transaction. As noted in People v. Limon (1993) 17 Cal.App.4th 524, 532, "[a] police officer's expertise can attach criminal import to otherwise innocent facts." Thereafter, when Officer Ing approached defendant and identified herself as an officer, defendant fled. The California Supreme Court "recognize[d] . . . that flight in response to the appearance of a uniformed officer or a marked patrol car ordinarily is behavior that police may legitimately regard as suspicious, and therefore also can be a key factor in establishing reasonable cause to detain in a particular case." (People v. Souza, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 227.) As explained by our Supreme Court, "[t]here is an appreciable difference between declining to answer a police officer's questions during a street encounter and fleeing at the first sight of a uniformed police officer. Because the latter shows not only unwillingness to partake in questioning but also unwillingness to be observed and possibly identified, it is a much stronger indicator of consciousness of guilt." (Id. at pp. 234-235; see also Illinois v. Wardlow (2000) 528 U.S. 119, 124 [120 S.Ct. 673, 145 L.Ed.2d 570] ["[h]eadlong flight wherever it occurs is the consummate act of evasion: it is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, but it is certainly suggestive of such"].)
"[I]n the course of training and in the exercise of their duties, experienced officers develop an ability to perceive the unusual and suspicious which is of value in the performance of their task of protecting the rights and safety of law abiding citizens. Indeed the failure of an officer to investigate conduct suggestive of criminal activity based upon his expertise acquired by training and experience would constitute a breach of his obligation to properly discharge the duties of an officer of the law." (People v. Peterson (1978) 85 Cal.App.3d 163, 168-169.)
Thus, given the totality of the circumstances of this case, we are convinced that the transaction Officer Ing witnessed constituted "'some objective manifestation' that criminal activity [was] afoot and that the person to be stopped [was] engaged in that activity." (People v. Souza, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 230.) We believe that it was "objectively reasonable" for Officer Ing to detain defendant, because the facts were "such as would cause any reasonable police officer in a like position, drawing . . . on his training and experience [citation] to suspect the same criminal activity and the same involvement by the person in question." (In re Tony C. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 888, 893, fn. omitted.)
This case is not, as defendant suggests, similar to In re Tony C., supra, 21 Cal.3d 888, 896-897. In that case, the California Supreme Court held that a police officer did not have reasonable suspicion to detain two minors where the officer "had been informed only that the suspects in the prior burglaries were 'three male blacks' of unspecified ages" because "[s]uch a vague description could not reasonably have led [the officer] to suspect these two black minors were the missing culprits." (Id. at p. 898, fn. omitted.) Here, in contrast to Tony C., the observations by Officer Ing were not vague or "purely speculative," as defendant argues. Officer Ing provided specific, articulable facts that, considered in light of the totality of the circumstances, provided an objective manifestation that defendant was involved in criminal activity thus justifying the detention. (People v. Mayfield (1997) 14 Cal.4th 668, 791.)
We conclude the lower court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress.
III
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
RICHLI
J.
We concur: RAMIREZ
P.J.
HOLLENHORST
J.