People v. Wasco

BARNARD, P. J.

The defendant was charged with the possession of a narcotic, heroin, in violation of section 11500 of the Health & Safety Code. He was also charged with two prior convictions, one for first degree burglary and the other for possession of a narcotic. He pleaded not guilty but admitted the prior convictions. A jury trial was waived and the court found him guilty as charged. He was sentenced to imprisonment, it being ordered that the sentence run concurrently with an unexpired term on which he had been released on parole. He has appealed from the judgment.

On appellant’s request for the appointment of counsel this court appointed the same attorney who had represented him at the trial. This attorney has filed a report stating that after a careful review of the record and the law he has been unable to find any arguable grounds for a successful appeal. This report further states that the appellant relies on the contentions that the physical objects which were admitted into evidence were erroneously admitted because they were obtained by an unlawful search and seizure; that the testimony of the arresting officers should be disregarded because it is apparent from that testimony that they were prejudiced against the appellant; and that the court committed reversible error in refusing to require a police officer to identify the “informer.”

The attorney general has filed a memorandum with a review of the evidence and a full discussion of the points suggested by the appellant, and citing many eases supporting the views there expressed. After reading the entire record we are in accord with the conclusion reached by the appointed counsel and the attorney general. We find no reversible error in the record and nothing which would indicate in any way that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

Shortly after midnight, in the early morning of August 26, 1956, two police officers went to the room of the defendant in

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the Bell Hotel in San Diego. They had previously received confidential information that the defendant was in possession of narcotics. They knocked on the door and when a man asked who it was they replied “Police officers. Will you open the door, please?” The defendant opened the door and asked what they wanted. He was shown a badge and was told that they had information that he was in possession of narcotics. The defendant was then asked if he minded if the officers looked around the room. The defendant replied “Come on in and look around, I am clean. You can look around in my room all you want to.” The officers entered and began to search the room. They noticed a piece of lined white paper on the bed on top of a newspaper. The newspaper had several slashes as though it had been cut with a razor. A piece had been cut out of one corner of this white paper. A tablet of this same paper was on a stand in the room. One of the officers then went to an improvised washroom at the end of the hallway on which this room faced. The partition separating this washroom from the hallway extended only up to about 2 feet from the ceiling. The officer stood on a chair and saw three white bindles on top of the partition. The top of the partition was very dusty, but there was no dust on the bindles. The officer took these bindles and showed them to the defendant, who denied any knowledge of them. These bindles contained heroin. The bindle papers were exactly like the paper found in the defendant’s room. The paper of one of the bindles, when unfolded, fitted exactly into the place where a part of the paper found on the bed had been cut out, with one cut edge fitting the blue line on the paper as it rose above and came below that line.