Thomas

*974 Opinion

Petitioner, charged by information with violation of Health and Safety Code section 11530 (possession of marijuana), seeks a writ of mandate to compel respondent court to suppress as evidence a marijuana cigarette which is the basis of that prosecution. (Pen. Code, § 1538.5, subd. (i).)

Respondent court denied petitioner’s pretrial motion to suppress after the motion was submitted on the reporter’s transcript of the preliminary examination and on evidence received at the hearing of the motion. Viewed in the light most favorable to the People (People v. Harrington (1970) 2 Cal.3d 991, 996-997 [ 88 Cal.Rptr. 161 , 471 P.2d 961 ]), that record shows the following:

Looking through field glasses, the officers saw a man fitting Surrell’s description come out of the house. There was not enough light to identify him positively. The man paced back and forth in front of the house. Every time a car came by, he would move back into the shadows.

The man had been in front of the house four or five minutes when a station wagon drove up and parked there. (The evidence does not mention the man after this point.) Two persons—apparently a man and a woman— got out of the rear seat of…