California Court of Appeal May 24, 2013 No. D062281Unpublished
Filed 5/21/13 P. v. Spani CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION ONE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
THE PEOPLE, D062281
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v. (Super. Ct. No. SCD237104)
GREGORY ALLEN SPANI,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Frederick
Maguire and Kenneth K. So, Judges. Affirmed.
Henry C. Coker, Public Defender, Randy Mize, Chief Deputy Public Defender,
Matthew Braner and Peter Will, Deputy Public Defenders, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney
General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, James D. Dutton and Donald W.
Ostertag, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Gregory Allen Spani appeals the order granting him probation1 after a jury found
him guilty of possessing and transporting methamphetamine. (Health & Saf. Code,
evidence thus supports the trial court's finding that the decision to impound the vehicle
7
Spani was driving was not a ruse to search for incriminating evidence.2 Accordingly,
once the officers properly decided to impound the vehicle, they were permitted to
conduct an inventory search. (Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at p. 373; Redd, supra, 48
Cal.4th at p. 721.)
At oral argument, Spani's counsel urged us to hold the inventory search invalid
based on three federal appellate decisions. (See U.S. v. Cartwright (7th Cir. 2010) 630
F.3d 610; U.S. v. Proctor (D.C. Cir. 2007) 489 F.3d 1348; U.S. v. Rowland (8th Cir.
2003) 341 F.3d 774.) Of course, these lower federal court decisions are not binding on
us. (See, e.g., People v. Collins (2010) 49 Cal.4th 175, 233; People v. Crittenden (1994)
9 Cal.4th 83, 120, fn. 3.) They are also not on point. The Proctor court held an
inventory search was unreasonable when police officers' decision to impound the vehicle
violated the department's written policy, and the officers conducted an inventory search
under conditions where the policy expressly prohibited such a search. (489 F.3d at
pp. 1354-1356.) Here, by contrast, Spani's counsel conceded the impoundment was
proper, and the inventory search itself was authorized by standard police procedure. In
Rowland, the court held an inventory search was pretextual when law enforcement
officers impounded a vehicle; "called for a drug-sniffing dog to be brought to the scene";
"sifted through the vehicle's contents searching only for and recording only incriminating
evidence"; and "testified the search was partly conducted to investigate the possibility
2 To the extent we are required to review claims of pretext de novo, we agree with the trial court's assessment of the evidence. (Cf. People v. Valenzuela (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 1202, 1208 [whether decision to stop taxicab to conduct administrative inspection was pretextual was subject to de novo review].) 8
Rowland might be trafficking narcotics." (341 F.3d at pp. 780, 782.) As we discussed
earlier, the record here discloses no comparable circumstances suggesting the search of
Spani's vehicle was pretextual. Finally, the Cartwright court "held that minor deviations
from department policy" — there, the failure to make a complete list of the property
found in the impounded car — "do not render an inventory search unreasonable." (630
F.3d at p. 616.) Here, the deviation complained of was even more minor, for it concerned
not the taking of the inventory but the post-inventory storage of certain items. We thus
conclude that none of these decisions supports invalidation of the inventory search
conducted in this case.
In sum, we hold that the impoundment and associated inventory search of the
vehicle Spani was driving were reasonable and did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
We also hold that because contraband discovered during a lawful inventory search may
be seized and used as evidence in a criminal prosecution (Green, supra, 46 Cal.App.4th
at p. 374), the trial court correctly denied Spani's motion to suppress.
9
DISPOSITION
The order is affirmed.
IRION, J.
WE CONCUR:
MCCONNELL, P. J.
HUFFMAN, J.
10
AI Brief
AI-generated · verify before citing
Holding. The court held that the impoundment and subsequent inventory search of the defendant's vehicle were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, and therefore the trial court correctly denied the motion to suppress the discovered contraband.
Issues
Whether the inventory search of the defendant's vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment due to non-compliance with departmental policy.
Whether the vehicle impoundment and inventory search were an unconstitutional pretext for an investigative search.
Disposition. Affirmed
Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion
“The requirements of a lawful inventory search were satisfied in this case.”
“We hold that the impoundment and associated inventory search of the vehicle Spani was driving were reasonable and did not violate the Fourth Amendment.”