Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
Superior Court County of Los Angeles, Carol H. Rehm, Jr., Judge, Super. Ct. No. BA311513
Kathleen M. Redmond, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Lawrence M. Daniels, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Lauren E. Dana, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
YEGAN, J.
Edward Nolan Norwood was convicted by jury of possession of cocaine base (Health & Saf. Code, § 11350) and admitted a prior strike conviction (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (a)– (i); 1170.12, subds. (a)-(d)) and a prior prison term enhancement (Pen. Code, § 667.5, subd. (b)). He was sentenced to five years state prison and appeals, contending that the trial court erred in denying his to motion to suppress evidence. (Pen. Code, § 1538.5.) We affirm.
Facts and Procedural History
On October 19, 2006, Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Jose Castellanos responded to a robbery call at the Sheriff's Century Station in Lynwood. Ms. Rasheed told the deputy that her boyfriend, appellant, took her money at gun point and drove off in a 1995 Cadillac, license plate number 3MQV509. Deputy Castellanos issued a crime broadcast and prepared an incident report. A sheriff's detective broadcast a "want" for appellant.
Six days later, Los Angeles Police Department Sergeant Javier Arenado saw a Cadillac bearing the same license plate. Sergeant Arenado thought the "case had been rejected " but "ran the license plate just to see if everything was fine with the vehicle." He was advised that it was a "Code 6 charge, which is a felony want on the vehicle, . . . armed and dangerous, and it named Mr. Norwood and the Cadillac that he was in."
Sergeant Arenado made a U-turn and approached appellant who was parked in the Cadillac. Appellant was asked to step over to the police vehicle and put his hands on the hood. Sergeant Arenado explained that "it might be a mistake, maybe it was a warrant that failed to be extracted" and that he "was going to confirm that."
Because the "want" described appellant as "armed and dangerous," Sergeant Arenado patted appellant down for weapons, finding cocaine base in appellant's sock. A baggie of marijuana was in plain view on the center console of the Cadillac. A second baggie was on the driver's side armrest.
After appellant was transported to the police station, a sheriff's detective told Sergeant Arenado that the robbery case was not strong because the victim was appellant's girlfriend and she was reluctant to prosecute.
Sergeant Arenado stated that he was going to arrest appellant for the narcotics violations and asked if the detective wanted appellant transported to the sheriff's substation. The detective declined.
The trial court denied the motion to suppress stating that the Sergeant Arenado had reasonable cause to make an investigatory stop. The trial court stated there was "nothing wrong with the officer running the defendant's plates on the day of his arrest. He's familiar with the vehicle. . . . [¶] And what does he find? He finds out that there is a want by the Century – well, a warrant [sic], that the defendant is armed and dangerous. He certainly has probable cause."
Discussion
On review, we defer to the trial court's factual findings where supported by substantial evidence and determine whether, on the facts found, the search was reasonable under Fourth Amendment standards. (People v. Leyba (1981) 29 Cal.3d 591, 596-597.) "Although police officers may not arrest or search a suspect without probable cause . . ., they may temporarily detain a suspect based only on a 'reasonable suspicion' that the suspect has committed or is about to commit a crime. [Citations.] Such detentions are permitted, notwithstanding the Fourth Amendment's requirements of probable cause and a search warrant, because they are 'limited intrusions' that are 'justified by special law enforcement interests.' [Citations.]" (People v. Bennett (1998) 17 Cal.4th 373, 386-387.)
An ordinary traffic stop is treated as an investigatory detention, i.e., a "Terry stop" (Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1 [20 L.Ed.2d 889]) and may be based on a "reasonable suspicion" which is less demanding than the probable cause standard for a warrantless arrest. (People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224, 230-231; People v. Bell (1996) 43 Cal.App.4th 754, 760-761.) It is settled that "circumstances short of probable cause to make an arrest may still justify an officer's stopping pedestrians or motorists on the streets for questioning. If the circumstances warrant it, he may in self-protection request a suspect to alight from an automobile or to submit to a superficial search for concealed weapons. Should the investigation then reveal probable cause to make an arrest, the officer may arrest the suspect . . . . [Citations.]" (People v. Mickelson (1963) 59 Cal.2d 448, 450-451.)
Sergeant Arenado recognized the Cadillac and ran a license plate check to determine "if everything was fine with the vehicle." The "want" identified appellant and the Cadillac, and indicated that appellant was armed and dangerous. At the very least, the officer had a rationale suspicion to detain appellant.
Information from Official Channels
Appellant argues that there is no probable cause to arrest if the arrest is based on incorrect information from official channels. In People v. Ramirez (1983) 34 Cal.3d 541 (Ramirez), defendant was arrested on a warrant that had been recalled six months earlier but still in the police computer system. During a booking search, drugs were found on defendant's person. Our Supreme Court held that the officer's good faith reliance on information from "official channels" did not "magically resuscitate a recalled warrant and, phoenix-like, recreate a valid outstanding document. At the time defendant was arrested there was in fact no warrant in his name and Officer Brown had no independent cause to detain him . . . ." (Id., at p. 545; emphasis added.)
Ramirez did not involve an investigatory stop. The Ramirez court further noted: "In the few cases in which arrests on erroneous warrant information have been sustained, the delay between the recall or cancellation of the warrant and the transmission of the 'stale' information to the field has usually been extremely brief, often only a matter of days." (Id., at p. 549.)
Here the "want" was only six days old and there was no evidence that it had been recalled. The trial court found that the information "was not stale" and there was reasonable cause to detain appellant. It did not err. "[I]n Alabama v. White (1990) 496 U.S. 325, 330 [110 L.Ed.2d 301, 308-309, 110 S.Ct. 2412], the United States Supreme Court characterized 'reasonable suspicion' as a standard less demanding than probable cause 'not only in the sense that reasonable suspicion can be established with information that is different in quantity or content than that required to establish probable cause, but also in the sense that reasonable suspicion can arise from information that is less reliable than that required to show probable cause.' " (People v. Souza, supra, 9 Cal.4th at pp. 230-231.)
Appellant contends there was no rationale suspicion to stop him if the officer thought the robbery case had been "rejected." Sergeant Arenado, however, did not determine the status of the "want" until after the narcotics were found. As a sworn police officer, he would have been derelict in his duties not to temporarily detain appellant. (See e.g., United States v. Hensley (1985) 469 U.S. 221, 232-233 [83 L.Ed.2d 604, 614-615] [officer may conduct an investigatory stop based on "wanted flyer."]) During such a detention, officers are "authorized to take such steps as [are] reasonably necessary to protect their personal safety and to maintain the status quo during the course of the stop." (Id., at p. 235 [83 L.Ed.2d at p. 616]; Minnesota v. Dickerson (1993) 508 U.S. 366, 373-374 [124 L.Ed.2d 334, 344] [contraband discovered during traffic stop and protective search for weapons].)
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: GILBERT, P.J., PERREN, J.