Opinion
2d Crim. No. B206863.
1-29-2009
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. BENITO GONZALEZ ARTEAGA, Defendant and Appellant.
Patrick Morgan Ford, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Edmund G. Brown Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Paul M. Roadarmel, Jr., Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Eric J. Kohm, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Not to be Published in the Official Reports
Benito Gonzalez Arteaga appeals the judgment entered following his no contest plea to possession of heroin (Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd. (a)). The trial court placed him on three years summary probation subject to the condition that he serve 90 days in county jail. He contends that he was unlawfully detained by law enforcement and that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress the heroin he was convicted of possessing. We affirm.
FACTS
At approximately 6:00 p.m. on January 28, 2008, three Los Angeles police officers in plain clothes and unmarked vehicles began surveillance of a residence in which there had been numerous arrests for narcotics activity and sales. Five minutes later, Arteaga was seen exiting the residence and getting into a car that was parked on the street. The officers followed Arteaga as he drove to a nearby gas station.
While Arteaga was standing next to his car pumping gas, two of the officers approached him, identified themselves, and displayed their badges. One of the officers asked Arteaga if they could speak to him. After Arteaga said he did not speak English, the third officer, Jaime Mejia, approached him as the other two officers backed away. Officer Mejia identified himself in Spanish, displayed his badge, and asked Arteaga if he could speak to him. Arteaga initially told the officer that he did not speak Spanish. When Officer Mejia asked him again "if he wouldnt mind speaking to [him]" in Spanish, Arteaga agreed to do so and explained he had only said he could not speak Spanish because he was scared.
Officer Mejia asked Arteaga if he had a drivers license. When Arteaga responded that he did not, Officer Mejia placed him under arrest for driving without a license in violation of Vehicle Code section 12500, subdivision (a). The officer searched Arteaga incident to his arrest and found seven bindles of heroin in his pocket.
DISCUSSION
Arteaga contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the heroin found in his possession during a search incident to his arrest on the ground that it was the fruit of an unlawful detention. He argues that it was seized without reasonable suspicion in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights when the officers approached him and asked him if he had a drivers license.
"The standard of appellate review of a trial courts ruling on a motion to suppress is well established. We defer to the trial courts factual findings, express or implied, where supported by substantial evidence. In determining whether, on the facts so found, the search or seizure was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, we exercise our independent judgment. [Citations.]" (People v. Glaser (1995) 11 Cal.4th 354, 362.) Applying this standard of review, we conclude that Arteaga was not seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment prior to his arrest. While he claims that he was "surrounded" by all three officers involved in the encounter, the record reflects otherwise. Initially, two of the officers merely approached Arteaga in a public place and asked if they could speak to him. When Arteaga told them he did not understand English, Officer Mejia stepped forward to speak with him in Spanish as the other two officers backed away. Officer Mejia then asked Arteaga whether he had a drivers license. These facts are sufficient to support the trial courts finding that the officers encounter with Arteaga was purely consensual. A seizure does not occur simply because a police officer approaches an individual on the street and asks a few questions. (Florida v. Bostick (1991) 501 U.S. 429, 434.) It is also well settled that an officers request for a drivers license or other identification does not transform an otherwise consensual encounter into a detention. (Florida v. Royer (1983) 460 U.S. 491, 501.) "So long as a reasonable person would feel free `to disregard the police and go about his business [citation], the encounter is consensual and no reasonable suspicion is required. . . . `. . . Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a "seizure" has occurred." (Bostick, supra, at p. 434; see also In re Manuel G. (1997) 16 Cal.4th 805, 821.) The record is devoid of evidence that the police officers involved in this case exhibited any such behavior.
Arteagas reliance on Wilson v. Superior Court (1983) 34 Cal.3d 777 (Wilson), is unavailing. In Wilson, the defendant acceded to a police officers request to search his briefcase after the officer told him he was being investigated for transporting drugs. In reversing the denial of the defendants motion to suppress the drugs found in his briefcase as the fruit of an unlawful detention, our Supreme Court reasoned: "[I]t is evident that [the police officer] did not detain Wilson, for federal constitutional purposes, merely by approaching him, identifying himself as a police officer, and asking if he might have a minute of his time. At that point, however, the officer did not simply ask Wilson if he would permit a search of his luggage. Instead, he advised [the defendant] that he was conducting a narcotics investigation and that he `had received information that he [Wilson] would be arriving today from Florida carrying a lot of drugs. (Italics added.) [¶] Common sense suggests to us that in such a situation, an ordinary citizen, confronted by a narcotics agent who has just told him that he has information that the citizen is carrying a lot of drugs, would not feel at liberty simply to walk away from the officer." (Id., at p. 790.)
Here, unlike in Wilson, the record does not show that any of the three officers who approached Arteaga ever suggested to him that they were doing anything other than "simply pursuing routine, general investigatory activities." (Wilson, supra, 34 Cal.3d at pp. 790-791.) Wilson therefore provides further support for the trial courts finding that Arteaga was not seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Arteagas reliance on People v. Spicer (1984) 157 Cal.App.3d 213 is also misplaced. In Spicer, a police officer approached the defendant and asked for her drivers license while she was sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle that had been lawfully pulled over in a residential neighborhood late at night for suspected Vehicle Code violations. (Id., at p. 216.) In concluding that the defendant was unlawfully detained under the unique circumstances of the case, the Court of Appeal acknowledged that the result would have been different had the officer merely approached the defendant in a public place. (Id., at p. 218.) Arteaga, unlike the defendant in Spicer, was in a public place when he was asked whether he had a license. Moreover, the officers who approached him did not exert physical force or impose any show of authority that would have led an objectively reasonable person to believe that he or she was not free to disregard their presence. Under the circumstances, Arteagas motion to suppress the evidence obtained against him as the fruit of an unlawful detention was properly denied.
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur:
YEGAN, Acting P.J.
COFFEE, J.