Error and/or relief
We reverse the denial of the motion to suppress the evidence. A security guard noticed that car in the parking lot had shooting targets and loose ammunition–both legal–in the car, and the car’s trunk was open. No one was inside or near the car, which was locked. The guard called the police. The officer saw what appeared to be a tactical vest in the partly opened trunk. The officer then fully opened the trunk and could then see the butt of a pistol in the vest.
Because the officer could not see the gun and magazines until after he had seized the tactical vest, he had no probable cause to open the trunk further to conduct the search the trunk or of the vest he removed from the trunk.
First Holding:
In reviewing an order on a suppression motion, we rely on the trial court’s express and implied factual findings, provided they are supported by substantial evidence, to independently determine whether the search was constitutional.
Thus, while we ultimately exercise our independent judgment to determine the constitutional propriety of a search or seizure, we do so within the context of historical facts determined by the trial court construed in the light most favorable to the court’s order. It is the trial court’s role to evaluate witness credibility, resolve conflicts in the testimony, weigh the evidence, and draw factual inferences.
Authority:
People v. Lee (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 853, 860-861
Second Holding:
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the police from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures of private property. A defendant challenging the lawfulness of a warrantless search must establish a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area searched or the things seized. A successful showing requires the government to respond by identifying an applicable exception to the warrant requirement.
If the government fails to do so, the court must apply an exclusionary rule that forbids the use of improperly obtained evidence at trial and must also preclude the introduction into evidence of materials and testimony that are the products or indirect results of the illegal search.
Authority:
People v. Ramirez (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 1464, 1469
People v. Nishi (2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 954, 960
People v. Rogers (2009) 46 Cal.4th 1136, 115
People v. Golden (2017) 19 Cal.App.5th 905, 911
Third Holding:
A defendant’s expectation of privacy must be both subjective and objectively reasonable. To meet this second prong of the test, the expectation must have a source outside of the Fourth Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property law or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society.
Authority:
People v. Nishi (2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 954, 960
Byrd v. United States (2018) 584 U.S. 395, 405
Fourth Holding:
The court’s determination that the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the trunk of his car is supported by substantial evidence. At the time of the search, the doors to his car were locked and the key was in his pocket. These facts are highly relevant to our inquiry because one of the main rights attaching to property is the right to exclude others, and one who owns or lawfully possesses or controls property will in all likelihood have a legitimate expectation of privacy by virtue of the right to exclude.
Accordingly, one who owns and possesses a car, like one who owns and possesses a house, almost always has a reasonable expectation of privacy in it. The facts indicate that the defendant took precautions customarily taken by those seeking privacy.
Authority:
Byrd v. United States (2018) 584 U.S. 395, 405
Fifth Holding:
It does not violate the Fourth Amendment for an officer to make a warrantless seizure of an incriminating object in plain view if (1) the officer was lawfully in a place where the object could be viewed; (2) the officer had a lawful right of access to the seized item; and (3) the item’s evidentiary value was immediately apparent. This third element requires that there be probable cause to believe that the item in question is evidence of a crime or contraband before it was seized.
Authority:
People v. Caro (2019) 7 Cal.5th 463, 489
People v. Stokes (1990) 224 Cal.App.3d 715, 719
Sixth Holding:
Under the substantial evidence standard of review, we defer to a trial court’s credibility finding that is supported by substantial evidence. Generally, this is evidence that, when viewed in light of the entire record, is of solid probative value, maintains its credibility and inspires confidence that the ultimate fact it addresses has been justly determined.
Under this standard, we may reject testimony accepted as credible by the trial court only if it is wholly unacceptable to reasonable minds or unbelievable per se such that no reasonable person could believe the testimony Credibility findings that fail to survive this scrutiny are rare indeed. There must exist either a physical impossibility that they are true, or the statements falsity must be apparent without resorting to inferences or deductions.
This case presents one of these rare occurrences. (The opinion then details the problems it perceived with trial courts conclusions drawn from the officer’s testimony.)
Authority:
People v. Lee (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 853, 860-861
People v. Conner (1983) 34 Cal.3d 141, 149
In re S.A. (2010) 182 Cal.App.4th 1128, 1149
DiQuisto v. County of Santa Clara (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th 236, 261
Seventh Holding:
Under the plain view doctrine, probable cause that an item of interest to law enforcement is incriminating must exist before the object is seized. The trial court’s logic, by contrast, suggests that this standard can be met by a mere hunch that happens to pan out. That is not how the Fourth Amendment works.
Authority:
People v. Stokes (1990) 224 Cal.App.3d 715, 719
People v. Pitts (2004) 117 Cal.App.4th 881, 889 [A hunch may provide the basis for solid police work. A hunch, however, is not a substitute for the necessary specific, articulable facts required to justify a Fourth Amendment intrusion]
Eighth Holding:
A law enforcement officer often performs functions that are totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute. As these so-called community caretaking functions relate to vehicles, they include impounding them if they pose threats to public safety—for example, because they are disabled, parked illegally, or blocking traffic or a sidewalk—or stand at risk of theft or vandalism.
When vehicles are impounded, that is, seized, local police departments generally follow a routine practice of securing and inventorying the automobiles’ contents. These inventory searches are “a well-defined exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.
Accordingly, under what is sometimes referred to as the vehicle community caretaking exception, the government may introduce evidence obtained from an inventory search of a lawfully impounded vehicle.
But controlling precedent recognizes the vehicle community caretaking exception applies only in the context of impound procedures, which undisputedly were not used here. No published California case has applied the concept of community caretaking outside the context of a vehicle inventory.
Even assuming that the community caretaking function might in some circumstances permit a warrantless search for suspected firearms in the unsecured trunk of an unoccupied car in a public place, the search here was unreasonable because sheriff’s deputies made no attempt to first locate the driver of the vehicle before opening the trunk
Authority:
Cady v. Dombrowski (1973) 413 U.S. 433, 441
People v. Vodak (1980) 105 Cal.App.3rd 1014
People v. Duong (2020) 10 Cal.5th 36, 52
People v. Lee (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 853, 867
People v. Ovieda (2019) 7 Cal.5th 1034, 1048, 1053