People v. Superior Court (Gunn)

This proceeding was brought here under Penal Code section 1538.5, subdivision (o), to review a pretrial order of the superior court suppressing as evidence a gold ring (exhibit 8) which had been taken from Phillip Gunn (a defendant charged with murder) upon the ground of illegal search and seizure. The evidentiary facts relevant to this issue are not in dispute and will be summarized.

On January 29, 1979, Officers Davis and Petroski undertook investigation of a homicide which had been committed early that morning. By February 5, 1979, they had the confession of an accomplice who said that the fatal shot had been fired by a man named Phillip Gunn, and they had found Phillip Gunn’s fingerprint on the gun which had fired the fatal shot. At 10 p.m. on February 5 they learned that a man named Phillip Gunn had been arrested that day for possession of cocaine and was being held at the Parker Center jail. At 11 p.m. the officers went to the jail “and asked to see his property and booking card and to see if it was the same Phillip Gunn.”

The investigating officers were familiar with the practice of placing a prisoner’s property in a transparent plastic bag, which would also…