People v. Gomez

AGEE, J.

Defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him of possession of heroin (Health & Saf. Code, § 11500). The case was submitted to the superior court on the transcript of the preliminary examination proceedings. The main contention on appeal is that the heroin was illegally obtained from defendant’s person. The facts follow.

Defendant was moved by ambulance from a parked auto to the emergency hospital. He was unconscious, there was froth on his mouth, and he appeared to be having convulsions.

At the hospital efforts were made to restore defendant’s breathing, which had stopped three or four times. While the doctor and the nurse were engaged in treating the defendant, the ambulance driver, who was also a police officer, went through defendant’s pockets. He testified that he did this because “we were attempting to find out who he was and what might be wrong with him. ’ ’ After learning defendant’s identity from the contents of his wallet, the officer looked into defendant’s left front shirt pocket and found a folded paper wrapped in tinfoil. He testified that it appeared to him to be a “bindle.” Upon later analysis the contents of the paper proved to be heroin.

The officer showed what he had found to the doctor and the nurse. Whether this aided them in their treatment of defendant is not clear from the record. In any event defendant was later restored to consciousness and he then explained his condition as being caused by two injections of heroin.

[783]

The officer’s testimony as to his purpose in continuing to look through defendant’s pockets after he had learned his identity is as follows: “Well, if they are unconscious or can’t talk you have to attempt to learn who they are and what might he wrong with them. Some of them have Medic-Alerts or there might be something on their person that might give you an indication of what’s wrong with them.”

The officer described a “Medic-Alert” as “just an identification tag stating what’s wrong with the man, either that or he’s got an I.D. card or something on him that tells that he’s an epileptic or afflicted with something, some kind of attacks, heart attacks or whatever it is.”

The officer further testified that he had had four years of experience on ambulance duty and that what he had done in this instance was the standard practice followed in caring for unconscious persons.