1DCA Division 2 Oral Argument - 2026/6/09 - Jun 09, 2026

argument

1DCA Division 2 Oral Argument - 2026/6/09

California First District Court of Appeal 19 min 8 chapters transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

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What procedural issues are raised at the start of the oral argument?

Unknown 0:00

Nice to have you in the courtroom. Nobody's remote except nobody. Nobody, right? Great. Um So we only have your case on the calendar, which is a rare thing. Um so um I guess we have Mr. Fitzer. Okay. And Mr. Chow Baldwin?

Richard Fitzer 0:21

Yes.

Unknown 0:22

Okay. Great. And I see you've uh reserved a little time for rebuttal. I mean you right, right, right, right. Um okay Fitcher. Come on up and uh We'll get started. I don't think I've only ever had a w one calendar one case case calendar before, but We probably won't be as strict about timeline.

Richard Fitzer 0:51

Oh well there's a plane with my name on it. Uh thank you, Honors. Palet uh Richard Fitzer for a palette, Richard Seto. And I'd like to thank you for this special session to accommodate my uh schedule and thank that responded as well. Um makes it better than having to fly up here a second time in a week. Um In its brief respondent concedes that the pat down search was constitutional, but then argues that nothing was discovered until the issuance of the search warrant, and therefore there's nothing to

Unknown 1:24

You mean unconstitutional, right?

Richard Fitzer 1:26

Sorry.

Unknown 1:26

Yeah. Okay.

Richard Fitzer 1:27

They can see that's un the pat down is unconstitutional. But then that there's nothing to uh Suppressed because there was nothing discovered until after the issuance of a search warrant.

Unknown 1:36

Exactly.

Richard Fitzer 1:37

And obviously I'm here to disagree.

Unknown 1:40

So go ahead.

Richard Fitzer 1:41

So so there was Uh the officers come to the door to conduct this 290 compliance sweep, which I had never heard of. This was very interesting. So they come to the doors of the registered addresses of people who had to register pursuant to two ninety to verify that they are indeed living where they said they are living. And when my client opens the door, that seems to verify he's living at the address that he provided. But they asked him to step outside, that's fine, but then they immediately pat him down f for no reason. And after they conduct the pat down, they say, Oh, and we're here to conduct a two ninety Compliance check. Uh can we go in and check your residence? And he says Okay. I'm I'm not sure what anybody else would say, but okay.

Richard Fitzer 2:28

Officers five officers show up unannounced at your door.

How does the respondent’s brief characterize the pat‑down as constitutional?

Richard Fitzer 2:31

You open the door, they ask you to come out and they immediately pat you down for weapons and only thereafter they tell you why they're there and ask, Is it okay to come in? Um clearly that renders the consent uh Volunt uh involuntary is it's a sh it's a response to a show of authority.

Unknown 2:48

Well why why Well let me just ask you. To mi in reading your opening brief and in reading your Reply brief, um You seem to concede that Um or it seems like your entire argument is based on the fact that the Pat down was unconstitutional.

Richard Fitzer 3:10

Correct.

Unknown 3:11

Okay, and and the attorney general concedes that it was unconstitutional. If um they hadn't padded down um Mr. Seto, um You don't have an argument.

Richard Fitzer 3:25

If they had not patted him down and they just asked for permission to search, yes, that would be completely fine.

Unknown 3:31

Okay. So I guess the question then is um Is there a taint from the Um search from the pat down that um is not attenuated that uh results in the suppression of all the evidence. And maybe you could address Um That

Richard Fitzer 3:51

Okay, well so there there are th there are three attenuate uh attenuation factors. Right. Right. The first one is temporal proximity, that's clear, it's one after the other. The second is whether there's any intervening factor And as far as between the consent and the unconstitutional pat down, there is none. Right, so it comes down to third issue, which is the flagrancy of the officer's conduct. So clearly they didn't have reasonable suspicion for a pat down. But h how flagrant is that on the scale of Unconstitutional pat downs is really where where we're at.

Unknown 4:26

Right.

Richard Fitzer 4:27

Right. And so here you have five officers. Инкнут а детектив камтидор. And immediately conduct a pat down. For without any suspicion that this guy's gonna be armed and dangerous, there's no record that he's has weapon offenses, right? And why would you suspect someone who doesn't know who's at the door to have a a concealed weapon, right? So the only reason they did this