People v. Johnson

California Court of Appeal Dec 2, 1975 No. Crim. 8123Published

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Holding. The court held that a bank is not required to maintain depositor confidentiality when the bank is a victim of the depositor's fraud, and that a subsequent search warrant was valid regardless of prior informal inquiries.

Issues

Whether a bank's disclosure of account information to law enforcement constitutes an unlawful search when the bank is a victim of the depositor's fraud.
Whether a search warrant is tainted by a prior informal inquiry if the warrant affidavit is supported by independent probable cause.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“If, however, the bank is itself a victim of defendant’s suspected criminal conduct, his right of privacy as a depositor is subordinated to the bank’s legitimate interest in self-protection from wrong-doing.”

“The affidavit for search warrant clearly supported probable cause and contained no information obtained directly or indirectly as a result of the original warrantless inquiry of the bank”

Opinion

THE COURT.

Defendant entered a plea of guilty to the felony charge of making, drawing, uttering and delivering to Farmer’s Market a check

[396]

drawn, upon an account at Trans-World Bank, Pacoima, California, in which there were then insufficient funds, with intent to defraud Farmer’s Market and Trans-World Bank. (Pen. Code, § 476a.) Before the plea of guilty was entered, defendant’s motion to suppress all records of his account at the Trans-World Bank was denied by the trial court. This appeal is limited to a review of the trial court’s order of denial. (Pen. Code, § 1538.5, subd. (m).)

At the preliminary hearing on November 12, 1974, the operations officer of Trans-World Bank testified that defendant’s account there had been closed since September 20, 1973, a year before the check in question was drawn and presented to Farmer’s Market. Thereafter, in the suppression proceedings in the trial court, the district attorney admitted that before the preliminary hearing, the investigating officer had contacted the operations officer of Trans-World Bank by telephone and had learned the status of defendant’s account. Before the hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress, a search warrant for bank records of defendant’s account was issued and served. The motion was submitted on the transcript of the preliminaiy hearing and evidence relative to the issuance and execution of the search warrant.

In December of 1974, after the preliminary hearing but before the hearing in the trial court on the motion to suppress, the California Supreme Court decided

Burrows

Superior Court

(1974) 13 Cal.3d 238 [118 Cal.Rptr. 166, 529 P.2d 590]. The Court there held that a depositor has a reasonable expectation that bank records originating from supplied by him will be maintained in confidence by the bank, and that disclosure thereof to law enforcement officers without authorization by legal process constitutes an unlawful search and seizure. On appeal defendant contends that the informal telephone inquiry of the bank prior to the preliminary hearing constitutes an unlawful search and seizure within the principle of the

People v. Johnson

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THE COURT.

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