Drug Conviction Reversed on Appeal

A state appellate court Monday reversed the drug conviction of a Huntington Beach man after his lawyer argued that he was the victim of a warrantless search.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana remanded the case of Edward Loren Thomas Orange County Superior Court. Thomas pleaded guilty to various narcotics offenses and possession of a firearm by a former felon after a judge denied a defense motion to suppress evidence recovered in the search of his apartment.

In his appeal, Thomas said the Superior Court judge had erred in refusing to review contradictory testimony about events leading up to the search of Thomas’ apartment. As a result of the reversal, Thomas will have to be tried again, said his attorney, Laurence A. Young.

According to court records, Thomas was arrested along with four other men during a Costa Mesa police undercover operation, in which police made a cocaine buy at a Huntington Beach apartment complex in 1984.

Thomas and two acquaintances were arrested at his apartment after a police officer knocked on his door and forced his way in, court records showed. Two other suspects were arrested elsewhere in the building and did not figure in Thomas’ case.

Officers then confiscated a handgun, several plastic bags of cocaine and other drug paraphernalia, according to court records.

At a suppression-of-evidence hearing in Municipal Court, the officer testified that he forced his way in the door after Thomas started yelling and tried to close it behind him, according to court records. However, a neighbor testified that he never heard Thomas say a word but saw officers suddenly pull Thomas out of the apartment.

The witness’s version, if true, would mean suppression of the items confiscated from Thomas’ apartment, the three-member appellate court said in its opinion.

After losing the motion to suppress evidence from that search in both Municipal and Superior courts, Thomas two years ago pleaded guilty with an option to appeal, Young said. Thomas has been free on $25,000 bond pending the outcome of the appeal.

The two others arrested on the basis of the warrantless search would also have had their convictions reversed if they had likewise chosen to appeal, Young said, but they chose to plead guilty without appealing.