Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA305948, Sam Ohta, Judge. Affirmed.
Sunnie L. Daniels, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Victoria B. Wilson and Mary Sanchez, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
KRIEGLER, J.
The jury found defendant guilty of possessing cocaine base for sale in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11351.5. In a separate proceeding, the jury found defendant suffered a prior narcotics conviction for which he served a prison term within five years of the current offense for purposes of Penal Code section 667.5, subdivision (b). The trial court struck the prior prison term enhancement and imposed the four-year middle term sentence.
In his sole appellate contention, defendant requests this court to conduct an independent review of the sealed portion of the record pertaining to discovery of personnel records of Los Angeles Police Department Officers Sucha Singh and Robin Gonzalez under Pitchess v. Superior Court (1974) 11 Cal.3d 531 (Pitchess) to determine whether the trial court erroneously withheld discoverable information from the defense. As our independent review discloses no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s Pitchess ruling, we affirm.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
Because there is no sufficiency of evidence issue, we state the facts briefly in the light most favorable to the judgment. (People v. Maury (2003) 30 Cal.4th 342, 396.) Officer Singh was conducting surveillance from inside a hotel on San Julian Street in Los Angeles at approximately 6:00 p.m. on July 13, 2006. Through binoculars, Officer Singh saw defendant and a woman engage in an apparent narcotics transaction with an unknown male—the male paid cash to defendant and the woman with defendant removed from her shoe a clear plastic bag that appeared to contain cocaine base. She handed a piece of the substance to the unknown male. Officer Singh radioed Officers Christopher Hoffman and Gonzalez to arrest defendant and the woman. As the officers approached, Officer Singh observed defendant drop a plastic bag. Officer Gonzalez retrieved the bag, which was found to contain 13 pieces of cocaine base, weighing 1.02 grams. Defendant also possessed $265 in small denominations of currency. Among other incriminating items, another plastic bag of cocaine base was found in the woman’s pants pocket. Officer Singh also testified as an narcotics sales expert. Defendant presented no evidence on his own behalf.
DISCUSSION
Defendant requests this court conduct an independent review of the sealed portion of the record pertaining to defendant’s pretrial motion under Pitchess, supra, 11 Cal.3d 531. Pursuant to defendant’s request, we must determine whether the trial court abused its discretion and erroneously withheld discoverable information from the defense.
Defendant filed his Pitchess motion on October 10, 2006, seeking discovery of information from the personnel records of two police officers—Officers Singh and Gonzalez—who participated in defendant’s arrest, to the extent those records contained citizen complaints of the officers’ committing false arrests, fabrication of evidence or police reports, and related misconduct. The court held an in camera hearing on October 26, 2006, with the police department’s custodian of records appearing. The trial court found “five discoverable hits” regarding Officer Singh and ordered the information turned over to the defense. The Pitchess hearing continued to October 31, 2006, to complete the review of documents as to Officer Singh and to review those pertaining to Officer Gonzalez. On that date, following an in camera hearing, the trial court found discoverable information as to Officer Gonzalez and ordered it produced to the defense.
Because the clerk’s transcript did not contain a copy of the Pitchess motion, we ordered the superior court file and reviewed the motion contained therein.
Officer Gonzales did not testify at trial.
We have reviewed all material in the record regarding defendant’s Pitchess motion, including the moving papers and the sealed transcript of the in camera hearing. “The hearing transcript contains an adequate record of the court’s review and analysis of the documents provided to it. It reveals no abuse of discretion.” (People v. Myers (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 546, 553, citing People v. Mooc (2001) 26 Cal.4th 1216, 1228.)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: TURNER, P. J., MOSK, J.