P. v. Hood
Filed 4/17/13 P. v. Hood CA4/1
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts
and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or
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COURT
OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION
ONE
STATE
OF CALIFORNIA
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
COURTNEY JEAN HOOD,
Defendant and Appellant.
D061078
(Super. Ct.
No. SCD215929)
APPEAL from
a judgment of the Superior Court
of
County, Roger W. Krauel, Frederick Maguire and Howard H.
Shore, Judges. Affirmed.
INTRODUCTION
Courtney
Jean Hood
pleaded no contest to three counts of using personal identifying information of
another (Pen. Code,
title="">[2]
§ 530.5, subd. (a)) and one count each of burglary (§ 459),
acquiring access cards of four or more people (§ 484e, subd. (b)),
(a)), possessing completed paper (§
475, subd. (c)), and receiving stolen
property (§ 496, subd. (a)). The
trial court suspended imposition of sentence and granted Hood probation,
conditioned upon her serving 365 days in custody.
Hood
appeals, contending we must reverse her conviction and allow her to withdraw
her guilty plea because the trial court erroneously denied her pretrial motion
to suppress the evidence against her.
She additionally requests we independently review the
the transcript of an in camera proceeding conducted by the
trial court under Pitchess v. Superior
Court (1974) 11 Cal.3d 531 (Pitchess)
determine whether the trial court erred in finding certain police officers'
personnel records contained no discoverable information.
We conclude
the trial court did not err in denying Hood's suppression motion. In addition, we have reviewed the transcript
of the Pitchess proceeding and
conclude the trial court did not err in finding the officers' personnel records
contained no discoverable information.
We, therefore, affirm the judgment.
BACKGROUND
name="_ftnref4" title="">[4]
Prosecution
Evidence
On September 3, 2008, San Diego Police
Sergeant Paul Salas and police officers Carlos Navarro and Melinda McArthur
went to a hotel to investigate a disturbance of the peace incident. They met with the hotel manager who told them
several people in a room registered to "Kerri Miller" had caused a
disturbance regarding their unpaid restaurant bill. The manager also told them he had seen
narcotics paraphernalia in the room and wanted the people staying there to
leave. He asked the people in the room
to leave the premises, but not all of them complied with his demand.
Accompanied
by the manager, the officers went to the room.
The manager knocked on the door.
When no one responded, Navarro knocked on it. Hood opened a sliding glass door on the
second floor of the room. Salas asked
her to come to the front door. About
half a minute to a minute later, she opened the front door.
The manager
told Hood she had to leave the premises and she agreed to do so. Navarro asked Hood if her name was Kerri
Miller. She told him her name was
Courtney Hood. Navarro asked to see her
identification. As she turned to retrieve
her identification, he asked, "May we come inside?" She said, "Yes, you may[,]" and
Navarro, McArthur, and the hotel manager entered the room.
The
officers saw numerous items of clothing hanging in the open closet. The price tags were still attached to the
items. The officers also saw several
duffel bags, purses, and notebook bags throughout the room.
Hood gave
Navarro a student identification card identifying her as Courtney Hood. While waiting for the results of a records
check, Navarro talked with Hood for about 15 minutes.
night before. After obtaining the
records check results, Navarro asked Hood if he could search the room,
including the bed, the couch, the closet, and the furniture. He followed his usual pattern of questioning
in such circumstances: Is there anything
illegal in this room I should know about.
What's your property? Do you know
who the other items belong to? Do you
have a problem with me searching the room?
She hesitated at first and then consented to the search.
Navarro had
Hood sit on the couch while he conducted the search. The officers did not handcuff her or use any
threats, display any weapons, or otherwise coerce her to consent to the search.
McArthur
initially watched and spoke with Hood while Navarro conducted the search. McArthur noticed Hood waved her hands around
a lot, spoke extremely rapidly, and jumped from one topic to another. Based on her training and experience,
McArthur believed Hood was under the influence of a controlled substance.
While
searching the room, Navarro found a clear plastic baggie containing a white
residue in the bathroom next to the toilet.
the main part of the room.
name="_ftnref8" title="">[8] She also went into the bathroom and observed
it. The officers did not inform Hood of
their discovery of the baggie. In
addition, the prosecution never charged Hood with any narcotics related offenses
in this case.
After
Navarro found the baggie and a check belonging to a crime victim, McArthur
joined the search. The officers found
three bags from a clothing retailer with the store price tags still on them,
credit cards, several identifications belonging to different people along with
their personal information and pictures, checks, checkbooks, blank check paper,
software to create checks, passports, and a stolen gun.
McArthur conducted a records check on the identifications
and discovered four of them belonged to people who reported being victims of
property crimes. The officers then
arrested Hood. The entire encounter from
the time the officers entered the hotel room until they arrested Hood was
around 30 to 40 minutes.
Defense Evidence
Hood
testified she arrived at the hotel a day earlier and was a guest of the people
who rented the room. She was invited by
her wealthy friend, "Jason."
Although she had known him for years, she could not recall his last
name, address, or current phone number.
She also did not know the last names of anyone else staying in the
room.
She
testified she had been taking a shower when she heard the knock on the hotel
room door. She put on a robe, peeked out
the sliding glass balcony door, saw Salas and cracked opened the balcony door. Salas ordered her to open the room door. She shut the balcony door, put on some
clothes, opened the room door, and saw Navarro and McArthur. The officers asked her if she was Kerri
Miller. She told them she was not and
told them her name. They asked for her
identification and she told them she would get it for them. When she went to retrieve her identification,
they followed her into the room. They
did not ask for her consent to enter and she did not give them permission to come
inside the room.
She gave
the officers her identification and answered some questions about her
business. While she was doing this, her
phone rang. Navarro told McArthur to
answer the phone and pretend to be Hood.
When McArthur signaled to Navarro that it was Jason on the phone,
Navarro left the room to look for him.
While
Navarro was out, McArthur and Hood began taking items out of the room and into
the hallway. After Navarro returned and
indicated he could not find Jason, he told Hood he was going to search
everything. Hood did not consent to the
search.
Hood
testified she did not see Navarro find the plastic baggie and no one told her
about it or asked her about it at the time.
She also denied being under the influence of anything that night. She admitted that, after her arrest in this
case, she pleaded guilty to an "under the influence"
misdemeanor. She also admitted she had
previously been arrested while on a boat where cocaine and methamphetamine were
found and that she had some marijuana in her purse at the time.
DISCUSSION
I
Motion to
Suppress
Before
trial, Hood moved under section 1538.5 to suppress the evidence against
her. The trial court denied the motion,
finding the police officers entered Hood's hotel room after she gave her free
and voluntary consent for them to do so.
Hood
contends her initial consent to the entry of police officers into her hotel
room did not extend to her bathroom where an officer found a plastic baggie
containing white residue. Consequently,
her second consent to police officers searching her hotel room was invalid and
the trial court should have granted her motion to suppress. We conclude there is no merit to this
contention.
"The
standard of review on a motion to suppress
is well established. The appellate court
views the record in the light most favorable to the ruling and defers to the
trial court's factual findings, express or implied, when supported by
substantial evidence. But in determining
whether, on the facts so found, the search or seizure was reasonable under the
Fourth Amendment, the appellate court exercises its independent judgment. [Citations.]
Appellate review is confined to the correctness or incorrectness of the
trial court's ruling, not the reasons for its ruling." (People
v. Superior Court (Chapman) (2012) 204 Cal.App.4th 1004, 1011.)
"The
Fourth Amendment prohibits only those searches and seizures that are
unreasonable. (Chapman, supra, 204
Cal.App.4th at p. 1011, citing Florida v.
Jimeno (1991) 500 U.S. 248, 250, and Brigham
City v. Stuart (2006) 547 U.S. 398, 403.)
Generally, "a search conducted without a warrant is per se
unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment."
(Chapman, at p. 1011.) However, one of the established exceptions to
the warrant requirement is "when consent is given by one authorized to
give it." (Id. at pp. 1011-1012, citing Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973) 412 U.S. 218, 219;
873.) "By consenting to a
warrantless search, one waives the right protected by the Fourth
Amendment." (Chapman, at p. 1012.)
In this
case, substantial evidence in the record shows Hood consented to Navarro and
McArthur's entry into the hotel room.
Substantial evidence in the record also shows Hood consented to the
officers' search of the areas of the hotel room where the officers found the
unlawful items. Whether Navarro
requested Hood's consent to search before or after he spotted the baggie in the
bathroom does not affect the validity of Hood's consent because, according to
Hood, she did not know about the baggie and the officers never told her of its
discovery. Accordingly, Hood has not
established the officers obtained her consent to search the hotel room by
exploiting unlawful conduct or, concomitantly, that the trial court improperly
denied her suppression motion. (See
668, 760; People v. Williams (1988)
45 Cal.3d 1268, 1300, abrogated on another point as recognized in
518-519 & fn. 10.)
II
Review of
Pitchess Proceeding Transcript
Before
trial, Hood moved under Pitchess,
sections 1043 and 1045 for discovery of information in the personnel records of
the officers involved in the search of her hotel room. The trial court granted the motion, agreeing to
review the personnel records to determine whether they contained discoverable
information related to acts of dishonesty or excessive force. After reviewing the records in camera, the
trial court determined they contained no discoverable information.
At Hood's
request, and with no objection by the People, we have independently reviewed
the sealed transcript of the trial court's in camera review. (See, e.g., People v. Hughes (2002) 27 Cal.4th 287, 330.) We conclude the trial court did not err in
finding there was no discoverable information in the officers' personnel
records.
DISPOSITION
The
judgment is affirmed.
McCONNELL,
P. J.
WE CONCUR:
HUFFMAN, J.
NARES, J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] Although official court documents list appellant's last name
as "Hoop," the trial court determined her true last name was
"Hood."
name="_ftn2" title="">[2] Further statutory references are also to the Penal Code
unless otherwise stated.
