Opinion
H043174
04-26-2017
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ANTONIO CRUZ, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Monterey County Super. Ct. No. SS143021A)
Police detained defendant Antonio Cruz and codefendant Carlos Lara after finding their van parked on the side of the road. A search of the van yielded 2,062 pounds of marijuana packaged in numerous bundles. Cruz moved to suppress the evidence under Penal Code section 1538.5 as the fruits of an illegal search. After the court denied his motion, Cruz pleaded no contest to possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of marijuana for sale. (Health & Saf. Code, §§ 11359, 11360, subd. (a).) The trial court imposed a total term of three years.
Subsequent undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
Cruz appeals from the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress. We conclude the trial court properly denied the motion. We will affirm the judgment.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
A. Facts of the Search
At 5:30 a.m. on November 27, 2014, Monterey County Deputy Sheriff David Worden was patrolling State Route 1 south of Carmel when he spotted a white van parked on the side of the road near Monastery Beach. The van was parked legally and was not impeding traffic. As Deputy Worden pulled in behind the van, he turned on his spotlight and saw a man run into the bushes on the passenger side of the van. Deputy Worden walked around to the front of the van and ordered the subject to come out of the bushes, but nobody came out.
Deputy Worden then shined his flashlight through the front windshield of the van to look inside. In the rear part of the van, he saw a large number of white bundles stacked up nearly to the ceiling. The bundles were shaped in squares about 12 to 18 inches on a side. Deputy Worden had seen similar bundles several months before at the Sheriff's Monterey substation. They had been seized on a beach south of Big Sur, and they were filled with marijuana. Based on the similarity in the packaging and the fact that a man had run from the van, Deputy Worden believed the bundles in the van also contained marijuana.
At that point, Deputy Worden's backup partner arrived. The two officers called into the bushes and ordered the subject to come out. The officers threatened to release a K-9 unit and warned that the dog would find and bite the subject. Cruz and codefendant Carlos Lara then emerged from the bushes with their hands up. The officers handcuffed the two men and placed them in patrol cars.
Deputy Worden advised Lara of his Miranda rights and began questioning him. When Deputy Worden asked what was in the van, Lara replied, "I think marijuana, sir." Lara said they had picked up the marijuana by the shore and that several other persons had helped them load it into the van. The officers then opened the rear doors of the van without consent from Cruz or Lara. An officer cut one of the bundles open and found marijuana inside.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436.
Police subsequently impounded and searched the van, whereupon they found 79 bales of marijuana with a total weight of about 2,062 pounds.
B. Procedural Background
The prosecution charged Cruz with two counts: Count 1—possession of marijuana for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11359); and Count 2—transportation of marijuana for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11360, subd. (a).)
Cruz moved to suppress the seized evidence under section 1538.5 on the ground that the search was illegal. After a hearing at which Deputy Worden testified to the above facts, the trial court denied the motion.
Cruz then pleaded no contest to both counts. The trial court imposed the middle term of two years on Count 1 and the middle term of three years on Count 2, to run concurrently.
II. DISCUSSION
Cruz contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress. He argues first that the police lacked any legal grounds to enter the van. Second, he argues that, even assuming the entry of the van was legal, the police had no grounds to cut open one of the bundles. The Attorney General contends the search was lawful at all times because the police had probable cause to search both the van and the bundles. We conclude the trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress.
A. Legal Principles
The Fourth Amendment provides that "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . ." (U.S. Const., 4th Amend.) This guarantee applies to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (Mapp v. Ohio (1961) 367 U.S. 643.)
When a defendant moves to suppress evidence seized in a warrantless search, the prosecution bears the burden to prove police conducted the search under a valid exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. (People v. Camacho (2000) 23 Cal.4th 824, 830.) "In reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to that court's factual findings, express or implied, if they are supported by substantial evidence. [Citation.] We exercise our independent judgment in determining whether, on the facts presented, the search or seizure was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." (People v. Lenart (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1107, 1119.)
B. The Trial Court Properly Denied the Motion to Suppress
The Attorney General correctly asserts that the police may search a vehicle without a warrant if the police have probable cause to believe the vehicle contains contraband. "If a car is readily mobile and probable cause exists to believe it contains contraband, the Fourth Amendment . . . permits police to search the vehicle without more." (Pennsylvania v. Labron (1996) 518 U.S. 938, 940.) "A police officer has probable cause to conduct a search when 'the facts available to [him] would "warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief" ' that contraband or evidence of a crime is present." (Florida v. Harris (2013) 133 S.Ct. 1050, 1055, quoting Texas v. Brown (1983) 460 U.S. 730, 742.) Here, the police had observed a van parked near a beach area at 5:30 a.m., and a man ran away from the van as police approached it. Inside the van, Deputy Worden saw stacks of bundles packaged in a manner similar to bundles he had recently seen, which had been seized on a beach and found to contain marijuana. Furthermore, after Cruz and Lara were detained, Lara admitted he thought the bundles contained marijuana, and he said they had recently been loaded from the shore into the van. Based on these facts, the police had probable cause to search the van and the bundles. (See, e.g., Texas v. Brown, supra, 460 U.S. 730 [officer who shined flashlight into a vehicle and seized an uninflated party balloon was entitled to rely on his training and experience to conclude the balloon might contain drugs].)
Cruz argues that Deputy Worden's focus was on the bundles themselves, as opposed to searching for unknown packages or containers within the van. Relying on Arkansas v. Sanders (1979) 442 U.S. 753 (Sanders) (warrant required to search a suitcase lawfully seized from a vehicle), and U.S. v. Chadwick (1977) 433 U.S. 1 (Chadwick) (warrant required to search a footlocker lawfully seized from the trunk of a car), Cruz argues that, once the police seized the bundles, they should have obtained a warrant to search the contents of the bundles. The United State Supreme Court, however, abrogated the holdings of those cases in California v. Acevedo (1991) 500 U.S. 565 (Acevedo). There, the high court held that "the Fourth Amendment does not compel separate treatment for an automobile search that extends only to a container within the vehicle." (Id. at p. 576.) "In so holding, Acevedo overruled Chadwick and Sanders on that point." (Robey v. Superior Court (2013) 56 Cal.4th 1218, 1232 (Robey).)
Cruz relies on Robey to support his claim that the police should have obtained a warrant to search the bundles. In Robey, the defendant took a package containing marijuana to FedEx for shipping. Because the package smelled of marijuana, a FedEx employee called the police, who seized and searched the package. The California Supreme Court held that exigent circumstances justified the initial seizure of the package, but that a warrant was required to search the package once it was seized. (Robey, supra, 56 Cal.4th at pp. 1239-1240.) Based on Robey, Cruz contends that because the police lacked exigent circumstances to search the bundles, they should have obtained a warrant before searching them. However, the court in Robey expressly distinguished between searches of packages seized from vehicles and searches of packages seized from a private carrier. (Id. at pp. 1235-1236.) The court made clear that under Acevedo the automobile exception still applies to packages seized within vehicles. Because the police here lawfully seized the bundles from a van, Robey is inapposite.
The high court did not address whether a "plain smell" exception justified the search because the prosecution did not raise that argument in the trial court. --------
In summary, the police had probable cause to search both the van and the bundles within it. Accordingly, we conclude the trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress.
III. DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
/s/_________
RUSHING, P.J. WE CONCUR: /s/_________
PREMO, J. /s/_________
ELIA, J.