COURT BACKS CONVICTION.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

LANCASTER -- An appeals court has upheld the conviction of a Lancaster teenager who was sentenced to 32 years plus two life terms in prison for an attempted robbery at a Lancaster bingo hall.

Tyler Corcoran, who was 17 when he was arrested, claimed his detention by a sheriff's deputy was illegal because it was based on a deputy's ``hunch'' and not the required ``reasonable suspicion,'' and therefore any resulting evidence should have been suppressed.

While the 2nd District Court of Appeal justices called the situation ``a close case,'' agreeing that the deputy went to Corcoran's house on a hunch involving a prior contact with Corcoran, the justices ultimately rejected Corcoran's claims because of what happened once the deputy arrived there.

``(O)nce (the deputy) was at defendant's house, he observed defendant and his companion, who fit the description of the suspects, who were wearing clothing that generally matched the description of the suspects' clothing, and who were two to three miles away from the robbery location less than 10 minutes after the robbery took place,'' the ruling said.

``Rather than comply with (the deputy's) order to stop, defendant's companion tossed something under a tree and ran away. Based upon (the deputy's) observations and the totality of the circumstances, and disregarding his hunch, (the deputy's) suspicion that defendant was involved in the robbery was reasonable,'' the ruling said.

The object tossed by the companion was a two-way radio of the sort used by the robbers, giving the deputy clear grounds to detain the teen, the ruling said.

Corcoran, at age 19, was sentenced to prison in December 2004 after being convicted of robbery, attempted robbery, kidnapping, dissuading a witness, and false imprisonment.

Corcoran was convicted of being one of the two teenage robbers -- one white, one African-American -- who tried to hold up the United Desert Charities Bingo Hall on Division Street on Jan. 11, 2003, as workers set up for a game that evening. The second robber was never caught.

The charity group's secretary/treasurer was counting and sorting about $10,000 in cash for that night's bingo games, but the robbers aborted the robbery after one worker escaped through a side door and fled to a neighboring lumber yard, where an employee lent her his cell phone to call 911.

The robbery Corcoran was convicted of refers to the secretary's gun, which was taken by the African-American robber.

The African-American robber ran after the worker, who escaped but came back and used a walkie-talkie to call for somebody to come and get them, the ruling said. The two robbers then locked up the remaining four people in a back office.

The deputy heard a radio call about the robbery, describing the suspects as white and African-American men wearing black clothing and beanies, and he thought Corcoran might be involved and went to his home, the ruling said.

The deputy had made a traffic stop a few months earlier in connection with a home invasion robbery by a white man and an African-American man, and during that stop, Corcoran, who is white, was in the company of several African-American men. Corcoran was never arrested for the home invasion robbery, the ruling said.

Two of the victims were brought to where Corcoran was being detained and both identified him as one of the robbers, the ruling said.