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People v. Caldwell

California Court of Appeals, First District, Third Division
Mar 27, 2008
No. A116809 (Cal. Ct. App. Mar. 27, 2008)

Opinion


THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. LOYCE RAY CALDWELL, Defendant and Appellant. A116809 California Court of Appeal, First District, Third Division March 27, 2008

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

Solano County Super. Ct. No. VCR185557

Siggins, J.

Defendant Loyce Caldwell was convicted of possession for sale of cocaine base and prior felonies were found true. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison. On appeal, he contends the court erred when it denied his motion to suppress because the warrant affidavit established no facts that would justify a search of his residence. We disagree, and affirm.

BACKGROUND

I. The Warrant

On August 10, 2006, Vallejo Police Detective Theodore Postolaki submitted an affidavit seeking issuance of a warrant to search defendant’s person, a residence at 280 Magill Street, and three automobiles for cocaine and cocaine sale paraphernalia. Detective Postolaki attested that he had formal training in narcotics identification and use and “extensive informal training regarding narcotics packaging, distribution, use and sales.” Postolaki had worked for several years in narcotics units and participated in hundreds of narcotics-related arrests and searches. He had worked over 700 hours in covert surveillance of hand-to-hand narcotics sales and the habits of sellers and users.

Detective Postolaki was told by two confidential informants (referred to in the warrant application as CR-1 and CR-2) that defendant was selling cocaine in Vallejo. Both informants had previously provided reliable information and conducted controlled buys leading to arrests and the recovery of narcotics and weapons.

Working with Detective Postolaki in July 2006, CR-1 purchased cocaine base from defendant in two controlled buys. CR-1 also told Postolaki he had seen defendant driving a small red compact car with the license plate 4BIW233. CR-2 had also seen defendant driving the red car. A check of motor vehicle records disclosed the car, a 1997 Mitsubishi, was registered to a woman named Sherri Tina Dean, also known as Sheri Tina Caldwell, at 280 Magill Street in Vallejo. A computer check showed a Buick and a Pontiac registered to defendant.

Police officers observed defendant driving the red Mitsubishi and followed him to the 200 block of Magill Street, where he pulled into the driveway of 280 Magill. On another occasion Postolaki saw defendant in the Mitsubishi in the parking lot of a Raley’s supermarket, where a woman met him and loaded groceries into the car.

Postolaki ran a number of computerized searches to determine defendant’s place of residence. While three of these searches showed his address as 127 Anderson Street in Vallejo, one search listed it as 280 Magill Street.

According to Detective Postolaki, his training and experience have taught him that drug dealers often disguise their real home address by not listing it on identifying information such as drivers’ licenses and registration information, “to hamper law enforcement’s investigation of their true address where narcotics may be stored.” He also stated that “persons dealing narcotics often keep their supply or ‘stash’ hidden in and around their residence, vehicle, or person, and often use different vehicles to transport drugs from one location to the other. These vehicles are often borrowed or rented, and not registered to the suspect.” The detective believed defendant was selling cocaine and that evidence of drug sales would be found at 280 Magill Street.

The magistrate issued a warrant permitting a search of 280 Magill Street. Police officers searched the house and found a locked safe that contained 6.23 grams of cocaine base, packaging materials, a digital scale, two cocaine pipes, sandwich bags with missing corners, and a key to the Buick registered to defendant. Elsewhere in the house officers found another pipe, Pyrex glassware with white residue, and a phone bill and credit cards bearing defendant’s name and the Magill Street address. Defendant was pulled over in the Buick and it was searched the same day. More baggies and another scale with residue that appeared to be cocaine base were found in the car.

Defendant was charged by felony complaint and subsequently by an information with possession for sale of cocaine base. He moved to suppress the evidence and, after the motion was denied, moved to set aside the information on the ground that the search warrant was invalid. The superior court concluded the warrant was supported by probable cause and, assuming arguendo that it was not, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule would apply. A jury convicted defendant as charged, the court found true one prior prison term and three prior conviction allegations, and defendant was sentenced to a term of 11 years in prison.

DISCUSSION

Defendant asserts Detective Postolaki’s affidavit was insufficient because it did not reveal evidence of illegal activity occurring at the Magill Street address. Established California law leads us to reject defendant’s assertion.

I. Standard of Review

Where, as here, a motion to suppress is submitted to the superior court on the preliminary hearing transcript, “the appellate court disregards the findings of the superior court and reviews the determination of the magistrate who ruled on the motion to suppress, drawing all presumptions in favor of the factual determinations of the magistrate, upholding the magistrate’s express or implied findings if they are supported by substantial evidence, and measuring the facts as found by the trier against the constitutional standard of reasonableness.” (People v. Thompson (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 923, 940.) We independently review the applicable law and its application to the facts (People v. Carter (2005) 36 Cal.4th 1114, 1140) and affirm the trial court’s ruling if correct under any legal theory. (People v. Zapien (1993) 4 Cal.4th 929, 976.)

II. The Warrant Demonstrated Probable Cause

Defendant contends Postolaki’s affidavit was insufficient because it did not contain evidence that linked defendant’s drug dealing activities to the Magill Street address. Not so.

People v. Koch (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 770 is apposite. The defendant was arrested for driving under the influence and the ensuing search of his pickup truck revealed evidence that he was trafficking in narcotics. A warrant to search his residence was issued on the strength of that evidence, leading to the discovery of yet more contraband, paraphernalia and other evidence of drug sales. (Id. at p. 777.)

The defendant contended “it requires a ‘quantum leap’ in logic” to conclude from the evidence found in his pickup that additional evidence would be found in his home. The appellate court disagreed. “Under the Fourth Amendment, probable cause is to be gauged by ‘the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that traditionally has informed probable-cause determinations. The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him . . ., there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.’ [Citation.] Under the federal standard, ‘[f]or probable cause to exist, a magistrate need not determine that the evidence sought is in fact on the premises to be searched, or that the evidence is more likely than not to be found where the search takes place. The magistrate need only conclude that it would be reasonable to seek the evidence in the place indicated in the affidavit.’ ” (People v. Koch, supra, 209 Cal.App.3d at p. 779.)

The court in Koch specifically addressed what is required for probable cause to search a residence. The court continued: “It is settled under both California and federal law that the total circumstances surrounding an arrest or other criminal conduct can, without more, support a magistrate’s probable cause finding that the culprit’s home is a logical place to search for specific contraband.” (People v. Koch, supra, 209 Cal.App.3d at p. 779, citing People v. Johnson (1971) 21 Cal.App.3d 235, 242-243 [items found in search of uninhabited rental and officer’s knowledge that drug dealers often keep contraband at their residence supported warrant to search home]; People v. Aho (1985) 166 Cal.App.3d 984, 993 [information concerning suspect’s criminal activities plus officer’s statement that drug dealers frequently secrete contraband in their residences supported warrant]; see also People v. Cleland (1990) 225 Cal.App.3d 388, 392-393 [baggies of marijuana apparently packaged for sale plus officer’s opinion justified warrant for search of residence].) Federal courts, Koch observes, are in accord with its conclusion. (People v. Koch, supra, at pp. 779-780, citing, inter alia, United States v. Dubrofsky (9th Cir. 1978) 581 F.2d 208, 213; United States v. Peacock (9th Cir. 1985) 761 F.2d 1313, 1315-1316; see also United States v. Spearman (9th Cir. 1976) 532 F.2d 132-133.)

Despite Koch’s rather broad allusion to federal courts, the cases it cites are all from the Ninth Circuit.

The magistrate’s decision comports with this line of authority. Postolaki’s affidavit established that defendant sold drugs. While one source listed his address as the Magill Street house, three others showed him living at a different address. Defendant drove a car registered to a woman at the Magill Street address. Officer Postolaki attested that drug dealers often hide their illicit wares in their homes, disguise their home address by not listing it on identifying information, and use vehicles registered to others to transport drugs between locations. This information establishes probable cause, i.e., “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” (Illinois v. Gates (1983) 462 U.S. 213, 238; People v. Koch, supra, 209 Cal.App.3d 770 ; People v. Cleland, supra, 225 Cal.App.3d 388.)

Defendant misplaces reliance on People v. Pressey (2002) 102 Cal.App.4th 1178. Pressey addresses a related but different question—whether evidence that a person uses illegal drugs combined with an officer’s opinion that drug users will keep drugs at home constitutes probable cause for a search warrant directed to the person’s residence. Although the Pressey court held such evidence fell short of probable cause, it explicitly “assum[ed] that the California decisions are correct insofar as they suggest that evidence of drug dealing, by itself, can furnish probable cause to search the dealer’s residence.” (Id. at pp. 1185-1190, italics added.) The Pressey court distinguished Koch and related cases because “ ‘(1) drug trafficking is a much greater evil than drug use, increasing the governmental justification to search, and (2) if the homes of drug users could be searched as readily as the homes of drug traffickers, a much greater invasion of privacy would result.’ We would add that an inference of contraband in the home is more speculative in the case of drug users than drug traffickers. Prospects for contraband are greater in the case of traffickers, given the larger quantities of drugs and the additional items of property typically involved, such as customer lists, sales records, manufacturing equipment and materials, packaging, scales, weapons, large amounts of cash, etc.” (Id. at p. 1189.) Pressey provides no support for defendant’s position.

Defendant relies upon the United States Supreme Court’s rejection in Richards v. Wisconsin (1997) 520 U.S. 385 of a bright-line exception to the knock-and-announce rule for drug investigations, to argue that the court has “eschewed bright-line rules and blanket inferences in its Fourth Amendment jurisprudence” in favor of “a totality of the circumstances approach focused on the reasonableness of actions taken in a particular situation.” But Koch does not stand for a bright-line rule. Rather, explicitly and appropriately, Koch addresses the affiant’s knowledge of drug trafficking practices and evidence of the suspect’s drug dealing activities as among the totality of circumstances the magistrate may consider in determining whether probable cause exists. There is no indication the magistrate did otherwise in this case.

Defendant also observes that Koch represents but one side of a split of authority and urges us to reject substantial California precedent in favor of precedent from various other jurisdictions that have found probable cause lacking in the absence of evidence of a “nexus” between the drug dealing activity and the suspect’s residence. (See, e.g., State v. Thein (1999) 977 P.2d 582.) We decline the invitation to depart from settled California law. The law authorizes a magistrate to make a common-sense probable cause determination based on the totality of the circumstances. Koch, we believe, represents a just application of that principle.

In any event, assuming arguendo that California has it wrong, the unbroken line of in-state cases approving warrants issued on similar facts dictates that the seized evidence would be admissible under the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. (United States v. Leon (1984) 468 U.S. 897.) “The question is whether ‘a well-trained officer should reasonably have known that the affidavit failed to establish probable cause (and hence that the officer should not have sought a warrant).’ ” (People v. Pressey, supra, 102 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1190-1191.) The Pressey court held the good faith exception applied, because “[g]iven the dearth of authority directly on point and the existence of potentially supportive precedent, the issue of probable cause was ‘debatable’ ” and the officer could therefore reasonably rely on the magistrate’s finding of probable cause. (Id. at p. 1191.) Here, in light of the clearly settled state of state law, the issue was not even debatable.

The warrant here was supported by probable cause and, in any event, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule would apply if it had not been. The motion to suppress was properly denied.

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

We concur: Pollak, Acting P.J., Horner, J.

Judge of the Alameda County Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.


Summaries of

People v. Caldwell

California Court of Appeals, First District, Third Division
Mar 27, 2008
No. A116809 (Cal. Ct. App. Mar. 27, 2008)
Case details for

People v. Caldwell

Case Details

Full title:THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. LOYCE RAY CALDWELL, Defendant and…

Court:California Court of Appeals, First District, Third Division

Date published: Mar 27, 2008

Citations

No. A116809 (Cal. Ct. App. Mar. 27, 2008)