Baker

Defendants appeal from judgments entered after a jury found them each guilty of auto theft (Veh. Code, § 10851) and receiving stolen property (Pen. Code, § 496). James Baker was sentenced to 16 months in prison. Becky Baker was placed on probation and ordered to participate in an alternative sentencing program for 100 hours.

Defendants’ sole claim of error is in the trial court’s denial of their motion to suppress evidence obtained during the warrantless search and seizure of the stolen automobile in their front yard parking lot. They contend the officer had no probable cause to search the vehicle and no exigent circumstances existed to justify it. We disagree and affirm.

The suppression motion was submitted to the trial court on the transcript of the preliminary hearing. Testimony at that proceeding established that Andrew Beach’s restored $5,000, 1948 Willys Jeepster was stolen from his “Advanced Muffler Services” shop on the weekend of April 17, 1978. About a month later, a State Forestry employee reported a conversation he had overheard three weeks earlier to John Parkinson, a California Highway Patrol vehicle theft investigator. The forester told Parkinson he had…