PEOPLE v. HUDDLE (1979)

Following the denial of her motion to suppress evidence (Pen.Code, § 1538.5), defendant pleaded guilty to possession of heroin for sale (Health & Saf.Code, § 11351), admitting the allegation that she possessed more than one-half ounce of a substance containing heroin (Pen.Code, § 1203.07, subd. (a)(1). Defendant's appeal is necessarily confined to a challenge to the order denying her motion to suppress (Pen.Code, § 1538.5, subd. (m); rule 31(d), Cal.Rules of Court).

Defendant contests the legality of her arrest, urging a lack of “probable cause” to issue to warrant charging violation of probation.

On April 14, 1976, state narcotic agent Kenneth Beckstead received an anonymous telephone call informing him that an individual named Ron, who lived in Los Angeles, each week sent one to four packages of heroin worth $1,000 each to Sacramento. The caller gave Ron's description and furnished two telephone numbers in Los Angeles where Ron could be reached. Beckstead told the caller that he could not make a case with that information and he would like the caller to furnish him with more.

On April 30th Beckstead received a second call from the same anonymous person. The caller told Beckstead there was a person in Sacramento whom he knew as Julia Huddle who would fly weekly to Los Angeles, usually on Thursday or Friday, pick up heroin from Ron and return Friday; she flew by commercial airline using the name “J. Reese”; Huddle would sell the heroin to Mike and Debra who lived in a white house near the intersection of Third and “V” Streets adjacent to a vacant lot; Huddle also sold heroin to a person named “Toe” who lived in a house adjacent to a vacant lot near the intersection of 37th Street and Second Avenue. The anonymous caller also mentioned that Huddle was a user of heroin and provided a physical description of her.

Agent Beckstead started an investigation in the Sacramento area. In his own department he found a field identification card indicating that in 1974 Huddle was present when another person was arrested for a narcotics violation and an agent had observed fresh injection marks on her arm. A check with the Department of Justice disclosed that Huddle was on probation for some offense. Beckstead obtained Huddle's photograph from the Sacramento Police Department. He learned that the Sacramento Police Department narcotics detail was investigating heroin activity involving Michael Jennings and Debra Garner who lived in a white house adjacent to a vacant lot at the intersection of Third and “V” Streets; he also learned from the Sacramento police that “Toe” was the nickname of Walter Wilkins, a heroin dealer who lived in a house adjacent to a vacant lot on Second Avenue.

On May 3rd, while Beckstead had Mike and Debra's residence under surveillance, a reliable operator purchased a quantity of heroin from Mike. A fellow narcotic agent informed Beckstead that he had covered a reliable operator in the purchase of heroin from Walter Wilkins (“Toe”) on April 29, 1976.

Beckstead showed Huddle's photograph to deputy sheriffs working at the Sacramento airport and to employees of Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA). Some of them recognized Huddle as a person who routinely flew from Sacramento to Los Angeles under the name of J. Reese.

In the evening of May 3rd, Beckstead was advised by an airport security officer that Huddle, using the name of J. Reese, had just departed for Los Angeles on a PSA flight. Beckstead contacted Huddle's probation officer and learned that she had been granted misdemeanor probation in October 1973. (The record does not disclose the nature of the probation offense.) Beckstead went before the judge who had placed Huddle on probation. In sworn testimony he told of the anonymous phone calls and related the results of his independent investigation. On the basis thereof the judge issued a bench warrant for Huddle's arrest for violation of probation.

Where a person has been released on probation, “[a] peace officer may without warrant or other process and at any time until the final disposition of the case, rearrest the person and bring him before the court or the court may, in its discretion, issue a warrant for his rearrest.” (Pen.Code, § 1203.2, subd. (a).) While the authority conferred by Penal Code section 1203.2(a) is not limited by the requirement of probable cause in the traditional sense, it is subject by the imperatives of the Fourth Amendment to an implied condition of reasonableness. (In re Martinez (1970) 1 Cal.3d 641, 647, fn. 6, 83 Cal.Rptr. 382, 463 P.2d 734; People v. Constancio (1974) 42 Cal.App.3d 533, 542-543, 116 Cal.Rptr. 910.) That condition has been satisfied here.

Information received from an untested informant is deemed sufficient if corroborated in essential respects by other facts, sources or circumstances. (People v. Fein (1971) 4 Cal.3d 747, 752, 94 Cal.Rptr. 607, 484 P.2d 583.) Through official sources and his own efforts, Agent Beckstead was able to confirm a substantial part of the material information supplied by his anonymous informant. The known facts impelled a strong suspicion that Huddle, a user of narcotics, was actively involved in the transportation of narcotics. Agent Beckstead's sworn testimony provided a lawful basis for issuance of the warrant for probation violation.

After obtaining the warrant, Beckstead, accompanied by state narcotic agent Leonard went to the airport and met all incoming flights from Los Angeles. Huddle arrived on the evening of May 5th. She was seen by the agents in the terminal carrying a purse and small zippered overnight bag; she went immediately to the parking lot. The agents followed Huddle; just as she reached her car they caught up with her and Agent Beckstead placed her under arrest for violation of probation. Agent Leonard noticed fresh needle marks on her left wrist and hand; he advised Huddle that she was under arrest for the illegal use of narcotics. Beckstead took Huddle's purse and overnight bag, placed handcuffs on her, advised her of her rights, and then took her to the sheriff's substation in the terminal.

At the substation Leonard asked Huddle if they were going to find anything on her person. Huddle replied, “If you search my bag, you will find it.” A female sheriff's deputy searched Huddle and in an adjoining room, Agents Beckstead and Leonard searched her purse and the zippered bag; they found marijuana and injection paraphernalia for heroin in the purse and four ounces of heroin in the zippered bag. The officers had no warrant to search.

Huddle contends that the search of her overnight bag is invalid, falling within the proscription of the rule in United States v. Chadwick (1977) 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538. Chadwick held unlawful the warrantless search of a locked footlocker lawfully seized by officers from the open trunk of a parked automobile during the arrest of persons in possession of the footlocker on probable cause to believe the footlocker contained contraband. The footlocker was removed by officers to their headquarters and there opened. The court held that “Once law enforcement officers have reduced luggage or other personal property not immediately associated with the person of the arrestee to their exclusive control, and there is no longer any danger that the arrestee might gain access to the property to seize a weapon or destroy evidence, a search of that property is no longer an incident of the arrest.” (Fn. omitted; 433 U.S. at p. 15, 97 S.Ct. at p. 2485, 53 L.Ed.2d at p. 551.)

We need not reach the issue of whether the instant search comes within the standard announced in Chadwick because the search, conducted on May 5, 1976, was prior to June 21, 1977, when Chadwick was decided. The rules governing retroactivity of a decision relating to searches and seizures uniformly provide that a decision announcing a new rule is to be applied prospectively only to searches which occur subsequent to the date of the decision that changed the law. (Williams v. United States (1971) 401 U.S. 646, 656, 660, 91 S.Ct. 1148, 1154, 1156, 28 L.Ed.2d 388, 397-399; United States v. Peltier (1975) 422 U.S. 531, 533, 535, 95 S.Ct. 2313, 2315, 2316, 45 L.Ed.2d 374, 379-380; Linkletter v. Walker (1965) 381 U.S. 618, 639, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 1742, 14 L.Ed.2d 601, 614; People v. Fein, supra, 4 Cal.3d at p. 751, fn. 1, 94 Cal.Rptr. 607, 484 P.2d 583; People v. Edwards (1969) 71 Cal.2d 1096, 1107-1110, 80 Cal.Rptr. 633, 458 P.2d 713.) Chadwick did change the law with respect to warrantless searches of items seized from an arrestee not immediately associated with his person. (United States v. Berry (7th Cir. 1977) 560 F.2d 861, 864-865; United States v. Reda (2d Cir. 1977) 563 F.2d 510, 511-512.)

United States v. Montgomery (5th Cir. 1977) 558 F.2d 311 specifically holds that Chadwick is not to be applied retroactively because it constitutes a break with precedent. Relying on United States v. Peltier, supra, the Montgomery court concluded that if law enforcement officers reasonably believed in good faith that the evidence they had seized would be admissible at trial, the admission of such evidence would not offend the imperative of judicial integrity (558 F.2d at p. 312; accord, United States v. Reda, supra, 563 F.2d at p. 511). Moreover, since the primary justification for the exclusionary rule is deterrence of unlawful police conduct (United States v. Peltier, supra, 422 U.S. at p. 542, 95 S.Ct. at p. 2320, 45 L.Ed.2d at p. 384; People v. Maddox (1956) 46 Cal.2d 301, 305, 294 P.2d 6), it makes absolutely no sense to apply to police conduct a rule of which the police could not have been aware simply because it did not then exist. (See also People v. Barrazza (1979) 23 Cal.3d 675, 691, fn. 5, 153 Cal.Rptr. 459, 591 P.2d 947.)

Accordingly, the legality of the instant search, as a search accomplished in the course of a lawful arrest, must be determined by the standard set forth in Chimel v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, as that standard was interpreted and applied at the time of the search. Chimel held that the permissible scope of a search incident to a lawful arrest is the arrestee's person and the area within his control, i. e., “the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” (395 U.S. at p. 763, 89 S.Ct. at p. 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d at p. 694.)

Within the meaning of the Chimel standard as applied prior to Chadwick, the overnight bag carried by Huddle falls within the permissible scope of a search incident to a lawful arrest for violation of probation. (People v. Arvizu (1970) 12 Cal.App.3d 726, 729-730, 90 Cal.Rptr. 895; People v. Belvin (1969) 275 Cal.App.2d 955, 958-959, 80 Cal.Rptr. 382; United States v. Eatherton (1st Cir. 1975) 519 F.2d 603, 609-610; United States v. Mehciz (9th Cir. 1971) 437 F.2d 145, 148.)

Furthermore, if a warrantless search could be made at the time and place of arrest, a subsequent warrantless search is also valid at the place of detention. (United States v. Edwards (1974) 415 U.S. 800, 803-804, 94 S.Ct. 1234, 1237, 39 L.Ed.2d 771, 775-776.) “[O]nce the accused is lawfully arrested and is in custody, the effects in his possession at the place of detention that were subject to a search at the time and place of arrest may lawfully be searched and seized without a warrant even though a substantial period of time has elapsed between the arrest and the subsequent administrative processing, on the one hand, and the taking of the property for use as evidence, on the other.” (United States v. Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at p. 807, 94 S.Ct. at p. 1239, 39 L.Ed.2d at p. 778.)

The judgment is affirmed.

PUGLIA, Presiding Justice.

REGAN and EVANS, JJ., concur.