People v. Prendez

California Court of Appeal Feb 23, 1971 No. Crim. 18229Published

Before: Roth

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Holding. The court held that a defendant's independent act of flight following an illegal police entry constitutes an intervening act that dissipates the taint of the initial illegality, thereby rendering the subsequent arrest and seizure of discarded evidence lawful.

Issues

Whether an illegal police entry into a motel room tainted the subsequent arrest and seizure of evidence discarded by the defendant during flight.
Whether the defendant's flight from the scene of an illegal entry constitutes an independent, intervening act sufficient to purge the primary taint of the police misconduct.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The test is whether an independent, intervening act of the defendant has broken the causal chain between the illegal police conduct and the seizure of the evidence.”

“Appellant’s course of conduct was based on his desire, independently conceived, to get as much distance as possible between himself and the police.”

“Appellant’s act in fleeing is analogous to the commission of an offense subsequent to the police conduct said to be illegal—which subsequent offense then dissipates the taint caused by the police’s original misconduct.”

Opinion

ROTH, P. J.

Appellant, having waived a jury and submitted his case after full advice upon the preliminary transcript, was convicted by the court of the unlawful possession of heroin, codeine and methadone in violation of section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code. He appeals from the judgment.

On June 26, 1969, Lieutenant Sherwood, Sergeant Wanek and Officers Lestelle and Stein of the Los Angeles Police Department ‘staked out’ unit 11 of a motel on San Fernando Road in Los Angeles. They had information that appellant, who had only recently been released from prison, was selling heroin from that motel.

Officer Lestelle observed appellant and Yxtle Rocha, both men being known to him as narcotic users, leave the motel in a vehicle, return shortly thereafter and enter unit 11. Rocha was next seen leaving unit 11, walking toward the vehicle that had just been used, and passing something to one Manuel Robert Gonzalez, seated in the vehicle on the passenger side. Rocha left to-reenter unit 11 and Officer Lestelle then approached Gonzalez whom he interrupted in the act of injecting himself with a hypodermic

[488]

needle. Gonzalez squirted the liquid from the needle onto the floor of the vehicle; Lieutenant Sherwood and Sergeant Wanek entered unit 11; and a bystander shouted that someone from the motel was running across the field, away from the motel. Officer Lestelle, who had not entered the motel room with Sherwood and Wanek, commenced pursuit in a police vehicle. He did not know at that moment that the fleeing suspect was appellant, assuming that he had remained in the motel unit.

Officer Lestelle overtook appellant, whom he now recognized, on the street. As the police vehicle approached, appellant looked at it, made a throwing motion to his left, and some bright-colored objects left appellant’s hand and landed on a lawn. Officer Lestelle stopped, arrested appellant and recovered the objects he had seen appellant throwing in the immediate vicinity of the arrest. The objects were balloons which were found to contain, in various forms, codeine, heroin and methadone.

Appellant contends that the primary illegality of Sherwood’s and Wanek’s entry into unit 11 of the motel, effected without compliance with section 844 of the Penal Code,

People v. Prendez

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ROTH, P. J.

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