P. v. Jones
Filed 6/29/12
P. v. Jones CA4/3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits
courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for
publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115
IN
THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOURTH
APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION
THREE
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
THERESA ANN JONES,
Defendant and Appellant.
G046175
(Super. Ct. No. 11CF2202)
O P I N I O N
Appeal
from a judgment of the Superior Court of
County, Richard M. King, Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
Arielle
Bases, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala
D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney
General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Barry Carlton and Joy
Utomi, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendant
Theresa Ann Jones challenges her conviction for
cocaine. She contends the court wrongly
denied her motion to suppress the cocaine.
The Attorney General concedes the error.
We reverse.
FACTS
Defendant
was a passenger in an SUV that the police pulled over for a traffic
violation. The driver told the officer
his driver’s license had been suspended.
The officer asked where the driver was coming from. The driver replied he had just left a gas
station. But the officer had seen the
SUV leave the parking lot of a motel known for drug sales. The officer ordered the driver to step out of
the vehicle, and obtained his consent to search it.
The
police “escorted†defendant from the SUV to the back seat of the patrol car,
leaving her purse in the SUV. To avoid
impounding the SUV, the officer asked the driver if some licensed driver could
drive it home. The driver replied
defendant could drive it. The officer
asked another police officer to find defendant’s driver’s license. That officer took defendant’s purse from the
SUV’s passenger seat, opened it, removed a wallet, and looked inside. She found a plastic baggie containing 0.3
grams of cocaine.
Defendant
was charged with one count of possessing a controlled substance. (See Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd.
(a).) She moved to suppress the cocaine
as the result of an illegal search. (See
Pen. Code, § 1538.5.) The court denied
the motion. It found the officer had
reason to suspect the purse would contain illegal drugs. It further found the police would have
inevitably discovered the cocaine during an inventory search.
Two weeks later,
defendant pleaded guilty. The court
determined incarceration in state prison was inappropriate. It sentenced defendant to serve 268 days in
county jail.
DISCUSSION
“On
appeal from the denial of a motion to
suppress [citation], our standard of review is settled. We defer to the trial court’s express or
implied factual findings if supported by substantial evidence, but independently
apply constitutional principles to the trial court’s factual findings in
determining the legality of the search.â€
(People v. Baker (2008) 164
Cal.App.4th 1152, 1156 (Baker).)
The
Fourth Amendment guarantees individuals the “right . . . to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures . . . .â€
(U.S. Const., 4th Amend.) A
warrantless search is unreasonable per se unless it falls within one of the
“specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.†(Katz
v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 357.)
No exception applies here.
First,
“the so-called ‘automobile exception’â€
does not apply to the search of defendant’s purse. (Baker,
supra, 164 Cal.App.4th at p. 1157;
accord California v. Acevedo (1991)
500 U.S. 565, 566.) That exception
“permits a warrantless search of an automobile and its contents if their search
is supported by probable cause.†(
did not articulate any suspicion, furtive movements, or other circumstances
that could establish probable cause which would have permitted the search of
the car and its contents.†The Attorney
General does not suggest — contrary to the court’s implicit conclusion — the
driver’s claim of having just left a gas station constituted probable cause to
search the car and its contents.
Nor is the search
justified by the inevitable discovery doctrine.
(See Nix v. Williams (1984)
467 U.S. 431, 443-444.) An inventory
search would have occurred only if the police had impounded the vehicle. (People
v. Torres (2010) 188 Cal.App.4th 775, 786-787.) But the police wanted to avoid impounding the
vehicle, and intended to release it to defendant as long as she was a licensed
driver. The officer could have allowed
defendant to retrieve her license — the police lacked any reason to search her
purse for it. It is circular logic to
reason (1) impounding the vehicle would justify searching the purse (during an
inventory search), and (2) searching the purse (and finding cocaine) would
justify impounding the vehicle. The
Attorney General offers no defense of the inevitable discovery theory.
Finally,
the police lacked consent to search the purse.
The police may obtain consent from “a third party who possesses common
authority†over the property. (
177, 179.) But as the Attorney General
acknowledges, Baker “is on
point.†On facts similar to those here,
suspicion that the purse belonged to the driver, that the driver exercised
control or possession of the purse, or that the purse contained anything
belonging to the driver.†(
Baker continued: “a purse is not generally an object for which
two or more persons share common use or authority. [Citation.]
Here, there is nothing to overcome the obvious presumption that the
purse belonged to the sole female occupant of the vehicle . . . .†(Id.
at p. 1160.) The same is true here.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is
reversed. The matter is remanded to the
court with directions to grant defendant’s motion to suppress.
IKOLA,
J.
WE CONCUR:
BEDSWORTH, ACTING P. J.
MOORE, J.
