Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
Super. Ct. No. BF121167A
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Kern County. Stephen P. Gildner, Judge.
James H. Dippery, Jr., under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Kathleen A. McKenna and Leslie W. Westmoreland, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
Before Wiseman, Acting P.J., Levy, J. and Hill, J.
Appellant Terry Wayne Tate appeals from a conviction following his no contest plea to one count of transportation of a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, §11352, subd. (a)). He contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence (Pen. Code, § 1538.5) seized from his vehicle after he was pulled over for driving with an inoperable rear license plate lamp. We affirm the judgment.
FACTS
Evidence adduced at the hearing on appellant’s motion to suppress evidence revealed that around 9:24 p.m. on November 1, 2007, Bakersfield Police Officer Jess Beagley observed appellant driving a vehicle with an inoperable rear license plate lamp. Officer Beagley made a traffic stop based on the violation.
Officer Beagley asked appellant to identify himself. Appellant told the officer his name was Terry Wayne Tate. Officer Beagley asked whether appellant was on probation or parole. Appellant responded that he was on parole for possession of rock cocaine.
On cross-examination, Officer Beagley testified he could not recall whether he asked appellant for his license and registration.
Officer Beagley confirmed appellant’s parole status by conducting a records check. He then seated appellant on the curb and called for backup officers before conducting a parole search of appellant’s vehicle.
Two additional officers arrived and Officer Beagley searched appellant’s vehicle in their presence. Officer Beagley found a clear plastic baggie on the center console. The baggie contained a usable amount of suspected rock cocaine. After finding the baggie, Officer Beagley placed appellant under arrest.
DISCUSSION
Appellant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence because the search was the product of an unduly prolonged detention. More specifically, appellant asserts that (1) the detention exceeded the scope of what was reasonably necessary to enable Officer Beagley to perform his duties relative to the traffic stop, and (2) the officer lacked “independent reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to justify extending the traffic stop by asking appellant if he was on parole.” Inasmuch as we find no constitutional impropriety in the scope or duration of the detention, we need not decide if the officer possessed independent reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
The standard of review we must apply is well established. In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to the trial court’s express or implied factual findings if they are supported by substantial evidence. We independently judge, however, whether the facts the trial court found support the conclusion that a search or seizure was lawful. (People v. Weaver (2001) 26 Cal.4th 876, 924.)
When the facts and circumstances known to an officer support a reasonable suspicion that a motorist has violated the Vehicle Code or some other law, the officer lawfully may stop the motorist. (People v. Hardacre (2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 1292, 1300.) Following a traffic stop, a police officer may temporarily detain the driver as long as necessary “to discharge the duties that he incurs by virtue of the traffic stop.” (People v. McGaughran (1979) 25 Cal.3d 577, 584 (McGaughran).)
Appellant does not challenge the initial detention. In fact, he acknowledges Officer Beagley “initially made a legitimate traffic stop.” Appellant frames the issue before us as “whether the detention exceeded its legitimate scope after the officer elected not to perform any or all of the duties reasonably related to the traffic stop” but instead asked appellant whether he was on probation or parole, a matter unrelated to the traffic stop.
The permissible scope and duration of a traffic stop was explored in McGaughran, supra, 25 Cal.3d 577. In that case, police stopped McGaughran, who was driving the wrong way on a one-way street. Following a three- to four-minute detention during which he discussed the traffic violation with McGaughran but did not issue a ticket, the officer initiated a warrant check of McGaughran and his passenger, extending the detention another 10 minutes. Upon learning that McGaughran had a burglary warrant and the passenger had two traffic warrants, the officer called for assistance and asked for confirmation of the warrants. The officer received confirmation via radio regarding the warrants 20 to 25 minutes later and then arrested McGaughran and searched his car. (Id. at p. 581.)
The court in McGaughran observed that “the warrant check in the case at bar was not conducted during the period of temporary detention that is permissible even after a traffic stop [for which an arrest cannot be made]. That period, although brief, is not insignificant. To begin with, it must necessarily include the time required by the officer to write out the citation and obtain the offender’s promise to appear .… Other code provisions imply that it will include more. Thus upon demand of a police officer every motorist must present for ‘examination’ both his driver’s license [citation] and the registration card of the vehicle [citation]. If the officer reasonably believes the vehicle is in a dangerously unsafe condition, he may in addition submit it to appropriate ‘inspection’ and ‘tests.’ [Citations]. And although not specifically compelled by law, certain other steps customarily taken as matters of good police practice are no less intimately related to the citation process: for example, the officer will usually discuss the violation with the motorist and listen to any explanation the latter may wish to offer; and if the vehicles of either are exposed to danger, the officer may require the driver to proceed to a safer location before the investigation continues. [Citations.]” (McGaughran, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 584, fn. omitted.) A warrant check also may be conducted if it can be completed during the time the officer otherwise would need to execute the duties associated with a traffic stop. In such a case, there is no reason to hold the warrant check improper. (Ibid.) Inasmuch as “it would not add to the delay already lawfully experienced by the offender as a result of his violation, it would not represent any further intrusion on [the driver’s] rights.” (Ibid.; People v. Brown (1998) 62 Cal.App.4th 493, 497 (Brown).)
In concluding that a constitutional violation had occurred, the court in McGaughran observed that “the event that made the initial detention permissible was defendant’s conceded violation of the one-way traffic pattern. All that was ‘reasonably necessary’ to deal with the offense, however, was for [the officer] to examine defendant’s license and registration, explain the violation, and then issue either a citation or a warning. The additional period of detention for the purpose of seeking out unrelated arrest warrants in the name of defendant or his passenger was not ‘reasonably necessary’ to that process, and hence ‘exceeded constitutional limitations’ .…” (McGaughran, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 587.)
In Williams v. Superior Court (1985) 168 Cal.App.3d 349 (Williams), a Glendale police officer suspected that the occupants of a car might have been robbery suspects described in previous radio broadcasts. When the car driven by Williams ran a stop sign, the officer stopped the car. The officer verified that Williams owned the car but did not remove his citation book from his patrol car to issue Williams a ticket. Rather, the officer separated Williams and his companion and had them sit on a curb. The officer subsequently obtained Williams’s consent to search, which search revealed a weapon and cocaine. (Id. at pp. 353-356.)
The court in Williams concluded that the “prolonged interrogation of defendants was ... directed solely toward determining their complicity in the armed robberies” and that “the prolongation of the detention ... may not be justified as ‘reasonably necessary’ to the officer’s performance of his duties relative to the traffic violation.” (Williams, supra, 168 Cal.App.3d at p. 359.) In the court’s view, “the officer’s prolongation of the detention differs in detail but not in kind from the prolongation of the detention in McGaughran; the result -- unnecessary extension of the traffic detention to investigate extraneous matters -- is identical.” (Ibid.)
As the court in Williams aptly observed, however, “The holding of McGaughran does not mean that the officer may detain and interrogate the traffic offender as to possible unrelated offenses for the time it would otherwise take to fully perform his citation duties.… The import of McGaughran is not the setting of a general outside time limit for minor traffic offense detentions. Implicit in the McGaughran analysis is a recognition that the circumstances of each traffic detention are unique and that the reasonableness of each detention period must be judged on its particular circumstances. The clear intent of McGaughran is to preclude officers from imposing a general crime investigation upon the detained traffic offender that is not ‘reasonably necessary’ to completion of the officer’s traffic citation duties unless the officer has an independent reasonable suspicion that the driver has committed unrelated offenses.” (Williams, supra, 168 Cal.App.3d at p. 358.)
This case is factually distinguishable from both McGaughran and Williams in that the detention was exceptionally brief and in no way constituted an unwarranted extension of a traffic stop for the purpose of conducting a general criminal investigation. We do not read McGaughran or Williams as holding that an officer may never ask a detainee questions unrelated to the traffic stop. As noted in People v. Bell (1996) 43 Cal.App.4th 754 (Bell), “McGaughran and Williams indicate that investigative activities beyond the original purpose of the traffic stop are permissible as long as they do not prolong the stop beyond the time it would otherwise take.” (Bell, at p. 767.) Indeed, “Questioning during the routine traffic stop on a subject unrelated to the purpose of the stop is not itself a Fourth Amendment violation. Mere questioning is neither a search nor a seizure. [Citations.] While the traffic detainee is under no obligation to answer unrelated questions, the Constitution does not prohibit law enforcement officers from asking. [Citations.] [¶] Obviously, this rule must be applied in light of the companion rule that the length of a detention must be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place. [Citations.]” (Brown, supra, 62 Cal.App.4th at p. 499.)
Contrary to appellant’s suggestion, the detention was not unduly prolonged due to Officer Beagley’s inquiry into his parole status. Although we do not know precisely how many minutes elapsed between the traffic stop and appellant’s admission he was on parole, we can state definitively that the detention was remarkably brief. The evidence indicates that after asking appellant to identify himself, Officer Beagley immediately asked appellant whether he was on probation or parole. Such a question and answer would take only a matter of seconds, and there is no indication appellant was unreasonably detained in the meantime. Once appellant volunteered that he was on parole for a drug offense, Officer Beagley was entitled to expand the scope of the traffic stop to confirm appellant’s parole status and conduct a parole search of appellant’s vehicle. (People v. Webster (1991) 54 Cal.3d 411, 430-431[officer may, depending on the circumstances developing, reasonably expand the scope of a traffic stop].)
The record does not reveal whether appellant was subject to a specific search condition. However, since appellant does not challenge the propriety of the parole search, except as a product of an unduly prolonged detention, we presume Officer Beagley was acting pursuant to a condition of appellant’s parole in conducting the search of appellant’s vehicle. We further note that reasonable suspicion is not required where an individual is subject to a parole search condition. (People v. Reyes (1998) 19 Cal.4th 743, 752-753; People v. Zichwic (2001) 94 Cal.App.4th 944, 952; People v. Lewis (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 662, 671.)
In reaching this conclusion, we are guided by the fundamental principle that “‘The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.’” (Bell, supra, 43 Cal.App.4th at p. 768, quoting Florida v. Jimeno (1991) 500 U.S. 248, 250.) Inasmuch as Officer Beagley’s inquiry did not add to the delay appellant already lawfully experienced by virtue of his traffic violation, we conclude that the officer’s conduct in asking appellant about his parole status “did not unduly prolong the detention or extend the period justified by the valid traffic stop” (Brown, supra, 62 Cal.App.4th at p. 500) and thus did not present a further intrusion on appellant’s Fourth Amendment rights (McGaughran, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 584). Stated otherwise, the scope and duration of the detention were reasonable. Accordingly, the trial court properly denied appellant’s motion to suppress evidence.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.