Mathis v. Appellate Department of the Superior Court

Opinion

RICHARDSON, P. J.

This matter is before us following issuance of an alternative writ of mandate after denial of petitioner’s motion to suppress evidence in the municipal court, which action was affirmed without opinion by the appellate department of the superior court.

Petitioner was originally charged with a misdemeanor, possession of a restricted dangerous drug, in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11910. She thereafter filed a motion to suppress evidence under Penal Code section 1538.5, subdivision (g), which motion was denied, and she appealed under section 1538.5, subdivision (j), and rule 181, California Rules of Court.

The sole issue presented by the petition is whether the search of petitioner’s car constituted an unreasonable search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

Facts

On Sunday, December 19. 1971, petitioner’s vehicle entered the Rio

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Consumnes Correctional Center in southern Sacramento County through a driveway and entrance into a parking lot immediately adjacent to the facility. Petitioner’s vehicle came to a stop in a parking space in the parking lot and the motor was turned off. Deputy Sheriff Robert Lopez, then on duty at the center, and a companion officer approached petitioner’s vehicle and asked petitioner and the two other occupants to step out of the car in order that the vehicle could be searched. The three complied and stepped to the rear of the car. Lopez commenced a search of the car and found in the glove compartment of the vehicle a vial containing six-and-a-balf pills, which were a restricted dangerous drug within the meaning of Health and Safety Code section 11910.

Evidence elicited at the hearing on the motion to suppress indicated that persons approaching and entering the parking lot, such as petitioner, upon leaving Bruceville Road and entering the center, passed at Bruceville Road a sign containing the name of the facility and the admonition to drive slowly. At the point where the entry road joins the parking lot proper, there is and was at the time in question a sign which notifies visitors that “All Vehicles Are Subject To Search.” The correctional center began searching visitors’ cars in November 1970. Cars were searched every Sunday during visiting hours and occasionally during the balance of the week, apparently on a random basis. Justification of the action was based upon the statement of Lopez at the hearing on the motion to suppress that it was required in order to intercept “narcotic traffic coming into the correctional center itself.” Lopez testified that search of the occupants rather than the car was impractical because five to seven hundred people per visiting day entered the facility. The purses belonging to women who do enter the facility are searched.