Error and/or relief
This was an appeal by the prosecutor from the grant of the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence under section 1538.5. It is considered a victory here because the Court of Appeal affirmed the order granting the motion to suppress.
First Holding:
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, consensual encounters do not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny. Unlike detentions, they require no articulable suspicion that the person has committed or is about to commit a crime.
Authority:
People v. McWilliams (2023) 14 Cal.5th 429, 437
In re Manuel G. (1997) 16 Cal.4th 805, 821
Second Holding:
Consensual encounters are those police-individual interactions that result in no restraint of an individual’s liberty whatsoever—i.e., no seizure, however minimal—and which may properly be initiated by police officers even if they lack any objective justification. The Fourth Amendment permits police officers to approach individuals at random in airport lobbies and other public places to ask them questions, so long as a reasonable person would understand that he or she could refuse to cooperate.
The citizen participant in a consensual encounter may leave, refuse to answer questions or decline to act in the manner requested by the authorities. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, in some manner restrains the individual’s liberty, does a seizure occur.
Authority:
People v. Paul (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 832, 838
Third Holding:
In order to determine whether a particular encounter constitutes a seizure, a court must consider all the circumstances surrounding the encounter to determine whether the police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that the person was not free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. This test assesses the coercive effect of police conduct as a whole, rather than emphasizing particular details of that conduct in isolation.
Authority:
People v. Paul (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 832, 838
Fourth Holding:
The test for the existence of a show of authority is an objective one and does not take into account the perceptions of the particular person involved. The test is not whether the citizen perceived that he was being ordered to restrict his movement, but whether the officer’s words and actions would have conveyed that to a reasonable person. This includes an examination of both an officer’s verbal and nonverbal actions in order to assess the coercive effect of police conduct as a whole, rather than emphasizing particular details of that conduct in isolation.
Authority:
People v. Paul (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 832, 838–839
Fifth Holding:
In ruling on a motion to suppress, the trial court must find the historical facts, select the rule of law, and apply it to the facts in order to determine whether the law as applied has been violated. We review the court’s resolution of the factual inquiry under the deferential substantial evidence standard. The ruling on whether the applicable law applies to the facts is a mixed question of law and fact that is subject to independent review.
Authority:
People v. Ramos (2004) 34 Cal.4th 494, 505
Sixth Holding:
Given that the officer had just woken defendant from his slumber in his legally parked vehicle, and that defendant did not place the call for service the the officer testified he told the defendant he was responding to, the officer’s statement would have placed an objectively reasonable person on alert that the officer might be investigating him specifically, which would lead that reasonable person to conclude that the officer required his attention and he could not simply depart.
Given the deferential standard of review we apply to the trial court’s factual findings, that the officer woke defendant from his slumber while he was legally parked with his window up, that the officer was blocking the vehicle’s door when he woke defendant, and that the officer’s statement would have placed an objectively reasonable person on alert that the officer might be investigating him specifically, we affirm the trial court’s ruling.
Authority:
Wilson v. Superior Court (1983) 34 Cal.3d 777, 790–791
People v. Linn (2015) 241 Cal.App.4th 46, 58, 65