People v. Jones

Opinion

ELKINGTON, J. Defendant Eddy Jones’ appeal is from a superior court misdemeanor judgment of conviction, based upon his plea of guilty to violating Penal Code section 12020, subdivision (a), in that he carried upon his person a concealed “dirk or dagger.” The only proper issue concerns the superior court’s denial of his Penal Code section 1538.5 motion to suppress evidence of the subject weapon.

Evidence at the hearing on Jones’ motion to suppress disclosed these facts.

The juvenile court had before it a Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivision (d), proceeding, in the course of which the juvenile probation department was investigating the origin of scars and marks of beatings on the body of Jones’ young son, Brian. A juvenile probation officer, Ms. Bent, who was assigned to the case had visited Jones at his home. On the day that the case was set for hearing, Ms. Bent observed Jones in a waiting room of the court. She then imparted to the superior court’s bailiff who had expressly been charged with the court’s security, the following information.

Ms. Bent told him of her visit to Jones at his home a couple of weeks before, and of the nature of the proceedings before the juvenile court concerning Brian. Jones, she said, had been hostile in his manner and openly brandished a .45 automatic weapon throughout the 35-minute interview. He told her that he “carried a weapon all the time,” and he “made a threat if anybody attempted to take his child he would kill him.” Throughout the interview with Jones, Ms. Bent was concerned for her [406]safety; “it was a very frightening experience for her, talking to a man who was very hostile and also happened to have a weapon in his hand.”

The bailiff repeated the information given him by Ms. Bent to the presiding judge of the court. The judge ordered a weapons search of Jones because of what he considered his “inherent power to protect and duty to protect the courtroom and secure it and the outlying premises,” and because of “the statement that [Jones] was going to kill anybody who tried to take his child away from him.” (The then pending proceedings were reasonably calculated to do just that, in the event of a determination that it was Jones who had battered his son Brian.)

The bailiff and a fellow sheriff’s deputy then accosted Jones in the waiting room and told him to come with them to a less public area where he was pat-searched. The pat-search disclosed a “dirk or dagger” with a six-inch blade, the contraband nature of which object was admitted by Jones’ guilty plea. (See People v. Kaanehe, 19 Cal.3d 1, 8-9 [136 Cal.Rptr. 409, 559 P.2d 1028].) There was, of course, no warrant for the search (except for the judge’s order), and the search was nonconsensual.