NEW CPOLS Flashcards
An officer patrolling a parking lot for narcotics traffickers saw Lopez sitting on the hood of a car. The officer asked if it was his car, and Lopez said, “No.” When asked why he was sitting there, Lopez said he was waiting for his friends to play pool. The officer asked where his pool stick was, and Lopez did not reply. The officer asked if Lopez had any identification. Lopez reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and handed it to the officer, who opened it, causing a bindle of cocaine to fall out. Was this a detention?
Because the questioning was not accusatory and there was no show of force, the court found no detention. (Lopez (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 289, 293.)
Officer approached a man near a dumpster in an alley known for dope-dealing, asked if they could talk, then proceeded to obtain general information (name, DOB, prior arrest history), started filling out a field identification card, and even ran a records check, making small talk until the results came back showing an outstanding arrest warrant. Was this a detention?
HELD: It was only a consensual encounter, not a detention, because the suspect was free to terminate the encounter. The officer did not order him to do anything or to turn anything over to him to hold while the records check was being completed, nor did the officer draw his weapon, make any threatening gestures, or utilize his patrol lights or sirens. (Bouser (1994) 26 Cal.App.4th 1280.)
Chamagua quickly walked into an apartment complex after he saw a patrol car approaching. Officers saw him put something in his pocket. The officers pulled their car slightly into the driveway alongside Chamagua before getting out of the unit. After they asked him, “Hey, how are you doing? What’s your name? Do you got anything illegal on you?” Chamagua admitted to having a pipe. Was this a detention?
HELD: It was a consensual encounter. “Asking questions, including incriminating questions does not turn an encounter into a detention.” Additionally, “people targeted for police questioning rightly might believe themselves the object of official scrutiny. Such directed scrutiny, however is not a detention.” The court also rejected Chamagua’s claim that the time of the contact–10:45 p.m.–should affect their analysis, stating “Sundown does not remove the power of free consent.” (Chamagua (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 925, 929.)
Officer was patrolling a high-crime, high-drug area of Vallejo after 11 p.m. when he observed defendant standing next to a parked car. The officer stopped the patrol car about 35 feet away and turned on the patrol car spotlight to illuminate defendant. Defendant appeared to be nervous, and the officer walked “briskly” toward him. Officer could see defendant look shocked and nervous and start walking backwards. Defendant said, “I live right there,” and pointed to a nearby house. Officer said, “Okay, I just want to confirm that,” and asked defendant if he was on probation or parole. Defendant said he was on parole.
Was this a detention?
HELD: The combination of the spotlight and the officer “rushing at” defendant and asking about his “legal status” amounted to an unlawful detention. (Garry (2007) 156 Cal.App.4th 1100.)
Officers stopped to help a driver with a disabled car. The driver, who wore a hooded sweatshirt with a heavy item bulging out of the front pocket, appeared nervous and continued to touch whatever was in his pocket. Concerned that the item might be a weapon, one officer asked the driver to stop reaching into the sweatshirt.
Was this a detention?
HELD: The request did not turn the consensual encounter into a detention. Asking someone to keep his hands out of his pockets under these circumstances “is a normal, expected response to an officer’s concern for his or her own personal safety during the encounter.” (Parrott (2017) 10 Cal.App.5th 485.)
An officer saw a group of five or six people standing in front of an apartment complex and recognized two of them as residents. As the officer approached, they all walked away, except Ross. The officer asked Ross to come over and talk to him and to identify herself, which she did. He asked her for confirming identification and asked her, for his own safety, to remove her hands from her pockets, which she did, discarding some cocaine in the process. Was this a detention?
Because everything was done by request, it was a consensual encounter, not a detention. (Ross (1990) 217 Cal.App.3d 879.)
Officer _____ order motorcycle passenger to remove his hands from a bulky jacket without necessarily converting the consensual encounter into a detention. (Frank V. (1991) 233 Cal.App.3d 1232, 1239.)
Could
Las Vegas Police received a hotline call at 4:40 a.m. from an identified caller reporting an adult black male “known to sell drugs in the area” sleeping in a grey Ford 500 car in a parking lot. Responding officers found the car still in the parking lot, with temporary license plates that prevented an initial vehicle check. They stopped behind the Ford to block its exit and turned on the unit’s overhead “take-down” lights, which caused the driver to sit up, start the car, and put it in reverse. The officers approached on foot, and one officer drew his gun while the other yelled at the driver to turn off the engine and step out of the car. Was this a lawful detention?
HELD: The detention was supported by reasonable suspicion. The officers faced a potentially dangerous situation when they encountered a possible drug dealer in a car with temporary license plates in a high-crime area in a dark and deserted parking lot. (Williams (9th Cir. 2016) 846 F.3d 303.)
A disgruntled father of a high school football player threatened one of the coaches and said he would see the coach after the game. Someone reported to another coach that the father had a gun. After the game, officers found the father in the parking lot with a group and he started walking away when the police car pulled into the lot. The police drew their weapons and placed him in handcuffs. He admitted he had a gun in his pocket. Was this lawful detention?
HELD: The detention was lawful. Having a gun on campus was a violation of Penal Code section 626.9. Even though police only had third-party information about the gun, they were faced with a crowd of people leaving a high school football stadium and a report that a person known to the coach intended to follow up on his threat after the game. (Turner (2013) 219 Cal.App.4th 151.)
A VTA bus driver in San Jose told police that a passenger on his bus matched the photos and detailed description of a suspect he had seen that same day on a “Be On the Look-Out” flier regarding a child sexual assault. An officer boarded the bus and detained Stanley, who matched the suspect’s description. Was this a lawful detention?
”‘[T]he grave risks posed by’ a person who appeared to be the man sought for sexually assaulting a child justified ‘the minimal intrusion of a brief investigatory’ detention to determine if he in fact was the person sought.” (Stanley (2017) 18 Cal.App.5th 398.)
An anonymous telephone tip that a young black man, standing at a described bus stop and wearing a plaid shirt, was carrying a gun was _________ to justify a matching suspect’s detention and patdown. “All the police had to go on in this case was the bare report of an unknown, unaccountable informant who neither explained how he knew about the gun nor supplied any basis for believing he had inside information about J.L.” “The reasonable suspicion here at issue requires that a tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person.” (J.L. (2000) 529 U.S. 266, 272, emphasis added; Jordan (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 544.)
insufficient
Information from two individuals, moments apart, both telling the same officer that a similarly described man at a nearby location had a gun, was _______ to justify a detention, even though the tipsters’ identities were not obtained, because there were two tipsters, they gave almost identical information, and the officer had a face-to-face opportunity to assess their credibility. (Coulombe (2000) 86 Cal.App.4th 52, 55-60, distinguishing J.L.)
enough
Police received an anonymous telephone tip that Vanessa White would be leaving a described address at a particular time in a brown Plymouth station wagon with the right taillight lens broken, that she would be going to Dobey’s Motel, and that she would be in possession of about an ounce of cocaine inside a brown attaché case. Officers went to the address, observed a car that matched the description, and saw a woman come out of the described residence at approximately the anticipated time, not carrying anything, and drive toward Dobey’s Motel. Was this a lawful detention?
The Supreme Court held that this corroboration made the tip sufficiently reliable to provide reasonable suspicion to detain. (White (1990) 496 U.S. 325, 331-332.)
An anonymous tipster calling from a pay phone reported that a grey station wagon was parked at a nearby restaurant and that the driver was armed and carrying a kilo of cocaine. Officers observed defendant leave the restaurant and drive away. A warrants check indicated that the registered owner of the wagon had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant. The officers conducted a felony stop, ordering the driver to get out of the car and to his knees. Was the felony arrest/stop lawful?
HELD: The uncorroborated anonymous tip did not provide probable cause for the “felony extraction.” The court intimated that the discovery of the warrant might have provided sufficient independent grounds to stop defendant’s vehicle, but defendant’s lack of similarity to the physical description on the warrant “immediately dispelled” that basis for the arrest. (Saldana (2002) 101 Cal.App.4th 170.)
Humboldt CHP received a 9-1-1 call that a silver Ford pickup ran the caller off the road on Highway 1. The caller provided the truck’s license number and the location and time of the incident. A Mendocino CHP officer located the truck headed southbound on Highway 1 approximately 18 minutes after the call. It took five minutes for the officer to make a U-turn and stop the truck. The driver was hauling 30 pounds of marijuana in the truck bed. Was the detention lawful?
HELD: Even without the officer personally observing indicia of impaired driving, the 9-1-1 call was sufficient to provide reasonable suspicion that the driver had committed a traffic offense in running another car off the road. (Navarette (2014) 572 U.S. 393.)
A 9-1-1 caller reported four people fighting in the alley behind his residence. He heard someone say a gun was loaded, and both the caller and the dispatcher heard screams. A deputy arrived within three minutes, and the only person in the area was driving out of the alley. The deputy asked if he had seen a fight, but the person just kept driving. Was the detention lawful?
HELD: The 9-1-1 call combined with the deputy’s quick response and defendant leaving the scene justified a brief investigatory detention. “The citizen who called for his help would surely hope the officer would do more to secure the safety of his neighborhood than shrug and drive away.” (Brown (2015) 61 Cal.4th 968.)
An anonymous 9-1-1 caller reported shots fired outside her residence and provided a description of a “Black male with small ponytails.” Officers observed defendant walking with two other men in the area of the report. Defendant matched the caller’s description and appeared to be holding up his pants at the waist where it looked like he was holding something heavy. Was the detention lawful?
HELD: The detention based on the 9-1-1 call and patsearch for officer safety were valid. Shooting a gun on a residential street “posed a grave and immediate risk” to the community; the report of gunfire was unlikely a hoax; the caller’s firsthand description of the crime, perpetrator, and location were detailed; and the caller had a plausible explanation for wanting to remain anonymous. (Lindsey (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 1390; accord, Edwards (9th Cir. 2014) 761 F.3d 977–unidentified 9-1-1 caller reported a “young black male” shooting at passing cars and the call included details of the shooter’s location, height, age, and clothing and a description of the handgun used.)
Officers stopped Durant’s car for failing to signal within 100 feet of a turn, but the stop was not authorized under Vehicle Code sections 22107 and 22108. One of the officer’s recognized Durant almost immediately as a probationer with a search condition before conducting a patdown search and finding a loaded handgun in Durant’s waistband. Was the search lawful?
HELD: The intervening circumstance of Durant’s probation search condition attenuated the taint of the erroneous vehicle stop because the “search condition supplied legal authorization to search that was completely independent of the circumstances leading to the traffic stop.” The court noted that there was no evidence of any flagrancy or purposefulness to the erroneous traffic stop. The court also noted that the purpose of the exclusionary rule would not be served by suppressing the gun simply because the officer did not recognize Durant immediately before the stop. (Durant (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 57, 66.)
A possible murder suspect was discovered and detained shortly after a homicide. During a patdown for weapons, the officer felt a wallet. Would a search of the wallet be valid to locate the identification?
Yes. Because the suspect had already said he did not have any identification on him, it was proper for the officer to retrieve the wallet and look through it. “The suspect has no constitutional right to keep his identification a secret under the circumstances existing here.” (Loudermilk (1987) 195 Cal.App.3d 996.)
If an arrested suspect refuses to identify himself be charged with 148 PC?
It was not a violation of Penal Code section 148 for an arrestee to fail to give his name in response to questions asked while being driven to the station “because it did not delay or obstruct a peace officer in the discharge of any duty within the meaning of the statute.” The officer had no compelling reason to complete the “booking sheet” until the suspect arrived at jail. However, at the jail, the police had the right to question the suspect about his identity during a routine booking, and the suspect’s refusal to verbally identify himself constituted a violation of Penal Code section 148 just as much as if he had fled from an investigatory detention or physically struggled with a peace officer. (Quiroga (1993) 16 Cal.App.4th 961, 972; Chase C. (2015) 243 Cal.App.4th 107.)
Three officers stopped two teenagers who were walking down the street at 2:30 in the afternoon after they observed one of them smoking what appeared to be a marijuana cigarette. That teenager was arrested and placed in handcuffs; the other juvenile, who had not been observed smoking, was also placed in handcuffs based on the detective’s practice of “always” handcuffing detainees. Was the use of handcuffs on the second juvenile valid?
HELD: The use of handcuffs under these circumstances was a de facto arrest not supported by probable cause. The juvenile’s consent to search, given after he was placed in handcuffs, was invalid. (Antonio B. (2008) 166 Cal.App.4th 435.)
Police chased a suspect on foot, tackled him, and “wrestled” with him before handcuffing him and standing him up. Did this constitute an arrest?
Because the officers used no more force than was necessary to effectuate the detention, their actions were legal and did not constitute an arrest. (Johnson (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 1, 12.)
At least three officers woke up a 17-year-old in his bedroom at 3:00 a.m., told him they needed “to go and talk,” placed him in handcuffs, took him outside in January without shoes and wearing only boxer shorts, transported him in a patrol car to the crime scene, and then drove him to the Sheriff’s office for questioning. Was this a lawful arrest and would any confession be lawful?
HELD: This was an unlawful arrest. Any confession “obtained by exploitation of” the illegal arrest would have to be suppressed. (Kaupp (2003) 538 U.S. 626.)
Suspect ______ have been Mirandized because he was “surrounded by at least four officers, several vehicles and a helicopter, and held at gunpoint” when “questioned” by officer (who showed suspect suspicious items of property). (Taylor (1986) 178 Cal.App.3d 217, 229-230.)
should
