Opinion
C082985
03-21-2018
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. LYNN ARLEN HAMILTON, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super. Ct. No. 13F6723)
Officers detained defendant Lynn Arlen Hamilton while they executed a valid search warrant on his brother's truck, looking for firearms and ammunition which his brother was statutorily prohibited from possessing. Although defendant was not the subject of the search warrant, officers knew at that time that he too had a prior conviction that prevented him from possessing firearms and ammunition. While detained, defendant made several incriminating statements about ammunition found in the truck and firearms and ammunition found at a residential property that was also subject to the warrant. He moved to suppress his inculpatory statements prior to trial. The trial court found defendant had been unlawfully arrested when seized, but denied the motion to suppress after concluding he would have inevitably made the statements notwithstanding the purported Fourth Amendment violation. A jury found him guilty of one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm (Pen. Code, § 29800, subd. (a)), and two counts of possession of ammunition by a person prohibited from possessing a firearm (§ 30305, subd. (a)(1)). He was sentenced to an aggregate consecutive term of six years in state prison.
Defendant did not move to suppress any of the physical evidence found in the truck or at the residential property, including multiple firearms and ammunition and several pieces of indicia linking defendant to the contraband found in the truck and at the house and surrounding property.
Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
On appeal, defendant contends the court erred in denying his suppression motion based on the doctrine of inevitable discovery. He further contends his statements were the direct result of the illegal arrest, and should have been suppressed. We conclude the statements were properly admitted, although for reasons different than the trial court. Defendant voluntarily made the statements after officers lawfully detained him for a brief period while executing a valid search warrant on the truck.
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
Special agents from California's Department of Justice obtained a search warrant authorizing them to search a truck associated with Brian Hamilton, defendant's brother, and to search a residential address located on Plateau Pines Road in Shingletown, where Brian was believed to live with their father, Hugh Hamilton. Officers had probable cause to obtain the search warrant after discovering Brian's name on two Department of Justice databases, one that listed persons prohibited from owning or possessing firearms due to prior convictions and one that recorded the names of persons who had purchased firearms. Neither defendant nor Hugh was the subject of the search warrant.
Because Brian and Hugh share the same surname, we refer to them by their first names to avoid confusion.
Special Agent Nason Namikawa testified to the warrant's probable cause basis during an Evidence Code section 402 hearing before trial. During trial, Agent Namikawa confirmed that he had searched a Department of Justice automated firearms system database before securing the search warrant. Although defense counsel questioned Agent Namikawa about what the search warrant authorized law enforcement to search and counsel had Agent Namikawa review the warrant on the stand, it does not appear that the actual search warrant was ever admitted during trial.
In the early morning hours of August 23, 2013, special agents conducted surveillance near the Plateau Pines address. They observed defendant and Brian leaving Plateau Pines Road in a truck. Brian was driving, and defendant was his passenger. The agents followed the truck to the Shasta County courthouse.
After parking the truck, Brian and defendant got out and walked towards the courthouse steps. They were detained by agents waiting nearby. Defendant was patsearched for weapons. None were found. He was handcuffed and taken across the street to the sheriff's office by Agent Namikawa, where he was placed in an interview room. Agent Namikawa described the sheriff's office as a "stone's throw" away from the courthouse.
During the motion to suppress hearing, the prosecutor estimated that the sheriff's office was located approximately 100 yards from the courthouse.
While defendant was being escorted to the sheriff's office, agents began searching the truck. Within 10 minutes of detaining defendant, officers had found several live ammunition rounds and a letter addressed to defendant in the glove compartment. Behind the driver's seat, agents located an ammunition box containing approximately 30 rounds of ammunition of various caliber. A letter addressed to Brian was also found on the front seat.
Agent Namikawa, meanwhile, questioned defendant after advising him of his Miranda rights. At the time, Agent Namikawa was aware that defendant was prohibited from possessing ammunition due to a prior federal conviction.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 .
Although Agent Namikawa did not consider defendant to be under arrest, he testified at the motion to suppress hearing that defendant was not free to leave pending further investigation into his brother's firearms. The half-hour interview was video recorded and transcribed. Excerpts of the interview were played for the jury and transcripts were provided for the jurors' review.
Excerpts of the video recorded interview shown to the jury are not included in the record on appeal. Although redacted portions of the interview transcript are included, a transcript of the full interview is not in the record.
Approximately 15 minutes after defendant was initially detained at the courthouse, Agent Namikawa was informed that ammunition had been found in the truck. Prior to receiving this notification, Agent Namikawa admitted that he and defendant had discussed the search warrant, firearms, ammunition, and how Brian was prohibited from having guns or ammunition.
When Agent Namikawa asked defendant about the ammunition in Brian's truck, defendant said it belonged to him. He claimed he had gone shooting the previous day.
This statement does not appear in the transcript, but Agent Namikawa maintained that defendant in fact made the statement sometime that day, although he could not be sure when he said it. --------
Defendant also said he took possession of all of Brian's firearms since Brian was prohibited from having guns. He then said that his father had possession of every firearm found in the house (meaning the house on the Plateau Pines property), which belonged to his father. Defendant claimed he had a large gun safe at the house. He initially denied having the combination to the safe, but later told Agent Namikawa that he could open it if his father did not provide agents with the combination. According to defendant, he had all kinds of guns at the property because his family were gunsmiths. He estimated that agents would find around 15 firearms in the house. Defendant also told Agent Namikawa that his trailer was on the property next to the "pump house." He described the trailer as his "residence."
Following the interview, Agent Namikawa placed defendant under arrest. His brother was also arrested.
That same day, agents searched the Plateau Pines property. In the living room of the main residence, agents found multiple firearms and a letter in defendant's name. Agents located a tall gun safe inside a bedroom closet. Inside the safe agents found ammunition, handguns, and an assortment of long guns, including a short-barreled shotgun. Prescription medication bottles in Brian's name were also found inside the safe. A nine-millimeter handgun was found inside a dresser along with a receipt in Brian's name.
Several trailers were also located on the property. Inside a small Scotsman trailer, which was located next to the pump house defendant described during his interview with Agent Namikawa, agents found a loaded 12-gauge shotgun inside a cabinet and a loaded nine-millimeter handgun underneath a mattress. Three empty prescription pill bottles in defendant's name were found in a box underneath the bed.
Agents found numerous handguns, rifles, shotguns, firearm receivers, and ammunition in two other trailers on the property. Approximately 3,200 rounds of ammunition and over 50 firearms were found throughout the property.
A November 2013 information charged defendant with being a felon in possession of a firearm (Pen. Code, § 29800, subd. (a); count 2), two counts of possession of ammunition by a felon (§ 30305, subd. (a)(1); count 4 [ammunition at Plateau Pines property] & count 6 [ammunition in truck]), and possession of a short-barreled shotgun or rifle (§ 33210; count 7). Brian was similarly charged.
Prior to trial, defendant moved to suppress the inculpatory statements he made to Agent Namikawa the day of the search, arguing his statements were inadmissible as the fruit of an illegal arrest. (§ 1538.5.) Although the court agreed defendant had been unlawfully arrested under the Fourth Amendment, the court denied the motion after finding that defendant's statements inevitably would have been discovered because probable cause to arrest defendant arose within 10 minutes of the Fourth Amendment violation. Moreover, given that the agents were executing a lawful search warrant for the truck, the court found that suppressing the evidence would not have a deterrent effect on law enforcement and therefore it refused to exclude the evidence.
Defendant and Brian were tried jointly. Neither testified. The prosecutor, however, did introduce excerpts of defendant's recorded interview with Agent Namikawa where he claimed the firearms were his and his father's and that he resided in a trailer on the Plateau Pines property where loaded firearms were eventually found.
Defendant's friend Brian Schall testified on his behalf. According to Schall, defendant lived with him in August 2013 and was not living at the Plateau Pines property. He did not think defendant kept any of his belongings at the Plateau Pines property. Although he believed defendant owned an Airstream trailer, he could not recall where it was kept.
The jury found defendant guilty of the felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition offenses (counts 2, 4, & 6), but acquitted him of possessing a short-barreled shotgun or rifle (count 7). The court sentenced defendant to an aggregate term of six years in state prison, consisting of the middle term of two years on count 2, plus two consecutive eight-month terms for counts 4 and 6. For two convictions suffered in a different case (case No. 14F6542), the court imposed a consecutive eight-month term for false imprisonment plus two years for an on-bail enhancement under section 12022.1 and stayed the sentence on threatening a public officer pursuant to section 654. Defendant timely appealed.
DISCUSSION
Defendant contends the court erred in denying his motion to suppress. In his view, the court improperly speculated that the subject of his incriminating statements would inevitably have been discovered because officers actually developed probable cause to arrest him within 10 minutes of detaining him when they found ammunition and a letter addressed to him in the truck pursuant to a lawful search warrant. For reasons other than those given by the trial court, we conclude his inculpatory statements were admissible at trial.
"The standard of appellate review of a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress is well established. We defer to the trial court's 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.) "We may sustain the trial court's decision without embracing its reasoning." (People v. McDonald (2006) 137 Cal.App.4th 521, 529.) Thus, we may affirm the ruling on defendant's motion to suppress if it is correct on any theory of the law applicable to the case, even if the ruling is based on an incorrect reason. (Ibid.)
In this case, the trial court found officers lacked probable cause when they placed defendant in handcuffs and transported him to the sheriff's office interview room. While that may be true, it does not necessarily follow that defendant was illegally arrested as the court so found.
"The Fourth Amendment protects '[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.' " (Utah v. Strieff (2016) ___ U.S. ___, ___ [195 L.Ed.2d 400, 407]; U.S. Const., 4th Amend.].) "Any police restraint of the liberty of an individual either by physical force or by an assertion of authority to which the individual submits, in circumstances in which a reasonable person would have believed he or she was not free to leave, will constitute a state 'seizure' of the individual within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." (People v. Soun (1995) 34 Cal.App.4th 1499, 1515 (Soun).) "Such a seizure is normally characterized as either a 'detention' or an 'arrest.' " (Ibid.)
The constitutional standard needed to justify a permissible detention is lesser than that needed for an arrest. (Soun, supra, 34 Cal.App.4th at p. 1515.) Police may undertake a detention if there is a reasonable articulable suspicion that a person has committed or is about to commit a crime. (Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 30 (Terry).) An arrest, on the other hand, "must be supported by an arrest warrant or by probable cause. [Citation.] Probable cause exists when the facts known to the arresting officer would persuade someone of 'reasonable caution' that the person to be arrested has committed a crime." (People v. Celis (2004) 33 Cal.4th 667, 673.) In assessing the constitutional propriety of a seizure of the person it is thus essential to first determine whether the seizure was a detention or an arrest. (Soun, supra, 34 Cal.App.4th at p. 1515.)
Unquestionably defendant was seized, in the Fourth Amendment sense, as soon as officers stopped him on the courthouse steps and patsearched him. Contrary to the trial court's finding, however, we conclude, based on the totality of the circumstances known to the officers at the time, that defendant was initially lawfully detained and that the detention did not evolve into a de facto arrest when defendant was handcuffed and escorted across the street to the sheriff's office.
"A detention is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when the detaining officer can point to specific articulable facts that, considered in light of the totality of the circumstances, provide some objective manifestation that the person detained may be involved in criminal activity." (People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224, 231.) Considering what officers knew when they first contacted defendant, the prosecution satisfied this standard.
In this case, Agent Namikawa knew that defendant was prohibited from owning or possessing firearms or ammunition. He testified at the suppression hearing that he was aware defendant had suffered a felony federal conviction that prevented him from possessing ammunition. Officers also knew that defendant's brother was prohibited from owning or possessing firearms and ammunition due to a prior conviction.
Officers had observed defendant get out of his brother's truck immediately before they approached him. Both his brother and the truck were covered by the search warrant. The warrant was based on probable cause to believe that Brian unlawfully possessed firearms or ammunition, and that those items might possibly be located in the truck that defendant had just exited.
Under these circumstances, a reasonable officer could have suspected that defendant--someone who was known to be prohibited from possessing weapons and who was a passenger in a truck subject to a valid search warrant for weapons that was driven by a person also subject to the warrant--may have also possessed prohibited firearms or ammunition. (People v. Gant (1968) 264 Cal.App.2d 420, 423 [defendants may be convicted of joint possession of firearm that is readily accessible to each defendant and in exclusive possession of neither].) While "a defendant's mere proximity to a person suspected of criminal conduct does not itself provide grounds also to suspect the defendant of wrongdoing," (In re Carlos M. (1990) 220 Cal.App.3d 372, 382; Ybarra v. Illinois (1979) 444 U.S. 85, 91 [62 L.Ed.2d 238, 245] ["a person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person"]), defendant's familial connection with and close proximity to his brother in the truck immediately before officers executed a valid search warrant for weapons provided reasonable grounds to temporarily detain defendant. Such circumstances also justified quickly patsearching defendant for weapons. (See e.g., Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at pp. 24-26 [ the Supreme Court approved a "frisk" for weapons as a justifiable response to an officer's reasonable belief that he was dealing with a possibly armed and dangerous suspect]; see also, United States v. Vaughan (9th Cir. 1983) 718 F.2d 332, 334-335 [officers justified in detaining and patsearching an unknown passenger in a car being driven by individual named in arrest warrant].)
Even if the officers had been unaware that defendant was prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition when they stopped him on the courthouse steps shortly after he alighted from the truck, officers were reasonably justified in briefly detaining him while they executed the search warrant on the truck. In Michigan v. Summers (1981) 452 U.S. 692, 705 [69 L.Ed.2d 340, 351] (Summers), the Supreme Court held that "for Fourth Amendment purposes . . . a warrant to search for contraband founded on probable cause implicitly carries with it the limited authority to detain the occupants of the premises while a proper search is conducted." (Fns. omitted.)
Although Summers involved the detention of a resident outside his home while officers executed a search warrant at the house (Summers, supra, 452 U.S. at pp. 694-695), the same reasoning applies to detaining defendant and his brother while officers executed the search warrant on the truck. (See, e.g., People v. Samples (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 1197, 1200, 1204 (Samples) [applying rationale of Summers to uphold detention and patsearch of the driver of a vehicle containing two passengers subject to a warrant even though the driver was not subject to the warrant].) In both instances, neutral magistrates had found probable cause to believe that criminal activity was occurring at a specific place (the home in Summers and the truck in this case) and officers immediately detained persons who had exited those places when executing the warrant. (Summers, at pp. 701-702 [noting a neutral and detached magistrate had found probable cause to believe that the law was being violated in that house and had authorized a substantial invasion of the privacy of the persons who resided there].)
Similarly, in Samples, officers were executing a narcotics search warrant on an apartment when they were told that two of the apartment's occupants that were subject to the warrant had left but would return shortly in a specific vehicle. (Samples, supra, 48 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1200-1201.) When officers spotted the car awhile later, they approached the vehicle, which the defendant was driving, and ordered all of the occupants out of the car. (Id. at pp. 1200, 1208.) Although defendant was not a subject of the search warrant, the court held that his detention and patsearch was proper given his apparent relationship with the two subjects of the warrant that were in the car he was driving. (Id. at pp. 1200, 1208.)
Legitimate officer safety concerns, as the People point out, further underscores the reasonableness of the detention and patsearch. (Samples, supra, 48 Cal.App.4th at p. 1210.) Agent Namikawa testified during the suppression hearing that one of the reasons they detained defendant was to ensure he did not try to return to the truck during the search for weapons, which would pose an obvious risk of harm to officers. (See e.g., Id. at p. 1211 [courts have long recognized that an automobile is an inherently dangerous place for the police since it contains numerous possibilities for hidden weapons].)
Thus, even though defendant was not the subject of the search warrant himself, his known status as someone statutorily prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition, his close physical and functional relationship to his brother, who was the subject of the warrant and who was driving defendant in the truck that was also subject to the search warrant, rendered defendant's detention and patdown search reasonable under the totality of the circumstances.
The fact that defendant was handcuffed and escorted a short distance across the street to the sheriff's office, moreover, does not necessarily convert the detention into an illegal arrest. "[T]he handcuffing of a detained individual does not necessarily convert the detention into a de facto arrest." (People v. Osborne (2009) 175 Cal.App.4th 1052, 1062.) Likewise, transporting a defendant following a detention does not automatically convert the detention into an arrest. For example, in Soun, supra, 34 Cal.App.4th 1499, at pages 1517-1518, the court deemed police to have conducted a lawful temporary detention and not a de facto arrest where they ordered occupants of a vehicle out of their car at gunpoint, handcuffed them, placed them in a patrol vehicle, drove them three blocks away, and detained them for 30 minutes.
In this case, Agent Namikawa testified that the sheriff's office located across the street was more secure and safer than the area near the courthouse steps, which was open to the public. At the time, there were "a lot of unknown subjects" near the courthouse entrance, which raised significant safety concerns--both for the officers and for innocent bystanders. Moving defendant the relatively short, 100-yard distance to the sheriff's office was thus reasonable considering the circumstances.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
/s/_________
Blease, J. We concur: /s/_________
Raye, P. J. /s/_________
Hull, J.