Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Contra Costa County Super. Ct. No. 05-090049-8
Sepulveda, J.
Defendant appealed after he was placed on probation following his plea. His counsel has asked this court for an independent review of the record to determine whether there are any arguable issues. (People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436.)
After denial of his motion to suppress below, defendant pleaded no contest to one felony count of unlawful possession of a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd. (a)). He was placed on probation for two years on the condition that he successfully complete a Proposition 36 rehabilitation program.
According to evidence presented at a combined preliminary hearing and hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5, Officer Charles Blazer was conducting a narcotics investigation with Detective Phil Galer around 4:00 p.m. on August 21, 2008, in Pittsburg. They were focusing on a specific person (not defendant), who was in a wheelchair. Over the course of about 45 minutes, Officer Blazer saw people he recognized from prior contacts drive up, and the man in the wheelchair would approach their windows and speak to them for a short time before they drove away. At a certain point, the man in the wheelchair began “waving [people] off,” as if he were out of narcotics to sell. The man in the wheelchair eventually boarded a bus and traveled to a shopping mall.
All statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise specified.
Officers followed the bus to the mall. When they arrived, they saw a person who had approached the man in the wheelchair on Marina Boulevard was already there, standing outside his vehicle. When a white pickup truck drove into the parking lot, the man waiting outside his vehicle walked to the pickup truck, got into the passenger seat, and stayed in the truck for about 30 seconds. Based on his experience, Officer Blazer believed that a drug transaction had taken place in the truck, because it appeared that the person who had entered the truck had originally tried to buy narcotics from the man in the wheelchair, but that he had been unable to do so and left to buy narcotics elsewhere. Blazer also based his conclusion on the fact that he knew the person who entered the pickup truck from previous arrests for drug possession and other charges, and on the fact that the subject was in the truck for such a brief period.
After the subject exited the pickup truck, the truck immediately drove out of the parking lot. Officer Blazer noticed that the driver, later identified as defendant, was not wearing a seat belt, in violation of the Vehicle Code. Defendant drove to his residence and stopped the truck. Officer Blazer approached the driver’s side window of the truck and began asking defendant questions. When asked if he had just come from the shopping mall, defendant said “no.” According to Officer Blazer, defendant “was being very vague, almost to the point of not speaking to me which was heightening my suspicions even more.” Because Officer Blazer was suspicious, and because he could not see defendant’s waist band, he ordered defendant out of his vehicle for safety reasons. A patsearch revealed no weapons.
While Officer Blazer was pat searching defendant, Detective Galer said he saw “ ‘some coke on the driver’s seat’ ” of the truck defendant had been driving. Officer Blazer looked at the driver’s seat through the open truck window and saw several white “crumbs” of what he believed, based on his 11 years of training and experience, to be cocaine. The crumbs covered the driver’s seat. Blazer described the crumbs as “pretty distinct compared to, if you’re looking at bread crumbs. But sitting on a seat, you can pretty much tell what they are.” He explained that when cocaine is sold, it must be broken into pieces, which creates flakes. The “chunky substance” found on the driver’s seat weighed 0.01 grams but was not tested. Defendant was placed under arrest. A police narcotics dog sniffed the car and indicated that there was something hidden on the driver’s side of the vehicle. A search of the vehicle revealed a small aspirin pill bottle containing a useable amount (0.48 grams) of base cocaine on the driver’s side floorboard.
The trial court denied defendant’s motion to suppress, and held defendant to answer. It concluded that officers properly stopped defendant’s vehicle and ordered him out of the truck, and that they had probable cause to search defendant’s vehicle. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss (§ 995), renewing his argument that the seized evidence should be suppressed. The trial court denied the motion to dismiss, concluding that there was sufficient evidence presented that the stop was valid and that officers had probable cause to search the vehicle.
Defendant was advised of his constitutional rights prior to the entry of his plea and waived those rights; he also was advised of the consequences of his plea. No error appears in the entry of defendant’s plea, or in the decision to place defendant on probation. The trial court properly denied defendant’s motion to suppress pursuant to section 1538.5 and his subsequent motion to dismiss pursuant to section 995. Defendant was represented by counsel at all times.
The trial court’s factual findings when ruling on the motion to suppress are supported by the record. As the court found that Officer Blazer had expertise in the area of narcotics transactions and that he testified credibly that defendant had committed a seat belt violation, the initial detention of defendant was reasonable. Once defendant’s vehicle was lawfully detained, officers were permitted to order defendant out of the vehicle without violating the Fourth Amendment. (Pennsylvania v. Mimms (1977) 434 U.S. 106, 111 & fn. 6.) The officer’s questions about where defendant had been did not convert the encounter into something other than a lawful seizure, because the inquiries did not measurably extend the duration of the stop. (Arizona v. Johnson (2009) __ U.S. __, 129 S.Ct. 781, 788.) Once Officer Blazer, who had training and experience in narcotics, saw what he believed to be crumbs of cocaine on the driver’s seat, he had probable cause to search the vehicle for suspected narcotics, and the warrantless search of the vehicle did not violate the Fourth Amendment. (United States v. Ross (1982) 456 U.S. 798, 824.)
There are no meritorious issues to be argued on appeal. The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: Ruvolo, P. J., Rivera, J.