Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Super. Ct. No. 06F10322
NICHOLSON, J.
After he was convicted by a jury and the trial court granted his new trial motion based on jury misconduct, defendant James Earl Pulford accepted a bargain whereby he pled no contest to robbery and attempted robbery, and admitted he had served four prior prison terms. (Pen. Code, §§ 211, 664, 667.5, subd. (b).) In conformity with the bargain, the trial court dismissed other allegations and sentenced defendant to prison for the agreed term of seven years. Defendant timely appealed.
On appeal, defendant contends the trial court (Hon. James Long) improperly denied his motion to suppress. We affirm.
BACKGROUND TO SUPPRESSION MOTION
On November 19, 2006, a White male, about 40 to 45 years old, wearing a black beanie hat, black or brown leather jacket and tan pants, with “distinctive wrinkles or circles under his eyes” robbed a restaurant. On November 22, 2006, defendant was arrested as a parolee-at-large, and when his mug shot was used in a photographic lineup on November 28, 2006, two witnesses identified him as the robber.
Defendant moved to suppress his “parolee at large status, identification, and mug shot” based on a purportedly excessive detention; he also sought to suppress his clothing. He separately alleged a Harvey-Madden violation, a claim that the information justifying the detention was manufactured by law enforcement sources.
People v. Harvey (1958) 156 Cal.App.2d 516; People v. Madden (1970) 2 Cal.3d 1017.
At the suppression hearing, Officer Jared Kiser of the Sacramento Police Department testified that on the evening of November 22, 2006, he received a computer report through dispatch that a citizen -- who had given his name -- thought a Round Table Pizza robber was in front of Swanson’s Cleaners, a few blocks from that restaurant. The man’s clothing was described as “brown leather jacket and a be[a]nie”, he was reportedly next to a “pink mountain bike” and he was clean shaven with “droopy eyes” or “heavy bags under the eyes.” Officer Kiser saw a man matching that description by a pink bike sleeping in the Swanson’s Cleaners parking lot. He woke the man (defendant) up and asked for identification. Defendant was drunk. Defendant gave his name as James Dolford; however, when Officer Kiser ran that name, it “came back as no DMV history or any sort of history that that’s a real person.”
Officer Tennis arrived and spoke to defendant, while Officer Kiser retrieved the robbery report from his computer. That report described a suspect that matched the description Officer Kiser had received. At that point, Officer Tennis learned defendant’s real name, and when that was checked, the officers learned he was on probation in Sacramento County. The officers were about to leave when Officer Kiser ran the name through “NCIC” and “it came back with felony parole violation warrant for James Pulford.” Defendant was arrested based on that parole warrant. The total time between arrival at the parking lot and defendant’s arrest was about 20 minutes, during which time defendant was not asked about the robbery.
Over objection, a CD and certified transcript of the 911 call were admitted into evidence. The caller gives his name and work and personal telephone numbers, states he works at Round Table Pizza but was not present during the robbery, and states the man at Swanson’s Cleaners fit his supervisor’s description of the robber “to the T.”
The trial court denied the motion to suppress.
DISCUSSION
For purposes of this appeal, we accept defendant’s view that he was detained at the parking lot.
We view the facts and reasonable inferences in the light favorable to the trial court’s ruling. (People v. Brendlin (2008) 45 Cal.4th 262, 268.)
Defendant first contends that, under the Harvey-Madden rule, the law enforcement employee who received the 911 call had to be produced, and it was insufficient for the People to introduce the 911 CD and a certified transcript.
The purpose of the Harvey-Madden rule is to preclude peace officers from manufacturing cause to detain or arrest. (See People v. Madden, supra, 2 Cal.3d at p. 1021.) A claim similar to defendant’s was rejected in a recent case, as follows:
“Here there was no ‘manufacture’ of information. The information received by the police dispatcher was radioed to multiple officers in multiple patrol cars and provided detailed descriptions of the two suspects. Absent (1) the officer himself calling in the report to the dispatcher or, (2) clairvoyance on the part of the dispatcher, there is no way that the dispatcher could have manufactured these detailed descriptions at or near the place and time the officers saw appellant and his companion matching the detailed descriptions.
“Where, as here, the evidence and the reasonable inferences flowing from it show that the police dispatcher actually received a telephone report creating a reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing, it is not necessary to require strict compliance with the ‘Harvey-Madden’ rule.” (In re Richard G. (2009) 173 Cal.App.4th 1252, 1259; see People v. Armstrong (1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 228, 243-246; People v. Lazanis (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 49, 59 (Lazanis) [“The important consideration here is not whether a burglary was in fact being committed, but whether a radio call went out which justified the stop of appellant”].)
We agree with this view. The 911 caller gave his name and telephone numbers and stated he was an employee of the restaurant that had been robbed. Contrary to defendant’s view, the caller was describing a current event, namely, the current location of a person matching the robber’s description. (See Lazanis, supra, 209 Cal.App.3d at p. 53 [“In Harvey and Madden, the information given to the arresting officer was relayed to him hours or days in advance. Here, the information was forwarded in the nature of an emergency communication, a mere minute or two before the actual stop”].) On these facts, there is no basis to speculate that Officer Kiser or a fellow officer called 911 to justify detaining defendant.
Nor is defendant’s hearsay challenge meritorious. Hearsay is evidence of an out-of-court statement “offered to prove the truth of the matter stated.” (Evid. Code, § 1200, subd. (a).) The CD and transcript were not introduced for the truth of any statements they contained, but to show that a citizen had called 911 to report the location of a person the citizen thought matched the description of a wanted criminal. The hearsay objection lacks merit. (See 1 Witkin, Cal. Evidence (4th ed. 2000) Hearsay, § 45, p. 728.) We also reject defendant’s oblique confrontation clause claims regarding the 911 call, because although the robbery was not in progress, the caller was describing “current circumstances requiring police assistance” and therefore the call was not testimonial. (People v. Cooper (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 731, 742.)
Defendant next contends the information from the 911 call was insufficient to support the detention, and that the detention was too long. These contentions are related. Officer Kiser did not detain defendant based on the 911 call alone, that merely led him to Swanson’s Cleaners. And as indicated above, but contrary to some of defendant’s briefing, this was not a case involving an anonymous tipster. Because the caller provided his name, telephone numbers and place of employment, his information was presumptively reliable. (See People v. Ramey (1976) 16 Cal.3d 263, 268-269; People v. Schulle (1975) 51 Cal.App.3d 809, 814.) The fact the caller did not witness the robbery does not make his description of the man he saw at Swanson’s Cleaners unreliable. That description was confirmed when Officer Kiser found defendant at Swanson’s Cleaners. (See People v. Butler (2003) 111 Cal.App.4th 150, 161-162.)
It was reasonable for Officer Kiser to wake defendant up, and once he found that defendant was drunk in public, he had a reasonable suspicion (People v. Williams (2007) 156 Cal.App.4th 949, 958-959) to believe criminal activity was afoot. (Pen. Code, § 647, subd. (f).) Defendant’s claim that he was on private property, and therefore was not drunk in a public place, is belied by the fact that he was asleep in a commercial parking lot, a place open to the public. (See In re R. K. (2008) 160 Cal.App.4th 1615, 1619.)
When the name defendant gave seemed contrived, Officer Kiser continued to investigate by checking the police report that had been filed regarding the restaurant robbery. At about the same time that Officer Kiser confirmed from the robbery report that defendant fit the description of the robber, Officer Tennis learned defendant’s true name and the officers learned he was on probation. They ran an additional records check and discovered the arrest warrant. The total period between locating defendant and arresting defendant was about 20 minutes. It would have been shorter had defendant not first given the officer a false name, and he cannot use his wrongdoing that caused a delay to complain that his detention was too long. (See United States v. Sharpe (1985) 470 U.S. 675, 686-688 [84 L.Ed.2d 605, 616-617]; 4 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Crim. Law (3d ed. 2000) Illegally Obtained Evidence, § 266, pp. 922-923.) Once they discovered he was on probation, it was prudent to run a more detailed records check, which revealed the parole violation warrant. The record supports the conclusion that the officers acted diligently and did not unreasonably prolong the detention. (See People v. Williams, supra, 156 Cal.App.4th at pp. 959-960.)
Finally, we note that the basis of defendant’s suppression motion was that the above claims of unlawful detention led to discovery of his outstanding parole violation warrant, which led to defendant’s arrest. The critical evidence he sought to suppress was his identification by two witnesses. But those identifications occurred nearly a week later, as a result of defendant’s outstanding warrant and arrest pursuant thereto, not his detention. Even if the detention was unlawful, which it was not, it was not flagrantly so, and there was no basis to suppress the identifications, because the discovery of defendant’s warrant attenuated the taint of any alleged illegality in the detention. (People v. Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at pp. 269-272 [fact passenger unlawfully detained during traffic stop did not require suppression of evidence disclosed when he was searched after warrant arrest].)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: BLEASE, Acting P. J., CANTIL-SAKAUYE, J.