Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County No. RIF130419, Jeffrey Prevost, Judge.
Randy Baker, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, and Jeffrey J. Koch and Scott C. Taylor, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
RICHLI, J.
Pursuant to a plea agreement, defendant pled guilty to possession of methamphetamine for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11378) (count 1) and transportation of methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, § 11379, subd. (a)) (count 2). In return, the court suspended the proceedings for three years and placed defendant on formal probation on various terms and conditions. Defendant’s sole contention on appeal is that the trial court erred in denying his suppression motion. We find no error and affirm the judgment.
I
The factual background is taken from the evidence presented at the motion to suppress hearing.
On February 11, 2006, defendant drove his vehicle into oncoming traffic, hitting another vehicle head on, on Reche Canyon Road. California Highway Patrol Officer Rene Pereyda responded to the scene of the accident. Upon arrival, the officer noticed defendant in the driver’s seat of his car, accompanied by a male passenger. Both of the vehicles were severely damaged and not drivable. Paramedics physically had to remove defendant from his vehicle and take him to Loma Linda Hospital. Both defendant and his passenger suffered severe lower extremity trauma.
While still at the scene, with the help from the fire department, Officer Pereyda obtained a verbal identification from defendant. Defendant appeared to be in extreme pain and could not engage in a normal conversation. Because people may lie to police, especially in cases involving the potential for criminal liability, police protocol mandates an officer to verify identification through a driver’s license. Consistent with this police protocol, Officer Pereyda retrieved a red backpack on the driver’s floor board, close to the side window. In an effort to find defendant’s identification and check for valuables, Officer Pereyda conducted a cursory search of the backpack. He found a wallet in the bag and opened it. The wallet contained defendant’s driver’s license and credit cards. No contraband was found at this time.
Pursuant to police routine in cases involving serious collisions where a driver is taken to the hospital and the car has to be towed by a private tow company, an inventory search of the vehicle was executed. That procedure involves making a list of items found in the vehicle and leaving the inventoried items in the vehicle until it is towed.
Subsequently, Officer Pereyda took the backpack to the hospital in an effort to return it to defendant. Officer Pereyda explained that police regulations do not prohibit an officer from taking property from a vehicle to give to its owner. Officer Pereyda went to the operating receiving room, inquired about defendant’s condition, and handed the backpack to an operating room charge nurse. The officer advised the nurse that it belonged to defendant and that he was leaving defendant’s property behind for him. Officer Pereyda did not obtain a signature from the nurse for the bag.
The following day, a Loma Linda University Hospital nurse called the California Highway Patrol area office to inform officers that contraband, believed to be a drug, had been found in defendant’s backpack. Officer Chris Adkins drove to the hospital and picked up the backpack from a hospital security guard. The security guard gave the backpack, including all the items contained in the backpack such as cellular telephones, defendant’s wallet, and the methamphetamine, to Officer Adkins. Among the items in the backpack, Officer Adkins found a sum of cash, credit cards, a watch, and 19 baggies of methamphetamine.
Following argument, wherein the parties focused solely on the search and seizure of the backpack by the officer and whether it was properly searched and seized pursuant an inventory search, the trial court denied defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence found in the backpack. The court reasoned, “[I]t seems to me that given the exigencies of the circumstances with respect to the accident itself, the potential of criminal liability for the accident itself on the part of the defendant, the need to identify him, and the fact that he was apparently unable to communicate or present identification, and the actions of the officer in attempting to safeguard his property. [¶] I agree with [defense counsel] that it does not appear to be part of the actual inventory search. I am going to decline at this time to make a finding of inevitable discovery, but I think that the officer acted in a reasonable manner and not contrary to law in removing the bag and not performing a further search, and then responding to the hospital to provide the personal property to the defendant there.”
II
DISCUSSION
Defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his suppression motion. Specifically, he claims his Fourth Amendment rights were violated (1) when the officer searched his backpack for identification, (2) when the officer removed his backpack from the vehicle to take it to the hospital, and (3) when the officer entrusted the backpack to a hospital nurse.
In reviewing the trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to the trial court’s express or implied factual findings where supported by the evidence and exercise our independent judgment in determining whether, on the facts so found, the search or seizure was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. (People v. Weaver (2001) 26 Cal.4th 876, 924.) “The trial court also has the duty to decide whether, on the facts found, the search was unreasonable within the meaning of the Constitution. . . . [I]t becomes the ultimate responsibility of the appellate court to measure the facts, as found by the trier, against the constitutional standard of reasonableness.” (People v. Lawler (1973) 9 Cal.3d 156, 160.)
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . ” However, “[t]he Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all state-initiated searches and seizures; it merely proscribes those which are unreasonable.” (Florida v. Jimeno (1991) 500 U.S. 248, 250, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 114 L.Ed.2d 297.)
Warrantless searches, although usually per se unreasonable, are considered reasonable in various contexts. (Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 357 [88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576].) The warrantless search of an automobile, for instance, can be justified on a variety of grounds, among them: (1) probable cause to believe the car contains contraband (Carroll v. United States (1925) 267 U.S. 132, 149 [45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543]); (2) the search is incident to the arrest of an occupant of the vehicle (New York v. Belton (1981) 453 U.S. 454, 460 [101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768]); or (3) the search is part of the inventory of a lawfully impounded vehicle (South Dakota v. Opperman (1976) 428 U.S. 364 [375-376, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000]).
Initially, we note that there was nothing unreasonable about Officer Pereyda’s actions in this case. In fact, we cannot see how defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when Officer Pereyda searched the backpack for defendant’s identification, removed the backpack to return it to defendant, and entrusted the backpack to a hospital nurse. “When police are confronted by ‘an emergency situation requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property’ [citation], the failure to comply with the warrant requirement is justified. [Citation.]” (People v. Frye (1998) 18 Cal.4th 894, 989.) “There is no ready litmus test for determining whether such circumstances exist, and in each case the claim of an extraordinary situation must be measured by the facts known to the officers.” (People v. Ramey (1976) 16 Cal.3d 263, 276.)
Furthermore, the methamphetamine would have been discovered under the inevitable discovery doctrine. That doctrine operates as an exception to the exclusionary rule: Seized evidence is admissible in instances in which it would have been discovered by the police through lawful means. As the United States Supreme Court has explained, the doctrine “is in reality an extrapolation from the independent source doctrine: Since the tainted evidence would be admissible if in fact discovered through an independent source, it should be admissible if it inevitably would have been discovered.” (Murray v. United States (1988) 487 U.S. 533, 539 [108 S.Ct. 2529, 101 L.Ed.2d 472], italics omitted; see also Nix v. Williams (1984) 467 U.S. 431, 442-443 [104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377].) “The purpose of the inevitable discovery rule is to prevent the setting aside of convictions that would have been obtained without police misconduct.” (People v. Robles (2000) 23 Cal.4th 789, 800.)
For example, in People v. Clark (1993) 5 Cal.4th 950, the Supreme Court addressed a challenge to the admissibility of a blood sample drawn shortly after the defendant’s arrest. In assuming (without deciding) that the police lacked probable cause to draw the sample, the court nonetheless held that it was admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine. (Id. at p. 993.) Because the defendant made statements to the police approximately 30 minutes after the sample was drawn that would have inevitably prompted the police to draw his blood, the court held that the blood sample was admissible. (Ibid.)
The phrase “inevitable discovery” is somewhat of a misnomer. The doctrine does not require certainty. (In re Rudy F. (2004) 117 Cal.App.4th 1124, 1136.) Rather, the People must show a “reasonable probability that [the challenged evidence] would have been procured in any event by lawful means.” (People v. Boyer (1989) 48 Cal.3d 247, 278, disapproved on another ground in People v. Stansbury (1995) 9 Cal.4th 824, 830, fn. 1.)
Here, the backpack would have been in the vehicle at the time the inventory search was conducted had Officer Pereyda not removed the backpack from defendant’s inoperable vehicle. The backpack would have been searched pursuant to an inventory search, a well-recognized exception to the warrant requirement (see South Dakota v. Opperman (1976) 428 U.S. 364, 370-371 [96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000]), and the drugs would have been discovered at that time. In fact, defense counsel acknowledged at oral argument that the contraband inevitably would have been discovered pursuant to an inventory search.
As the court in People v. Needham (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 260 observed, “[i]nventory searches must be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. [Citation.] The police may exercise discretion in opening containers during inventory searches provided that discretion is exercised according to ‘standardized criteria’ [citation] or ‘established routine’ [citation] based on some standard other than suspected criminal activity. [Citation.] ‘A police officer may be allowed sufficient latitude to determine whether a particular container should or should not be opened in light of the nature of the search and characteristics of the container itself.’ [Citation.] For instance, an inventory policy permitting police officers to open closed containers when unable to ascertain the contents from examining the container’s exterior would not violate the Fourth Amendment. [Citation.] [¶] “The standardized procedure or established routine authorizing the inventory search need not be written. [Citation.] However, ‘an inventory search must not be a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence.’ [Citation.]” (Id. at p. 266.)
In the present matter, Officer Pereyda, an officer with 13 years of experience, testified to the California Highway Patrol Police procedures involving serious collisions. The officer explained that in a case involving a collision where the vehicle’s driver is taken to the hospital, the vehicle is always towed from the scene. However, before the vehicle is towed, the car is completely inventoried. The officer also testified that California Highway Patrol policy requires officers to fill out a form listing all property in the vehicle, in order to ensure that all the property and valuables in the vehicle are accounted for and to shield the police department from liability. The officer’s testimony alone is ample evidence of the existence of a standardized policy, and that the policy was followed in this case. (See, e.g., People v. Green (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 367, 375 [even though officer did not use “the magic words ‘standard procedure,’ her matter-of-fact response” indicated postimpound inventory searches were standard department procedure]; People v. Williams (1999) 20 Cal.4th 119, 127 [if search procedure is routine or standardized, policy need not be written]; People v. Needham, supra, 79 Cal.App.4th 260, 266-267 [same].) There was no evidence that the officers’ inventory search was a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence. The inventory search of the car and its contents was properly governed by standardized criteria or established routine. Therefore, had the backpack containing the 19 baggies of methamphetamine remained in the vehicle or otherwise in the possession of the police, an officer would have searched the backpack in order to inventory its contents. Inevitably, the inventory search would have led to the discovery of the contraband.
III
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: McKINSTER, Acting P.J., KING, J.