Cal.: Defense has to put state on notice of issues in motion to suppress

When the defense makes a motion to suppress, it is obligated to put the state on notice as to all the issues. This suppression hearing took nine days, and still the defense claims the state didn’t fully get the issues. That’s on the defense. Still, the proof shows there was reasonable suspicion for the stop. People v. Silveria, 2020 Cal. LEXIS 5356 (Aug. 13, 2020):

Travis contends that the police lacked reasonable suspicion to stop his vehicle and detain him. We reject the claim.

Travis asserts that the record fails to demonstrate how the security guard correctly identified robbery suspects “Troy” and “Matt” in the mall and followed them to their vehicles. Travis did not challenge the stop of his vehicle in the trial court, and the claim is therefore forfeited.

“[W]hen defendants move to suppress evidence under section 1538.5, they must inform the prosecution and the court of the specific basis for their motion.” (People v. Williams (1999) 20 Cal.4th 119, 129.) Here, Travis’s suppression motion and his argument on that motion challenged the legitimacy of the search incident to his arrest on a traffic warrant, his lack of opportunity to post bail after his arrest on the warrant, and the sufficiency of his Miranda advisement. None of these claims informed the prosecution of the need to adduce greater detail as to how the robbery suspects were identified in the mall and followed to their vehicles. The suppression hearing, which concerned the suppression motions of four then codefendants, spanned nine days and consumes much of the first nine volumes of the reporter’s transcript. Had Travis asserted below that his detention lacked reasonable suspicion because of the absence of evidence of how the security guard initially identified the suspects in the mall, the prosecutor would have been on notice to adduce additional testimony more fully describing this event. (See Williams, at p. 130 [“if defendants detect a critical gap in the prosecution’s proof or a flaw in its legal analysis, they must object on that basis to admission of the evidence or risk forfeiting the issue on appeal”].)

The claim is also meritless. …