Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. KA077813. Daniel J. Buckley, Judge.
Richard L. Fitzer, 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, Susan D. Martynec, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Analee J. Brodie, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
MALLANO, P. J.
Juan Estrada appeals from the judgment entered following denial of his motion to suppress evidence and an ensuing negotiated plea of guilty to transportation of a controlled substance and admission of prior felony convictions. Defendant was sentenced to five years in state prison and contends that the trial court erred in limiting the scope of Pitchess discovery. He alternatively requests that we independently review the sealed transcript of the in camera Pitchess hearing to determine if all relevant discovery was disclosed. We affirm.
Pitchess v. Superior Court (1974) 11 Cal.3d 531 (Pitchess).
BACKGROUND
In a motion for discovery under Pitchess, supra, 11 Cal.3d 531, defendant requested information on complaints against Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies Michael Gonzales and George Meza “relating to acts of violation of constitutional rights, fabrication of charges, fabrication of evidence, fabrication of reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause, illegal search/seizure; false arrest, perjury, dishonesty, writing of false police reports, writing of false police reports to cover up the use of excessive force, planting of evidence, false or misleading internal reports including but not limited to false overtime or medical reports, and any other evidence of misconduct amounting to moral turpitude within the meaning of People v. Wheeler (1992) 4 Cal.4th 284.”
The factual basis of the motion was the deputies’ report stating that defendant had been stopped in his truck for a traffic violation. Once stopped, defendant told the deputies that he was on parole. The deputies ordered defendant out of the truck to conduct a parole search. Defendant was asked if there was anything illegal in the truck, and he responded he thought a friend had left methamphetamine in a tissue box on the driver’s seat. A baggie of methamphetamine was found in the truck. Defendant, on the other hand, asserted that he had not committed a traffic violation. Deputies pulled him over for no reason, asked for his driver’s license, and told him they thought he was under the influence. Defendant was then ordered out of the vehicle and handcuffed. Defendant did not tell the deputies that he was on parole (he had been discharged from parole a year earlier). The deputies threatened to impound the truck if defendant did not tell them where the drugs were, and in response defendant told the deputies where the methamphetamine could be found.
At the hearing on the motion, which was opposed by the prosecutor and the sheriff’s department, the court concluded that Pitchess review was warranted but that defendant’s request was too broad. Accordingly, the court limited discovery to complaints “based on a fabrication of evidence, specifically fabrication of reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause, illegal search and seizure, false arrest or writing of false police reports.”
As a result of the in camera review ordered by the court, information regarding three complaints lodged against the deputies was turned over to defendant. A hearing was later held on defendant’s motion to suppress evidence, at which the evidence conformed with that outlined in the Pitchess motion. Suppression was denied, following which defendant entered his plea.
DISCUSSION
Defendant asserts error in the trial court’s limitation of Pitchess review, arguing that any instance of perjury on the deputies’ part would be relevant to credibility, which was the key to the suppression motion.
Pitchess rulings are reviewed for abuse of the trial court’s wide latitude of discretion. (Pitchess, supra, 11 Cal.3d at p. 535; People v. Samayoa (1997) 15 Cal.4th 795, 827; People v. Hughes (2002) 27 Cal.4th 287, 330.) Here, confronted with defendant’s overbroad request, the trial court tailored allowable discovery to aspects of the deputies’ personnel records that were truly relevant to the presentation of a defense. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by the careful, reasoned limitation of discovery.
As requested by defendant, we have also independently reviewed the sealed transcript of the in camera Pitchess hearing. Based on that review, we conclude that all discoverable material was ordered to be turned over to defendant. (See People v. Mooc (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1216, 1232.)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed..
We concur: VOGEL, J., ROTHSCHILD, J.