Carter

Appellant pleaded guilty to grand theft, and was sentenced to state prison. His appeal is limited to search and seizure issues pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5, subdivision (m).

Appellant and codefendant Hipólito Leiva were caught shoplifting from the Gemco store in Cerritos. On January 9, 1979, a plainclothes store security officer, Vickie Caine, observed them enter the store. Appellant placed seven boxes of electric drills in his shopping cart. He took the shopping cart to the patio area, placed the seven drill boxes inside a large cardboard box in the shopping cart and closed the flaps.

Appellant returned with the cart to aisle 10 and talked to Leiva. They separated; appellant remained in the variety section while Leiva, with another shopping cart, selected two items from the toy section and went to the cash register to purchase them. One of the toys was bagged, then Leiva requested that the other, a children’s kitchen set, not be bagged because it might be smashed. The checkstand supervisor taped a Gemco security strip, along with the receipt, her initials and date, to the kitchen set.

Leiva then returned to the variety section and conversed with appellant.…