Green

The People appeal from an order of the court dismissing the case pursuant to Penal Code section 1385 following the granting of defendant’s motion to suppress evidence. The People contend the superior court erred in suppressing evidence obtained during an inventory search of defendant’s vehicle because the police department had a policy regarding impounding vehicles and inventory searches which was set forth in the Vehicle Code.

The hearing on the motion to suppress evidence was submitted on the transcript of the preliminary hearing.

Preliminary Hearing Testimony and Proceedings

On October 28, 1994, Inglewood Police Officer Jean Veranee and her partner Officer Mejia stopped defendant for driving a vehicle with an expired registration in violation of Vehicle Code section 4000. Defendant was alone and had no driver’s license or other form of identification and was arrested for driving without a driver’s license in violation of Vehicle Code section 12500. Defendant’s vehicle was impounded, and during an inventory search Officer Mejia found on the seat of the vehicle, a small piece of a white substance resembling rock cocaine. 1 Mejia also retrieved a glass cocaine pipe…

I respectfully dissent.

In my view, the majority opinion contains the seeds of its own destruction. The opinion quotes the very language from United States Supreme Court decisions which requires law enforcement agencies to establish “standardized procedures” for the conduct of inventory searches. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 374, citing and quoting from South Dakota v. Opperman (1976) 428 U.S. 364 [ 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 , 96 S.Ct. 3092 ] and Florida v. Wells (1990) 495 U.S. 1 [ 109 L.Ed.2d 1 , 110 S.Ct. 1632 ].) The nation’s highest court has held the searches must be conducted in compliance with these standardized procedures to “ensure that the intrusion [will] be limited in scope to the extent necessary to carry out the caretaking function.” (South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at p. 375 [ 49 L.Ed.2d at p. 1008 ].)

The majority opinion does not offer any “standardized procedures” Inglewood or the state has established defining how inventory searches are to be conducted. Instead-it relies on Vehicle Code section 22651 which merely describes when vehicles may be impounded (and thus presumably subjected to some sort of inventory search). (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 371, fn. 2.) True,…

The People appeal from an order of the court dismissing the case pursuant to Penal Code section 1385 following the granting of defendant's motion to suppress evidence. The People contend the superior court erred in suppressing evidence obtained during an inventory search of defendant's vehicle because the police department had a policy regarding impounding vehicles and inventory searches which was set forth in the Vehicle Code.

The hearing on the motion to suppress evidence was submitted on the transcript of the preliminary hearing.

On October 28, 1994, Inglewood Police Officer Jean Veronee and her partner Officer Mejia stopped defendant for driving a vehicle with an expired registration in violation of Vehicle Code section 4000. Defendant was alone and had no driver's license or other form of identification and was arrested for driving without a driver's license in violation of Vehicle Code section 12500. Defendant's vehicle was impounded, and during an inventory search Officer Mejia found on the seat of the vehicle, a small piece of a white substance resembling rock cocaine. [1] Mejia also retrieved a glass cocaine pipe from the defendant's right front…