Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. VA095317. Yvonne T. Sanchez, Judge, Cynthia A. Zuzga, Commissioner.
Elisa A. Brandes, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
FLIER, J.
Ronald Randolph Campos appeals his conviction for possession of a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a)). The appeal is based on the denial of his motion to suppress evidence (Pen. Code, § 1538.5). His appointed counsel filed a brief pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 (Wende). Appellant was notified that he could file his own brief with this court and has not done so.
The police officer who stopped appellant’s car and searched him was the sole witness at the suppression hearing. She testified that she made a traffic stop of the vehicle appellant was driving because it lacked a lamp on its rear license plate. She asked appellant for the registration, his driver’s license, and insurance information. She also asked him where he was going and where he had been. She then asked for permission to conduct a patdown search. He consented. As she patted him down “from behind,” she “felt a round kind of grainy object in his right coin pocket of the jeans he was wearing.” Looking over his shoulder, she saw that, protruding from the pocket, there was a piece of plastic that had “an item resembling methamphetamine in the top of it.” She handcuffed him, removed the object and booked it into evidence. It was a small knotted square of clear plastic apparently cut from a grocery bag.
Defense counsel argued that the traffic stop was unnecessarily prolonged, as there was no basis for asking appellant to consent to a patdown search. The prosecutor responded that the patdown was permissible because appellant consented to it. The trial court denied the motion because the officer saw the drug in plain view during a consensual patdown search.
After his suppression motion was denied, appellant pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance, methamphetamine. Imposition of sentence was suspended, and he was placed on three years of formal probation. This appeal followed.
From our examination of the record, we are satisfied that appellant’s attorney has fully complied with her responsibilities, and no arguable issues exist. (Smith v. Robbins (2000) 528 U.S. 259; Wende, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 441.)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: COOPER, P. J., EGERTON, J.
Judge from the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.