People v. Masetti CA3

Filed 12/2/14 P. v. Masetti CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Butte) ----

THE PEOPLE, C074201

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. CM037251)

v.

CHRISTOPHER MASETTI,

Defendant and Appellant.

Defendant Christopher Masetti appeals following a plea of no contest to possession of methadone (count 1; Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd. (a)),possession of drug paraphernalia (count 2; Health & Saf. Code, § 11364.1), and a sentence of three years’ probation. Defendant contends the trial court erroneously denied his motion to suppress evidence. (Pen. Code, § 1538.51). We shall affirm.

1 Undesignated section references are to the Penal Code in effect at the time of the charged offenses.

1

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Defendant filed his motion to suppress before the preliminary hearing, alleging that the search and seizure occurred without a warrant, consent, or “other probable cause.” He based this allegation on the following paragraph from the police report: “On 9-20-12 at about 2045 hrs[.] [a Butte County Sheriff’s Deputy] observed a suspicious vehicle parked in the Columbine Rd[.] parking lot of Cedarwood Elementary School in Magalia. As [the deputy] pulled into the parking lot to investigate, the driver, [defendant], started the car and began backing out of the parking lot. [The deputy] activated [his] light bar and initiated a traffic stop.” The People opposed the motion, asserting: (1) The traffic stop of defendant’s car was based on reasonable suspicion because there was no appropriate or lawful reason for defendant to be parked at an elementary school at 8:45 p.m.; (2) The pills found by the officer after the traffic stop were in plain view and therefore seizable; and (3) Once the pills were determined to be a controlled substance, the entire car could be validly searched. Defendant’s motion was heard together with the preliminary hearing. Butte County Sheriff’s Deputy Matt Rackley, the only witness, testified as follows: On September 20, 2012, at around 8:45 p.m., Deputy Rackley was on routine patrol on the Columbine Road side of Cedarwood Elementary School. The road is a dead end. Behind the school, there is only school parking and a loading/unloading zone for children. In the five years Rackley had been assigned to that area, he had been called to the school more than a dozen times to investigate burglaries, alarm calls, and vandalism, as well as narcotics use in the parking lots. He could not recall the date of the most recent prior incident, but it was within the last year. He had investigated narcotics violations in the parking lots at least six times.