Eastmon

By information, appellant was accused of selling, furnishing or giving away heroin in violation of section 11352 of the Health and Safety Code; he entered a plea of not guilty to the charge and then moved to suppress the evidence pursuant to section 1538.5 of the Penal Code; his suppression motion was denied, and the cause proceeded to jury trial. Appellant was convicted as charged in the information, and he was sentenced to state prison for the term prescribed by law. His appeal raises a fundamental issue: Should appellant’s motion to suppress the evidence have been granted, since the charge against appellant was predicated upon a transaction which was consummated by a heroin addict who was induced by the police to act as an undercover agent as the result of an unlawful search and seizure of the addict’s residence?

Prior to his conviction, appellant was the owner and operator of a barbershop and taxi cab company in the City of Ridgecrest. He employed Sharon Nicol as his taxi cab dispatcher, and she worked out of an office located in the barbershop; Ms. Nicol lived in Ridgecrest with Dennis Summers; Summers was on probation because of a conviction for possession of…