Opinion
D057295 Super. Ct. No. SCD212326
08-25-2011
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. RICHARD LLANES, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Stephanie Sontag, Judge. Affirmed.
A jury convicted Richard Llanes of one count of possession of heroin for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11351), and four counts of selling heroin. (§ 11352, subd. (a).) On appeal, Llanes contends the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence of the heroin found on his person during a search incident to his arrest because the arresting officer did not have probable cause to arrest him.
All statutory references are to the Health and Safety Code unless otherwise specified.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) contacted Detective Ries and other members of the San Diego Police Department to participate in an investigation of illegal narcotics sales. This investigation involved several transactions with Llanes.
On October 9, October 10, October 17, and November 1, 2007, the following occurred: Officer Mendez called Robert Pope to purchase heroin. Pope's girlfriend, Bianca Davis, met Mendez and Special Agent Calderon in their parked vehicle. They gave her money. Davis then took the money to Llanes. She gave Llanes the money and he removed a package from his right sock and handed it to Davis. Davis then returned to Mendez and Calderon with a package of heroin for them.
Ries testified he personally observed all four transactions between Davis, Mendez and Calderon. He learned of the transactions between Davis and Llanes from speaking with the other officers involved in the narcotics investigation.
On March 10, 2008, the undercover unit directed Martinez to arrest Llanes on the street. Ries told Martinez that Llanes was involved in an undercover operation for narcotics and was subject to arrest for the sale of heroin. Ries showed Martinez a DMV photograph of Llanes and told him Llanes would be holding heroin in his right sock. Martinez located and arrested Llanes. During the search of Llanes incident to his arrest, Martinez discovered a package of heroin in Llanes's right sock. Llanes possessed 6.25 grams of heroin. This is an amount considered to be possessed for sale.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we first review the record most favorably to the ruling below and defer to trial court's findings of fact, whether express or implied, if supported by substantial evidence. Second, we "independently apply the proper federal constitutional standards to those facts." (People v. Valenzuela (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 1202, 1206-1207.) Whether a police officer acted reasonably under the established facts is a question of law subject to the appellate court's independent review. (People v. Williams (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1268, 1301.)
DISCUSSION
Police officers can arrest a person without a warrant if the officers have probable cause to believe the person arrested has committed a felony, regardless of whether a felony, in fact, has been committed. (Pen. Code, § 836, subd. (a)(3).) Probable cause generally has been defined as a state of facts that would lead a reasonable officer of ordinary care and prudence to believe and conscientiously entertain an honest and strong suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed. (People v. Ingle (1960) 53 Cal.2d 407, 412.) There is no absolute test for probable cause to make a warrantless arrest; each case must be decided on its own facts and under the totality of the circumstances present at the time of the arrest. (People v. Mims (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 1244, 1250.) If Martinez had probable cause to arrest him, then the search of Llanes's person would have been justified as a search incident to a lawful arrest.
Llanes does not contend that Ries did not have probable cause to arrest him for the sale of heroin. The collective knowledge of the officers involved in Llanes's arrest included four sales of heroin. For each sale, there is at least one member of the investigative team who personally observed a stage of the heroin sale: Ries saw Mendez and Calderon give money to Davis. Detectives Erwin, Fletes, and Neves saw Davis take the money to Llanes, Davis give Llanes the money, Llanes take the money, remove a package from his right sock, and give the package to Davis. Ries saw Davis return to Mendez and Calderon with a package, and the package contained a large amount of heroin. This collective knowledge constituted probable cause for Ries to arrest Llanes.
Llanes contends, however, that because Martinez was not given the facts of the collective knowledge that gave Ries probable cause to arrest him, Martinez did not have probable cause to arrest him. In People v. Ramirez (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 1548, 1553 (Ramirez), the court found that although the arresting officer's reliance on the information provided by the other officers must be reasonable, the arresting officer does not need to know the facts constituting probable cause to arrest. Llanes disagrees with Ramirez, contending the arresting officer does need to be informed of the facts constituting the probable cause to justify the warrantless arrest.
Ramirez examined People v. Poehner (1971) 16 Cal.App.3d 481 (Poehner) to determine whether the arresting officer must have knowledge of the facts of the collective knowledge of his or her fellow officers to have probable cause to make the arrest. (Ramirez, supra, 59 Cal.App.4th at p. 1555.) Llanes argues Ramirez did not correctly interpret Poehner.
However, we find Ramirez's interpretation of Poehner accurate. According to Ramirez, the facts in Poehner are as follows:
"[T]he border patrolmen . . . learned from a fellow officer a blue Volkswagen which was owned by [a] San Diego resident and which had a specified license number was crossing the border from Tijuana . . . . The fellow officer suspected the defendants may have picked up narcotics from Tijuana because there was no reason why they would take a 70-mile detour route to enter San Diego through the Tecate border station . . . . [] [¶] . . . [¶] [T]he border patrolmen who ultimately conducted the search and seizure were informed by another officer of the suspect vehicle's color, model, its license plate number, and the fact it turned onto a side road with its lights turned off." (Ramirez, supra, 59 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1554-1555.)The only additional information not contained above is that the fellow border patrolman in Poehner told the arresting officer that he had been watching the suspect vehicle, but the suspects had turned off the vehicle's lights and it was now out of his sight. (Poehner, supra, 16 Cal.App.3d at pp. 484-485.) We find the exclusion of this fact in Ramirez unnecessary to support the court's finding that the arresting officer had sufficient probable cause to arrest the defendant based on the collective knowledge of other officers. Further, we find Ramirez's reliance on Poehner proper.
The Poehner court disregarded the statement by the inspector about his belief concerning suspected narcotic activity, finding it immaterial and not a basis for furnishing probable cause.
Here, Martinez did not need independent knowledge of the collective knowledge of facts constituting probable cause to arrest Llanes for the sale of heroin. A law enforcement officer may arrest a person based on information furnished by other law enforcement officers as long as the collective knowledge of the officers provides probable cause for the arrest. " '[W]hen it comes to justifying the total police activity in a court, the People must prove that the source of the information is something other than the imagination of an officer who does not become a witness.' " (Remers v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 659, 667.) We agree with the Poehner court that probable cause exists in collective knowledge cases where "the information received by one officer from another officer as proof of probable cause was 'factual rather than conclusionary,' related 'specific and articulable facts,' was the product of personal observations by the informing officer, and was reliable." (Poehner, supra, 16 Cal.App.3d at p. 488.)
The requirement in collective knowledge cases that the informing officer must demonstrate in court the basis for his or her information arose out of concern that without such requirement, officers might resort to manufacturing their own probable cause, and "all Fourth Amendment safeguards would dissolve as a consequence." (People v. Pease (1966) 242 Cal.App.2d 442, 449.) There is no evidence, or suggestion by Llanes, that Ries manufactured the facts establishing probable cause. The direction he gave to Martinez to arrest Llanes was not a conclusionary statement based on unknown sources or the "imagination of an officer who does not become a witness." Rather, it was based on both his personal observations and the product of collective knowledge furnished in the discharge of an ongoing narcotics investigation of Llanes. Ries and his fellow officers testified to the validity of the information establishing probable cause supporting the direction given Martinez to arrest Llanes.
Ries's factual assertion to Martinez that Llanes was subject to arrest for selling drugs was supported by a Department of Motor Vehicles photograph and was corroborated by Martinez's later identification of Llanes that matched the photograph. Further, Ries's specific assertion that Llanes would be holding heroin in his right sock, later corroborated by Martinez's search of Llanes's person, undermines any allegation that Ries posed a threat to Llanes's Fourth Amendment rights. Llanes would not have gained any more constitutional protection by requiring that Ries inform Martinez about the exact facts of Llanes's narcotics activity and the extent of the officers' collective knowledge. Ries and his fellow officers had sufficient collective knowledge establishing probable cause to arrest Llanes that supported Ries's direction to arrest him and provided probable cause for Martinez's later arrest of him.
We find Martinez acted in reasonable reliance of "specific and articulable facts" based on the personal observations of other officers participating in a coordinated undercover narcotics investigation. Therefore, the trial court did not err in denying Llanes's motion to suppress evidence of the heroin found on his person.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
McDONALD, J. WE CONCUR:
HALLER, Acting P. J.
O'ROURKE, J.