P. v. Brown CA1/3

Filed 11/9/26 P. v. Brown CA1/3

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent, A173497
v.
CHARLES HENRY BROWN, (Contra Costa County
Super. Ct. No. 042401548)
Defendant and Appellant.

Charles Henry Brown filed this appeal after pleading guilty to unlawful
possession of a weapon and controlled substances. He contends the trial
court erroneously denied his motion to suppress evidence. (Pen. Code,
§ 1538.5; statutory references are to the Penal Code, unless otherwise
indicated.) We affirm the judgment.
BACKGROUND
The incident that led to Brown’s convictions occurred on the evening of
June 12, 2024. Brown was driving a car with an expired registration when
he was pulled over by Oakley Police Officer Martinez. During the ensuing
encounter, Martinez performed a patsearch and recovered a loaded firearm

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from Brown’s waistband. A subsequent search of the car led to the discovery
of controlled substances, which Brown admitted were his.
In September 2024, Brown was charged with three felonies: possession
of a machine gun (§ 32625, subd. (a)); possession of a firearm with a prior
violent conviction (§ 29900, subd. (a)(1)); and possession of a controlled
substance with a firearm (Health & Saf. Code, § 11370.1, subd. (a)). The
People alleged that multiple aggravating circumstances applied and that
Brown has two or more prior strike convictions.
In February 2025, Brown filed a motion to suppress evidence, which
the trial court denied on March 7. On March 12, Brown pled no contest to all
charges and admitted the prior strikes pursuant to an offer by the court,
objected to by the prosecution, that Brown would be sentenced to four years
in prison. At the conclusion of the plea hearing, the prosecutor requested
confirmation Brown was waiving his appellate rights. The court responded
that it did not think Brown could be required to waive his right to appeal the
suppression ruling, but deferred the issue until sentencing.
The sentencing hearing was held on April 25, 2025. After the court
announced Brown’s sentence, the prosecutor asked again to clarify that an
appellate waiver applied to the suppression ruling. After observing that
Brown had not stated on his change of plea form that he was waiving that
right, the court told Brown that in order to receive the indicated sentence he
would need to waive his right to appeal. Defense counsel responded that
Brown was under the impression he had not waived his appellate rights, to
which the court responded, “Do you want me to set aside his plea?”
Ultimately, Brown stated that he did waive his right to appeal.
The People concede in this court that the waiver of Brown’s appellate
rights is invalid because the trial court implicitly communicated that it would

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extend leniency if Brown agreed to the waiver. (See People v. Clancey (2013)
56 Cal.4th 562, 575 [court may not “bargain” with defendant over sentence
imposed, or offer “ ‘any inducement in return for a plea’ ”].) We accept the
People’s concession. Accordingly, we address the merits of Brown’s claim that
his suppression motion was erroneously denied.
DISCUSSION
“Our federal and state Constitutions prohibit unreasonable seizures.
(U.S. Const., 4th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 13.) ‘ “A seizure occurs
whenever a police officer ‘by means of physical force or show of authority’
restrains the liberty of a person to walk away.” ’ [Citation.] A seizure can be
an arrest or a detention.” (In re Antonio B. (2008) 166 Cal.App.4th 435, 439–
440.) While a warrantless arrest must be supported by probable cause, an
“investigative detention is legally justified ‘[w]hen the detaining officer can
point to specific articulable facts that, considered in light of the totality of the
circumstances, provide some objective manifestation that the person detained
may be involved in criminal activity.’ ” (People v. Flores (2019) 38
Cal.App.5th 617, 627.) Moreover, “when an officer is justified in believing
that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close
range is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others,” the officer
may conduct a patsearch “to determine whether the person is in fact carrying
a weapon.” (Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 24 (Terry).)
I. Additional Background
Officer Martinez testified at the hearing on Brown’s suppression
motion, and video recorded on her body camera was admitted into evidence.
Although we do not have the video, Martinez’s undisputed testimony
establishes pertinent facts about the June 2024 traffic stop.

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At around 9:00 p.m. on the evening in question, Brown was driving a
Honda Civic when Martinez directed him to pull over because the car
registration had expired. Martinez used her lights and siren to execute the
traffic stop. Brown took a while to stop, passed up opportunities to pull over,
and swerved within his lane. Based on her training and experience, Martinez
believed Brown’s behavior was consistent with a person attempting to conceal
illegal items before pulling over. After passing two parking lots, Brown
stopped in a red no parking zone.
When Martinez approached Brown, he seemed “very” nervous, “overly”
nervous as compared to other people in that situation. He was breathing
heavily, shaking, made minimal eye contact, and repeated himself several
times, conduct that the officer associated with a person potentially in
possession of illegal items. Martinez asked why he took so long to pull over,
to which Brown responded that he did not want to stop somewhere that
would be illegal. Martinez asked for Brown’s license, and he responded it
was suspended. Martinez told Brown she was going to remove him from the
car so she could cite him for the expired registration. She said she would not
cite him for the suspended license, and he could have someone else pick up
the car (which apparently did not belong to him).
When Martinez told Brown she was going to remove him from the car,
Brown was “very hesitant,” stating he was not on probation and questioning
why he had to get out. Martinez explained she was having him exit the car
so she could write the citation. She instructed Brown to put his phone and
wallet on the dash, interlace his fingers, put his hands behind his head, and
lean forward. Brown questioned why he needed to do that, but complied.
Martinez told Brown she had everyone step out of a car in the same manner
for safety purposes. As Martinez opened the driver’s door, Brown started

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rolling up the window, but Martinez told him to stop and he complied.
Martinez knew that it was “very common” for a subject to roll up the window
to conceal what was inside.
Martinez ushered Brown out of the car by gripping his hands, which
were behind his head. They were standing near the rear of the Civic, with
Martinez still gripping Brown’s hands, when she told him she was going to
conduct a patsearch for weapons. Brown became “very argumentative,”
stating that he did not give the officer consent to search him. Martinez
explained she was not going to search Brown, just “pat him down for any
weapons.” She asked if he had a weapon or anything that could poke her,
and when he said no, she asked to check. Brown said no. He pulled at the
officer’s grip, placed his body up against the car, and repeated that he did not
have anything illegal on his person. Martinez knew from experience that it
was “very common” for subjects to pull away from her grip and place their
body against their car when they were “concealing something illegal like
firearms in their waistband,” in an effort to avoid the item falling out or being
discovered.
At that point, Martinez handcuffed Brown and conducted a patsearch
for weapons. When she patted Brown’s waistband, she “felt a very hard
object” that she believed was a firearm. She then removed the object, which
turned out to be a loaded firearm. After Brown was placed under arrest,
officers found controlled substances in the Civic, including a bag of
methamphetamine.
Martinez testified that she made the decision to conduct the patsearch
when Brown pulled away from her grip and placed his body against the car,
and that her decision was based on the “totality” of Brown’s conduct: his
nervous behavior of breathing heavily, shaking, and asking the same

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question over and over again; pulling away from her grip; and placing his
body against the car.
At the conclusion of the suppression hearing, the court denied Brown’s
motion pursuant to the following findings: Brown was pulled over for the
valid reason that he was driving a car with an expired registration, and he
could have been arrested for that offense but the officer acted within her
discretion by deciding to issue a citation. Brown’s “very odd driving”
supported a reasonable belief that he was delaying compliance with the
officer’s directive in order to hide something from her, and his explanation for
taking so long to pull over was cause for more concern because he actually
stopped in an unsafe place. The dashcam video showed that Martinez was
pleasant and agreeable throughout the encounter, and the safety measures
she employed were consistent with her small stature, given Brown’s odd
behaviors. The specific decision to have Brown exit the vehicle was a
reasonable way to ensure the officer’s safety in light of Brown’s “nervousness,
the driving pattern, [and] the awkward behaviors.” Finally, the court found,
the patsearch was based on “articulable facts” as opposed to just a hunch that
Brown was armed. Brown was not just argumentative with the officer, he
“actually did something with his body” that indicated he was concealing
something from her. Thus, the court concluded that Martinez’s actions were
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
II. Analysis
Brown does not dispute on appeal that he was lawfully detained, but he
argues the patsearch was unlawful under Terry. “In reviewing a suppression
ruling, ‘we defer to the superior court’s express and implied factual findings if
they are supported by substantial evidence, [but] we exercise our

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independent judgment in determining the legality of a search on the facts so
found.’ ” (People v. Lomax (2010) 49 Cal.4th 530, 563.)
Terry permits a police officer who “has reason to believe” that she is
“dealing with an armed and dangerous individual” to conduct “a reasonable
search for weapons.” (Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at p. 27) “ ‘ “The officer need not
be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a
reasonably prudent [person] in the circumstances would be warranted in the
belief that his [or her] safety or that of others was in danger.” ’ ” (People v.
Pantoja (2022) 77 Cal.App.5th 483, 488.) This objective standard requires
that the officer provide “specific and articulable facts which, taken together
with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant [the] intrusion.”
(Terry, at p. 21.) To determine whether this standard is met, courts consider
“the ‘totality of the circumstances,’ ” a process that permits the officer to draw
on her training “to make inferences from and deductions about the
cumulative information available to them.’ ” (United States v. Arvizu (2002)
534 U.S. 266, 274.)
In this case, substantial evidence before the trial court established that
when Officer Martinez conducted the patsearch of Brown she had reason to
believe he was armed. Initially, he delayed pulling the car over, swerved in
his lane, parked in an unsafe place, and offered an illogical explanation for
those behaviors. His personal characteristics during the face to face
encounter raised additional concerns for the officer, including his extreme
nervousness, even given the nature of the encounter, and repeating questions
in an argumentative manner. Then, he started pulling his hands from
Martinez’s grip and shielded his body against the car. Considered in their
totality, these facts establish that the officer’s belief Brown was carrying a
weapon on his person was reasonable.

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Disputing that the patsearch was justified, Brown makes two
arguments. First, he contends that evidence of his conduct after he exited
the vehicle should not be considered at all because Martinez told him she was
going to conduct a patsearch before she ushered him out of the car, and at
that point in the encounter she had no reason to suspect Brown was armed.
This argument misconstrues the record. During her direct testimony,
Martinez testified that she told Brown that she was having him exit the
vehicle because she was going to write him a citation. A few questions later,
she confirmed that after Brown was out of the car, she told him she was going
to do a patsearch for weapons, and then she described Brown’s reaction to
hearing this: first, he argued with her as they were standing near the rear of
the vehicle, and then he started pulling away from her grip and placed his
body up against the car. Up until this point, Martinez had been seeking
permission to proceed with the patsearch, but she testified that this was the
moment she decided, based on the totality of her encounter with Brown, to
proceed with the patsearch.
Brown’s second argument is that even if his entire encounter with the
officer is considered, Martinez’s testimony supports a conclusion Brown
might have been concealing something illegal, but not that it was a weapon.
Again we disagree. During the incident Martinez explained to Brown that
she wanted to do the patsearch “for weapons,” specifically, and that was the
point at which he started pulling away and she concluded the totality of his
behavior justified her concern that Brown was armed.
Brown relies on People v. Dickey (1994) 21 Cal.App.4th 952 to no avail.
In that case, the deputy approached a stopped car on a dirt road in the
middle of the day, observing “ ‘furtive movements’ ” from the man sitting in
the driver’s seat, who became the defendant. The deputy questioned the car’s

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occupants, who said they were admiring the view. (Id. at p. 954.) The car
was registered to the defendant, but he was unable to produce identification
or registration and twice refused to consent to a search of the car. (Ibid.) Not
only did this make the deputy “ ‘angry,’ ” he found nothing in plain view to
justify further intrusion. (Ibid.) Nevertheless, he searched a backpack that
was on the car’s back seat after defendant and his passenger denied owning it
and found inside a film canister filled with a substance the deputy believed
was baking soda. (Id. at p. 955.) Then he patsearched both occupants, and
while patting down defendant he felt a soft object he believed could be
contraband, reached into defendant’s pocket and removed baggies containing
small amounts of marijuana and cocaine. (Ibid.) The deputy explained that
he patted the occupants down in part because “if I found something like
contraband or something, I could possibly search the vehicle.” (Ibid.) The
trial court refused to suppress this evidence but the appellate court reversed
on two independent grounds. First, there were no specific or articulable facts
which showed the defendant may have been armed and dangerous. (Id. at
p. 956) Second, even if the patsearch could have been justified in its
inception, it became unlawful when the deputy reached into defendant’s
pocket to retrieve a soft item that did not have any immediately apparent
incriminating characteristic. (Id. at p. 957.)
Dickey does not assist Brown. The record in this case shows that there
were articulable facts to justify Martinez’s concern that Brown posed a risk to
her safety, including that he was the subject of valid detention; he was slow
to pull over, very nervous, and argumentative; and he started pulling away
from the officer’s grip when informed he would be patsearched. Moreover,
there is no dispute here that Martinez did not exceed the scope of a proper
patsearch for weapons.

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DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.

TUCHER, P. J.

WE CONCUR

PETROU, J.
RODRÍGUEZ, J.

People v. Brown (A173497)

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