People v. SamplesPeople v. Samples
Opinion
I. Introduction
David A. Samples (Samples) was charged with transportation of methamphetamine (
II. Factual and Procedural Background
On June 14, 1994, a search warrant, attested to by Agent Marcus Young (Agent Young) of the Mendocino County wide Narcotics Task Force, was issued. The warrant authorized the search of an apartment located at 4-B Louise Court, Ukiah, as well as the searches of two residents of that apartment, Dawn Carlesen (Carlesen) and Freddie Barnett (Barnett), for methamphetamines, drug paraphernalia, and other evidence which might establish possession of methamphetamine for sale.
About 9:10 p.m. on June 15,1994, Agent Young and several other officers executed the warrant at the Louise Court apartment. Ronald Knight and Bonnie Barnett were in the apartment when Agent Young entered. They informed him that Barnett and Carlesen had gone to the store and would shortly return in a white Mustang.
At 9:40 p.m., Agent Young saw a white Mustang drive toward the apartment. Samples, the driver of the car, pulled up to the curb about 160 feet away from the apartment building, short of a red zone, and parked. Samples did not park in the driveway which led to a carport and a rear door for apartment 4-B. Officer Barry Inman (Inman), waiting in his patrol car, immediately pulled in behind Samples’s vehicle, and Agent Young, along with two other officers, approached the car on foot from both sides. Inman recognized Barnett as a passenger in the backseat.
The events after this point are in dispute. Agent Young testified that he determined that Barnett and Carlesen were passengers in the backseat. He thereafter directed Samples and his wife, Karen Samples (Ms. Samples), to exit the two-door car so that Barnett and Carlesen, who were the focus of the search, could get out of the backseat. After Samples exited the car, Agent Young directed Officer McQueary (McQueary) to pat-search Samples “for officer safety.” Agent Young was not aware of any suspicious activity on Samples’s part before he exited the car. Rather, Agent Young explained, “the reason why I asked for a pat down search for officer safety, is basically my focus was on the two passengers in the rear of the vehicle. There’s three additional people in the vehicle that were in our immediate area. And it was—there was basically a search due to officer safety just to make sure they didn’t have any weapons on their person, if they were going to stay there.”
McQueary testified that he then found a plastic container containing approximately .4 grams of suspected methamphetamine, a plastic “ziplock” bag containing approximately .1 grams of suspected methamphetamine, approximately 10 “ziplock” bags of assorted sizes, a large baby bottle liner and a short straw in Samples’s right shirt pocket. In Samples’s left shirt pocket, McQueary found $553 in cash.
Inman testified that he removed a brown paper bag from behind the driver’s seat on the floorboard near Charles Renfro (Renfro), the third backseat passenger. Inside was a small amount of suspected methamphetamine in a “ziplock” bag, a grinding device, a set of scales, packaging material in three sizes, coin bags, metal instruments, and another methamphetamine pipe.
Ms. Samples, testifying on Samples’s behalf, gave a different version of events. Ms. Samples testified that they were returning from dinner the evening of June 15 when the police approached the car. In the car with her were Samples, and her son, Renfro, her nephew, Barnett, and his girlfriend, Carlesen. Ms. Samples testified that she started to get out of the car when Agent Young approached her with his gun drawn. He told her to put her hands on her head and sit down. When Agent Young asked Ms. Samples if she was Dawn Carlesen, Carlesen identified herself from the backseat. Ms. Samples complied with Agent Young’s request that she exit the car and sit on the curb. She was never subjected to a search.
Ms. Samples further testified that Agent Young then asked Carlesen to get out of the car, and then pat-searched and handcuffed her. Another officer asked Samples if he was Barnett and if he was still on parole or probation. Samples responded “no” to both questions and Barnett identified himself from the backseat. After Samples got out of the car and stood by the front fender, an officer began emptying his shirt pockets. Ms. Samples did not see the officer pat-search Samples or reach towards his belt area beforehand. Samples was wearing a shirt that might have been covering his belt and knife case. Ms. Samples testified that she believed 15-20 minutes elapsed before
For the most part, Samples’s testimony was consistent with that of Ms. Samples. He testified that as he exited the car, McQueary “ushered” him around to the front of the car, and began emptying his pockets, starting with his shirt pockets; he did not first pat-search Samples. Samples testified that McQueary did not find the knife case until he had gone through Samples’s pockets again. McQueary did not find methamphetamine until the second search of his pockets. Samples was then handcuffed and placed under arrest. Unlike Ms. Samples, however, he did not see any officers with their weapons drawn.
By information filed on November 14, 1994, the Mendocino County District Attorney charged Samples with transportation of methamphetamine (
On January 10, 1995, Samples filed a Penal Code
On April 14, 1995, the trial court sentenced Samples to the upper term of three years, stayed execution of sentence, and placed appellant on probation for five years, with the condition that he complete a thirty-day drug treatment program. On the same date, Samples filed a notice of appeal.
III. Discussion
A. Standard of Review
Appellant correctly notes that there are two issues involved in this appeal, namely, the legality of (1) the detention of appellant and (2) the pat-search
At the conclusion of the hearing before the trial court, which as noted included the testimony of appellant, his wife, and the three officers mentioned above, the trial court noted the following in denying the suppression motion: “The evidence at this hearing established that the officers were present near the premises of 4B Louis [sz'c] Court for the purposes of serving a warrant. The search warrant they had with them armed them with authority, and, in fact, commanded them to make a search of not only the premises, but also the persons of Freddie Barnett and Dawn Carlson [sz'c] for controlled substances and related items. [^Q The officers present—Well, before they arrived at the scene, they had information that Barnett and Carlson [sz'c] would be returning to that location on Louis [sz'c] Court in a white Mustang. And as predicted, they did arrive on Louis [sz'c] Court. They didn’t pull into the premises, they parked down the street. And based on the testimony, including Mr. Gray’s testimony, it looks like they parked about 150 feet from the front door of the residence at 4B Louis [sz'c] Court. [H . . . [<]D The driver of the car was Mr. Samples. And with respect to the authority of the officers to pat down people who were in the car, other than Mr. Barnett and Mrs. Carlson [sz'c], the same officer safety considerations that permit such a pat down search for weapons of people who are physically on the premises to be searched, applies in this situation where they’re in the car with the two people to be searched. [<]D There was necessarily a brief detention, anyway, for the purpose of getting Barnett and Carlson [sz'c] out of the car to perform the duty of searching them, as commanded by the warrant. And the further brief detention of the others, including Samples, for the purpose of patting them down was not overly intrusive. In addition, the purpose of that search was an important purpose for the officer to neutralize and defuse the area within which they are focusing their attention on, in the performance of the duties they have under the warrant. [H I believe Officer McQueary’s testimony, that he always starts at the waist, and he started at the waist in this case. If Officer McQuery [sz'c] had gone into the shirt the first time he would have found the drugs, he wouldn’t have had to go in a second time.”
It is thus clear that the trial court, which saw and heard the pertinent witnesses, credited Officer McQueary’s version of the events. That being the case, we necessarily defer to those factual findings where “supported by substantial evidence.”
(People
v.
Glaser
(1995)
B. Legality of the Detention
Appellant argues that the initial detention of appellant was unlawful under Fourth Amendment standards because the police did not and could not “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,” quoting from our Supreme Court’s definition of the applicable rule in
People
v.
Souza
(1994)
The leading United States Supreme Court case on the validity of a detention in a case such as this is
Michigan
v.
Summers
( 1981)
The Supreme Court upheld the detention, noting that it was substantially less intrusive than an arrest. The Supreme Court stated: “Most obvious is the legitimate law enforcement interest in preventing flight in the event that incriminating evidence is found. Less obvious, but sometimes of greater importance, is the interest in minimizing the risk of harm to the officers . . . .”
(Summers, supra,
452 U.S. at pp. 702-703 [
Our own Supreme Court relied heavily on
Summers
in its recent decision in
Glaser.
The issue before the court in that case was the legality of an initial detention of the appellant who was found trying to enter premises the police had a warrant to search on the proverbial “dark and stormy night” in Glenn County. Relying strongly on the analysis in
Summers,
a unanimous Supreme Court concluded that the “brief detention of defendant was justified by the
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has extended the rationale of
Summers
to the type of automobile stop involved here. In
United States
v.
Vaughan
(9th Cir. 1983)
After the car was stopped, all three people exited. One of the agents drew his gun and ordered all three to “freeze.” Vaughan, carrying a briefcase under his arm, started to walk away, but the agent brought him back to the car. After this episode repeated itself, Vaughan was handcuffed and the briefcase taken from him. The issue before the Ninth Circuit was the legality of the agents’ subsequent search of the briefcase; the court ultimately ruled that search to have been improper. However, in the course of so ruling, the court held that the agents did have a right “to detain Vaughan briefly while they searched his companions,” citing
Summers. (Vaughan, supra,
The
Vaughan
court distinguished the factual circumstances present there with those present in an earlier United States Supreme Court opinion,
Ybarra
v.
Illinois
(1979)
In any event, the principle we deduce from
Summers, Glaser,
and
Vaughan,
as well as other pertinent cases,
2
is that a reviewing court should endeavor to balance the governmental interest which is sought to be protected against the degree of intrusion involved in the detention. This balancing must demonstrate that, to be sustainable, the detention meets “the ultimate standard of reasonableness embodied in the Fourth Amendment.”
(Summers, supra,
452 U.S. at pp. 699-700 [
Undertaking that balancing here, we have no hesitation in concluding that the detention of appellant was justified. The following factors lead us to this conclusion. First, the appellant was clearly in close association with several subjects of a search warrant which was then being executed. More specifically, he was not just a passenger in, but the driver of, a car containing two subjects of the warrant. Additionally, the car appellant was driving was predicted to be returning to, and did indeed return to, a house which was another subject of the warrant.
Second, the officer directing the detention, Agent Young, did so out of a concern for officer safety, a concern well recognized as of the highest order in a circumstance of this type. Our Supreme Court clearly recognized this in
Glaser,
stating: “The police interest in protecting against violence during the search of a home for narcotics has been widely recognized. ‘In the narcotics business, “firearms are as much ‘tools of the trade’ as are most commonly recognized articles of narcotics paraphernalia.” ’ ”
(Glaser, supra,
Immediately after this, the Supreme Court quoted from our 1989 decision in
People
v.
Thurman
(1989)
The
Glaser
decision also quoted from the
Summers
opinion of the United States Supreme Court, a decision which stressed the public importance of officer safety in the specific context of the execution of narcotics search warrants in the following terms: “ ‘[T]he execution of a warrant to search for narcotics is the kind of transaction that may give rise to sudden violence or frantic efforts to conceal or destroy evidence. The risk of harm to both the police and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely exercise unquestioned command of the situation.’”
(Glaser, supra,
Third, the intrusiveness of the detention was minimal: it took place on a dark cul-de-sac, with a minimum of onlookers and, at least prior to the search next to be discussed, without handcuffs or drawn weapons. More importantly, the detention prior to the patdown search and the subsequent arrest was extremely short in duration. Under the principles derived from Summers, Glaser and Vaughan, these three factors combine to compel the conclusion that the initial detention of appellant was not improper under Fourth Amendment standards.
C. The Legality of the Patdown Search
The legality of the pat-search conducted by Officer McQueary presents a slightly closer question. As noted earlier, Agent Young testified that he directed McQueary to conduct that search because “[flhere’s three additional people in the vehicle that were in our immediate area. And it was— There was basically a search due to officer safety just to make sure they didn’t have any weapons on their person, if they were going to stay there.” A few minutes later he added what appears to be a supplemental explanation: “I believe I asked that there be a pat down search because they were at the scene.” McQueary, for his part, testified consistently with Agent Young and the trial court explicitly credited that testimony, and implicitly did the same with respect to Agent Young’s testimony.
Relying strongly on the United States Supreme Court’s holding in
Ybarra,
where that court cautioned that “. . . mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity” does not, without more, permit a
The seminal case regarding the legality of patdown searches is, of course,
Terry
v.
Ohio, supra,
Terry
has, of course, spawned a veritable host of cases, law review articles, and chapters of texts both with respect to that aspect of it dealing with detention alone but, and more importantly for present purposes, also with respect to the pat-search aspect of the decision. It would be both
We commenced our analysis in
Thurman
by, of course, revisiting
Terry
and the policy principles there enunciated. We specifically quoted that part of
Terry
wherein Chief Justice Warren commented: “ ‘American criminals have a long tradition of armed violence, and every year in this country many law enforcement officers are killed in the line of duty, and thousands more are wounded. Virtually all of these deaths and a substantial portion of the injuries are inflicted with guns and knives. FJQ In view of these facts, we cannot blind ourselves to the need for law enforcement officers to protect themselves and other prospective victims of violence in situations where they may lack probable cause for an arrest. 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, it would appear to be clearly unreasonable to deny the officer the power to take necessary measures to determine whether the person is in fact carrying a weapon and to neutralize the threat of physical harm.’ ”
(Thurman, supra,
We then endeavored to bring Chief Justice Warren’s 1968 comment up to date: “The Tong tradition of armed violence’ by the American criminal, to which the Chief Justice alluded, has not diminished since
Terry
v.
Ohio.
Indeed, illicit drug trafficking, now of epidemic proportion, has brought new dimension to this deplorable tradition. Rare is the day which passes without fresh reports of drug related homicides, open street warfare between armed gangs over disputed ‘drug turf,’ and police seizures of illicit drug and weapon caches in warranted searches of private residences and other locales. It is well recognized that ‘. . .the execution of a warrant to search for narcotics is the kind of transaction that may give rise to sudden violence. . . .’ [Citation.] Moreover, as Justice Rehnquist observed in his dissenting opinion in
Ybarra
v.
Illinois, supra,
We then held: “We have no hesitation whatever in holding that [the officer] acted reasonably and prudently in conducting the pat search of appellant in the circumstances. Here, a neutral and detached magistrate had judicially approved a warranted search for evidence of drug trafficking at the private residence where appellant was found. The officers whose duty required them to execute the warranted search were thus well aware they were engaged in an undertaking fraught with the potential for sudden violence. . . . [ffl In this atmosphere [the officer], a 10-year veteran of police work, came upon appellant, at close range, quietly seated on a sofa. That appellant’s posture, at that moment, was nonthreatening does not in any measure diminish the potential for sudden armed violence that his presence within the residence suggested. To require an officer to await an overt act of hostility, as appellant suggests, before attempting to neutralize the threat of physical harm which accompanies an occupant’s presence in a probable drug trafficking residential locale, would be utter folly.”
(Thurman, supra,
In our view, the philosophy we articulated in
Thurman
is equally applicable here. To be sure, in
Thurman
one officer was confronted with that appellant and two females in a room in a house in Vallejo. The present case involves an outdoor site, a cul-de-sac street in Ukiah, where four police officers had to deal, at 9:40 at night, with five occupants of a car, two of whom were the subject of warrants. But these are distinctions without a difference: just as in
Thurman,
the officers here were “engaged in an undertaking fraught with the potential for sudden violence”
(Thurman, supra,
The fact that appellant was among five adults exiting from a car at police request underlines the reasonableness of the patdown search. The courts
The Vaughan case, discussed in the preceding part, provides a slightly different, albeit related, rationale for sustaining the trial court’s ruling here. There, as previously noted, the defendant was given a patdown search after alighting from a car in which he was a passenger along with two others, both of whom were the subjects of narcotics-related search warrants. The federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that such a search was justified by the fact that the defendant there was the companion of subjects of warrants. Several other federal courts of appeals have similarly sustained searches of persons found on or near premises that were the subject of search warrants where “the person has a somewhat stronger link to the premises than Ybarra did to the bar where he was found.” (See 2 LaFave, Search & Seizure (3d ed. 1996) § 4.9(d), pp. 635-642, fn. 76 and the cases cited therein.)
Vaughan
effectively reiterated, albeit in the context of a search warrant, the Ninth Circuit’s 12-year-earlier ruling in
United States
v.
Berryhill
(9th Cir. 1971)
According to one law review comment, the Ninth Circuit’s view on this issue was subsequently echoed by two other circuits, the Fourth and the Seventh. 5 All three have now adapted an “automatic companion” rule in such cases, i.e., a rule that a companion of an arrestee may be automatically “frisked” for weapons. The Eighth and Sixth Circuits, the comment notes, have held that Terry does not permit of any such “bright line rule,” and that any such search should be evaluated under the “totality of the circumstances.’’ 6 (See Comment, The Automatic Companion Rule: A Bright Line Standard for the Terry Frisk of an Arrestee’s Companion (1987) 62 Notre Dame L.Rev. 751.)
We need not decide whether such an “automatic companion" rule is appropriate under Terry, nor whether, if so, it may be extended to cover companions of the subjects of search warrants, as distinguished from arrest warrants. Again, and as noted in our previous discussion of the detention issue, this appellant was more than just a casual, sidewalk companion of a person who was the subject of a warrant or, as in Ybarra, a patron of a commercial establishment that was the subject of a search warrant. Rather, he was the driver of the car containing two people who were the subjects of search warrants and that car had been identified to the officers as likely to soon return to the house which was the other such subject. There was, thus, an apparent close physical and functional association between appellant and persons who were the subjects of search warrants. Put another way, and in Professor LaFave’s words, there was clearly a “stronger link” here than in Ybarra between appellant and the subjects of the search warrant. 7
In summary, the record here establishes that (1) there was apparently a close physical and functional association between appellant and the subjects
IV. Conclusion
The judgment of conviction is affirmed.
Kline, P. J., and Lambden, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied December 18, 1996.
Notes
People
v.
Harvey
(1979)
Among the other leading authority we have considered on this issue are, of course, the seminal United States Supreme Court case on “stop and frisk” incidents,
Terry
v.
Ohio
(1968)
At oral argument, appellant’s counsel suggested that
Thurman
was factually distinguishable because there the officers heard “footsteps running down the hallway”
(Thurman, supra,
We note again that our Supreme Court has recently cited (indeed quoted from)
Thurman
approvingly. (See
Glaser, supra,
The decisions in question are
United States
v.
Poms
(4th Cir. 1973)
These decisions are
United States
v.
Flett
(8th Cir. 1986)
2 LaFave, Search & Seizure, supra, § 4.9(d), p. 641.