People v. Jones

Opinion

KAUS, P. J.

After a preliminary hearing defendants Bernard Jones, Roy Rogers and Darryl Jones were bound over on a charge of having violated section 10851 of the Vehicle Code on September 28, 1978.

In the superior court all three defendants successfully moved for dismissals of the information. The People appeal. (Pen. Code, § 1238, subds. (a) (1), (a) (7).)

Facts

The victim, Alice Hampton, parked her 1964 Volvo, license OWN 124 on the street in front of her home at 6:15 p.m. on September 27, 1978. She discovered that the car was missing after she received a telephone call at about 3:15 a.m. on September 28. She had not given anyone permission to take the car.

[888]

That night at about 3:10 a.m. Officers Wickham and Twohy were on patrol on LaBrea, northbound between Pico and Olympic. They knew nothing about the stolen Volvo. Wickham’s attention was attracted by two southbound Volvos which “appeared to be the same model vehicle, however, one was very clean looking, and the other one had primer spots, dents, a trunk of a different color.” The clean Volvo was the lead car and was yellow. The other Volvo was red. Neither its head nor its tail lights were on and it was following the lead car “within a car length.” Wickham’s training and experience told him that when “[t]wo cars have a like body style, like make, one following behind the other .. .there is a good likelihood at that time in the morning that one of the vehicles is stolen because occupants of one of the vehicles drive to a location and obtain another like vehicle for either parts or switching of the VIN plate and the license plates from say a bad car or a car in lesser condition with good paperwork, that is registration through the Department of Motor Vehicles, switching the VIN plates and the license plates to the car in better condition.” The officers then made a U-turn and pulled in behind the two Volvos. After they followed them for half a block the rear Volvo—the one with the lights out—turned into an “inlet” lane on the right. At that point a slide hammer was thrown out of the right side window of the car. A slide hammer, in the officer’s experience, “is a common, very, very common tool used in stealing cars to remove ignitions thereby allowing the suspect to use only a screwdriver to actuate the ignition on [sic] the car.” The rear Volvo was then “red lighted” and its occupants, defendants Roy Rogers and Darryl Jones, were arrested for grand theft auto. Wickham left them at the scene with Officer Twohy and pursued the yellow Volvo with which he caught up at Venice and Hauser. As soon as that car was stopped he noticed that its ignition was missing. Its driver, defendant Bernard Jones, was then placed under arrest. The car was soon identified as Alice Hampton’s. Darryl Jones’ fingerprints were on the body of the yellow Volvo. A screwdriver was found in the car. Several photographs of the car were taken and received in evidence.