The People v. Thomas CA1/1

I. FACTS

At 5:30 p.m. on March 21, 2012, Detective O’Neill of the Santa Rosa Police Department began a surveillance of a house at 4290 Gravenstein Highway. He watched the house through binoculars. He considered the house suspicious because it had

1 boarded-up windows and windows with drawn shades. He also saw “a lot of short-term vehicle traffic to and from the house.” At approximately 6:25 p.m., a Chevrolet pickup truck pulled up to the house and stopped. The driver, later identified as Ian Stalberg, got out of the truck and carried a black duffel bag into the house. The passenger, later identified as defendant, went into the house carrying a “small, red, fleece cloth.” At 6:30 p.m., a different vehicle drove away from the house and O’Neill followed it. He returned to his surveillance of the house around 9:00 p.m. The Chevrolet pickup was still there. About 10:40 p.m., Stalberg and defendant emerged from the house. Stalberg was carrying a plastic tote, also referred to as a bin. O’Neill testified such a bin was “a common container for marijuana.” Defendant was carrying a black duffel bag. O’Neill saw Stalberg “manipulating objects” into and out of the bin, then placing the bin…