From Casetext: Smarter Legal Research

People v. Gonzalez

California Court of Appeals, Second District, Fourth Division
Jul 21, 2008
No. B203620 (Cal. Ct. App. Jul. 21, 2008)

Opinion

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. BA316975, Frederick N. Wapner, 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, Assistant Attorney General, Susan D. Martynec and Robert M. Snider, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.


SUZUKAWA, J.

Defendant Maria Rosario Gonzalez appeals from the judgment entered following the denial of her suppression motion (Pen. Code, § 1538.5) and her no contest plea to the charge of transporting a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11352, subd. (a)). She contends the trial court erred when it ruled the deputy sheriff had probable cause to search her vehicle. We conclude the trial court was correct, and affirm the judgment.

THE SUPPRESSION HEARING

On December 22, 2006, at approximately 6:00 p.m., Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Daniel Reyes, a 17-year veteran, and his partner were patrolling in the area of Fresno Avenue and Winter Street. He observed a white Chevy van driving on the wrong side of the street, and conducted a traffic stop. Reyes approached the vehicle and contacted defendant, the driver of the van. Defendant told him that her driver’s license was suspended, a fact Reyes verified with his mobile computer. She was placed under arrest.

There were three passengers in the van, defendant’s sister and two small children. After ascertaining that defendant’s sister did not have a valid driver’s license, Reyes decided to impound the van, conduct an inventory search, and have the van towed. Because defendant had not provided registration for the vehicle, he went to the glove compartment in an attempt to locate it. Reyes opened the door to the glove compartment, and the door dropped down so that it was hanging by its hinge. The compartment was empty.

As Reyes looked in the glove compartment, he noticed there was a gap on the top of the compartment, an area where the airbag is normally located. He looked inside the space and could not see an airbag. He looked at the cover to the airbag space and noticed that it “was partially out of alignment as if it had been tampered with.” He placed his finger through a small hole in the cover but was unable to feel anything inside. Reyes lifted the cover to make certain the airbag was not there. (He testified that the California Highway Patrol inventory form required him to note whether the vehicle was equipped with airbags.) He stated that it is “really uncommon” to be able to lift an airbag cover. He pulled the cover back slightly and, with the aid of his flashlight, confirmed the passenger side of the van did not have an airbag. In the space reserved for the airbag, Reyes saw a large number of plastic baggies that contained a rock-like substance resembling cocaine.

Reyes said he suspected the van had a false compartment as soon as he noticed the airbag cover had been tampered with and the airbag space appeared empty. He had taken a course called “Drugs on Wheels” offered by the California Narcotics Officers Association that provided information on secret compartments in vehicles, and had arrested individuals who had placed guns and narcotics in the airbag space.

Stephanie Velasco testified that she is defendant’s friend. On the evening of defendant’s arrest, Velasco walked past the location where defendant’s van had been stopped, and saw deputies searching the van. She observed the deputies “messing” with the airbag in the van with a “tool” that was retrieved from a toolbox in the back of a patrol car.

Isaura Gonzalez is defendant’s sister. She stated she was a passenger in defendant’s van when it was stopped by the deputies. Gonzalez also saw deputies retrieve a toolbox from the trunk of a vehicle. She watched a deputy use a screwdriver to “[pull] out the air bag from [her] sister’s van.” She confirmed that a deputy asked her if she had a driver’s license and she told him she did not.

The prosecutor argued that the deputies were justified in arresting defendant because she was driving with a suspended license. During the inventory search, “[t]he officer[] saw in the glove compartment an indication that there was a secret compartment in the car and his training, experience leads him to believe there could be contraband or weapons in it.” He contended the defense witnesses did not contradict Reyes’s testimony regarding how he discovered the drugs, and their observation of the use of tools was insignificant because the parties agreed that tools were used to ultimately retrieve the drugs from the airbag space.

Defendant urged the deputy exceeded the scope of an inventory search. Once he determined that the van did not have an airbag, the search should have ended. Defendant asserted that Reyes merely acted on a “hunch” when he removed the airbag space cover. She claimed Reyes had “no legal basis to pull that cover up and illuminate the inside absent a search warrant since there’s no specific and articulable facts to establish criminal activity was afoot at that point, meaning, that he believed there is a secreted compartment that there would be guns and corroborated [sic] contraband in — in there.”

The prosecutor responded, “I think it boils down to once the officer saw — he saw a secret compartment and he articulated his reasons for — for believing that drugs could be found in those compartments.” He argued the deputy’s discovery that the airbag cover had been tampered with, his training, and his experience of finding contraband in airbag spaces gave him sufficient probable cause to search.

The trial court denied the suppression motion on two grounds. First, it concluded that once the deputy discovered the vacant airbag space, he had an obligation to determine whether it contained any property that had to be accounted for as part of the inventory search. Second, it rejected defendant’s argument that the deputy merely rummaged aimlessly through the van on a hunch, and determined the deputy’s knowledge and experience that caused him to believe the space held contraband justified further inspection of the area.

DISCUSSION

“In reviewing the trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we view the record in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, deferring to those express or implied findings of fact supported by substantial evidence. [Citations.] We independently review the trial court’s application of the law to the facts. [Citation.]” (People v. Jenkins (2000) 22 Cal.4th 900, 969.)

Defendant acknowledges that an inventory search is a recognized exception to the general rule against warrantless searches. She does not contest Deputy Reyes’s decision to impound the vehicle and conduct the inventory search. However, she contends: “Once the deputy looked inside the small hole in the airbag compartment and saw that there was no airbag, he had sufficient information to complete that section of the standard inventory form and move on to another item.” She argues Reyes’s decision to pull back the airbag cover was not directed toward the task of properly conducting an inventory search, but was motivated by his hunch or suspicion that there was contraband in the space. She asserts the search went beyond the scope of a proper inventory search.

Defendant ignores the second ground upon which the trial court upheld the search—Deputy Reyes’s training and experience justified a search of the airbag space once he observed the cover to the space had been tampered with and was unable to locate an airbag inside. If the deputy had sufficient probable cause to examine the airbag space, it renders the question whether he exceeded the scope of an inventory search moot. (See People v. Benites (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 309, 328.)

Probable cause to search exists “where the known facts and circumstances are sufficient to warrant a man of reasonable prudence in the belief that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found.” (Ornelas v. United States (1996) 517 U.S. 690, 696.) We recognize “that a police officer may draw inferences based on his own experience in deciding whether probable cause exists.” (Id. at p. 700.)

The trial court credited Deputy Reyes’s testimony that he had undergone training related to the subject of secret compartments in vehicles. It also accepted that Reyes had personally arrested individuals who had hidden guns and narcotics, not only in secret compartments in general, but in airbag spaces specifically. The facts and circumstances that led to this search were sufficient to allow a deputy with Reyes’s training and experience to conclude there was “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime [would] be found in a particular place.” (Illinois v. Gates (1983) 462 U.S. 213, 238.) Given the unusual hiding place utilized by defendant, it most likely took someone with the deputy’s expertise to realize something was amiss. His conduct was not unreasonable; hence, neither was his search. The trial court properly denied defendant’s suppression motion.

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

We concur EPSTEIN, P. J., WILLHITE, J.


Summaries of

People v. Gonzalez

California Court of Appeals, Second District, Fourth Division
Jul 21, 2008
No. B203620 (Cal. Ct. App. Jul. 21, 2008)
Case details for

People v. Gonzalez

Case Details

Full title:THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. MARIA ROSARIO GONZALEZ, Defendant…

Court:California Court of Appeals, Second District, Fourth Division

Date published: Jul 21, 2008

Citations

No. B203620 (Cal. Ct. App. Jul. 21, 2008)