4DCA Division 1 Oral Argument - 2026/06/08 - Jun 08, 2026

argument

4DCA Division 1 Oral Argument - 2026/06/08

California Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One 4h 55m 6 chapters transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

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What procedural matters are addressed at the start of the oral argument for People v. Castro?

Unknown 0:52

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Please have a seat. Make yourselves comfortable. Welcome to the Court of Appeal this morning, and thank you for your patience in allowing us to deal with some technical difficulties this morning. Apparently, we are under control when it comes to that. I'm also going to ask your indulgence this morning. We have four cases and four panel changes. So that means that after every case, we'll have to be taking a quick break so that we can switch panel members. On this first panel for People v. Castro, I am joined by Justice Buchanan to my right and Justice Castillo to my left. So with that, it looks like council is ready to go on People v. Castro. Whenever you're ready. Thank you, Your Honor.

Unknown 1:46

Annie Frazier on behalf of Richard Castro. Very well. And would you like to reserve any time? Can I reserve four minutes? Absolutely. I'll let you know when you're there, okay? Thank you. Very good. The people have the burden of proving there were exigent circumstances to excuse the requirement to get a search warrant to draw the defendant's blood. In this case, they didn't do it not because they were pressing law enforcement needs, but because Officer Pope believed he did not have to get a warrant because of the implied consent laws. He was incorrect. If you look at the facts in this case and the timeline, it shows they had plenty of time to obtain a warrant. McNeely says if a search warrant can reasonably be obtained, the Fourth Amendment mandates it.

Unknown 2:39

And in this case, it reasonably could have been obtained and just wasn't. Did we know on this record how long it would have taken to get a search warrant in this particular county? There was no evidence presented, and I would submit that the failure to present that evidence is that of the prosecution because the prosecution had the burden of proof. But as the cases have discussed, warrants can be obtained given current technology fairly easy and with a quick phone call. There's no evidence that they even tried and were told, hey, look, it's going to take an hour to get a warrant, and the blood's dissipating. Crash occurred around midnight, and the call came in about 12, 19 in the morning for law enforcement.

Unknown 3:31

The blood draw wasn't done until over four hours later. And the record is extremely sparse. But what's the starting point? for time calculation between when the blood draw was done and the starting point. So what is the starting point? Is it when the crash occurred or is it at a later time? I think that's a good question. And I think that you have to look at the totality of the circumstances, of course. And in this case, you can look that there were numerous points when they could have done their investigation and obtained a warrant, but the glaring point is between 3.45 in the morning when the officer placed the defendant under arrest and 4.25 when the phlebotomist drew the blood. And in that period of time, when asked, what were you doing in that period of time, the officer said, I don't know.

Unknown 4:29

When asked further, were you investigating any other, were you doing any law enforcement investigation, the prosecutor said, objected not wanting that testimony in. So that has, you have to infer, well you can't infer, you have to, based on the record, there's no evidence that there was any law enforcement needs between 3.45 a.m. and 4.25 a.m. So that's a crucial time period. But if you look even back further at what was done in this investigation, at 12.19 is when the call came out and the officer, Officer Pope testified I was tied up at the hospital with my partner, and so San Bernardino CHP couldn't respond. It was Rancho Cucamonga CHP. There's no evidence, again, that Rancho Cucamonga couldn't have interviewed witnesses or done any investigation, but assuming...

Unknown 5:29

that we're not counting that period of time, Officer Pope arrived or arrested or smelled alcohol on the defendant's breath at 2.30 in the morning. So if we give every inference towards the prosecution, which we don't do because they're burden of proof, but if we did,