Opinion
D040068.
7-8-2003
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JAMES WASHINGTON DEARS, Defendant and Appellant.
After the court denied a motion to suppress evidence (Pen. Code, § 1538.5), James Washington Dears entered a guilty plea to possessing a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd. (a)) and admitted a strike prior (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 668, 1170.12) and a prior conviction of possessing a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11370, subd. (a)). The court sentenced him to prison for 32 months: double the 16-month lower term for possessing a controlled substance with a strike prior. It struck the prior drug conviction enhancement. Dears contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence.
FACTS
Around 10:30 p.m. on March 12, 2001, a San Diego police officer was on patrol when he saw Dears urinate on the sidewalk. The officer handcuffed and arrested Dears for urinating in public, placed him in the rear of the patrol car and took him to police headquarters. At headquarters, when Dears alighted from the patrol car to sign a citation, the officer saw a "rock" on the rear seat that tested positive presumptively as rock cocaine. No one but Dears had been in the rear seat of the patrol car that evening.
DISCUSSION
"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." (People v. Glaser (1995) 11 Cal.4th 354, 362, 902 P.2d 729.) A correct decision of the trial court must be affirmed on appeal even if it is based on erroneous reasons. (People v. Hobbs (1987) 192 Cal. App. 3d 959, 963, 237 Cal. Rptr. 742.)
The trial court here doubted Dears had standing to challenge the search, but hypothetically assumed he did and, citing Atwater v. City of Lago Vista (2001) 532 U.S. 318, 149 L. Ed. 2d 549, 121 S. Ct. 1536, denied the motion to suppress because the officer had a right to arrest Dears for urinating in public. In Atwater, the Supreme Court held that without a warrant, an officer can arrest a defendant for a nonviolent minor offense. (Id. at p. 354.)
Dears argues the trial court here erred in finding he lacked standing to challenge the search and in relying on Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, supra, since he was detained, not arrested, for urinating in public. Because the trial court did not rely on lack of standing to deny Dearss motion to suppress, we need not decide the standing question. The officer testified that he arrested Dears for urinating in public when he handcuffed and placed him in the patrol car at the site of the crime. Dears does not question that an officer can make an arrest for a misdemeanor. The officers later decision to cite, rather than jail, Dears did not abolish the arrest made at the site of the crime. Since the officer saw the rock cocaine in plain view in the rear of the patrol car after Dears alighted from the car, the rock cocaine was not the fruit of an illegal search or seizure. (See Harris v. United States (1968) 390 U.S. 234, 236, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1067, 88 S. Ct. 992 [an object in plain view of an officer who has a right to be in the position to see the object is admissible into evidence].) Substantial evidence supports the trial courts finding that the officer took Dears into custody before discovering the rock cocaine. The trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress evidence.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
WE CONCUR: HUFFMAN, J., and OROURKE, J.