People v. Shapiro

FOX, P. J.

Defendant was found guilty of violating section 11530, Health and Safety Code (possession of marijuana). She has appealed.

At about 1 a.m. on March 23, 1962, Los Angeles Police Officers Allen and Gates observed defendant come out of a bar on Figueroa Street and enter an unoccupied 1961 Ford convertible which had its top up. It was parked “approximately at 11th Street.” When she started the car which was headed south on Figueroa, Officer Gates noticed that the tail light was out. The officers followed her in a marked police car. They turned on their emergency red light, then sounded the horn “several times” and then flashed their large auxiliary flash light across the back of defendant’s ear. Defendant appeared to notice the officers. She slowed down at the corner of 12th and made a right turn on 12th. She stopped at Trenton which is one block west of Figueroa. Prior to defendant stopping, she leaned over in the seat so far that her head went out of Officer Allen's view. While making this movement her ear turned in toward the curb, the front tire hitting the curb and bouncing off. It was then that defendant stopped.

Because of these actions on the part of defendant, Officer Allen looked inside the car after she alighted from it. Underneath the front seat (“approximately in the middle”) he found a brown paper bag that contained a green leafy substance which proved to be marijuana. Further search under the floor mat turned up foreign debris which was 10 per cent marijuana.

Defendant denied any knowledge that marijuana was in the ear, It bad been stolen twice, once about two months and the

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other time approximately two and a half weeks before this incident. It had been recovered each time and returned to the defendant’s husband by the Santa Monica Police Department. The car was very dirty when returned the second time, and was taken to a car washing place.

Defendant maintained that when the officers stopped her she had been driving around the block, while waiting for her brother to come out of a restaurant where he had gone to see if a man, with whom he had an appointment, had arrived; that when she was bringing her ear to a stop she dropped a cigarette she was smoking and bent down to pick it up. In response to Officer Gates’ statement that she was not smoking when she entered her car, defendant replied that she did not remember what she was doing.