People v. Rigsby

Opinion STONE, P. J.

Appellant was convicted on his plea of guilty to violation of section 11910 of the Health and Safety Code (possession of a restricted dangerous drug, barbiturate). On this, appeal, he seeks review of an order denying his motion to suppress evidence. (Pen. Code, § 1538.5, subd. (m).)

[40]The motion to suppress was submitted on the transcript of a preliminary hearing. The facts brought out at the hearing were that Mrs. Johanna Shahan, a 15-year-old married woman, testified that she had been with appellant and another couple at 2:30 or 3 p.m. on November 15, at which time she had consumed some beer, and that upon her request defendant gave her four pills, two “Reds” and two benzadrine, which she took. She remembered cruising about the City of Visalia in defendant’s car sometime between 5:30 and 6 p.m., but nothing else until she was placed in a police patrol car in the City of Tulare, about noon on November 15.

It is obvious from the transcript that the consumption of beer and the four pills, and the afternoon cruising, occurred on November 14, because it was about noon on November 15 when Officer Simpson received a call from the police dispatcher to go to the Faircourt Motel in Tulare, where he found Mrs. Shahan seated in the back of thé patrol car of an officer who preceded him to the motel. Appellant was standing inside the open door of one of the motel units. Officer Simpson testified that Mrs. Shahan appeared to be drugged or intoxicated, although he did not smell alcohol. He was “pretty certain” that her condition was caused by drugs. He further testified:

“I talked to the girl. I asked if she had been drinking, when she had been drinking last, and she said, ‘Last night,’ and I asked if she had been smoking marijuana or taking pills and she s,aid she didn’t smoke marijuana but she had taken some ‘reds’ and some ‘whites.’ I asked where she had gotten the pills and she said, ‘Allen and that other guy,’ and she pointed to the cabin.”

Simpson went to the motel room to which Mrs. Shahan pointed, entered, and “informed the other officer of what the girl had told” him. He then arrested appellant and another man who was also in the motel room. Simpson took appellant outside and searched him; a vial found in his left front pocket contained 12 red barbiturate capsules. Mrs. Shahan was arrested for “public intoxication.”