Opinion
No. CR-04 196432
November 18, 2004
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO SUPPRESS STATEMENTS
The defendant, Romero Jones, is charged with conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree in violation of General Statutes sections 53a-8 and 53a-134(a)(4); and two counts of burglary in the first degree in violation of General Statutes sections 53a-101(a)(2) and 53a-8. The defendant moves to suppress the statement "waiting for my friends," made in response to Officer Bradford Seely's inquiry "What are you doing here?" and the defendant's statement "Daniel, Randy, and Jonathan," made in response to Seely's question "Who are your friends?" The defendant claims that the circumstances surrounding the police questions and the questions themselves constitute a custodial interrogation and that the defendant was not given his Miranda warnings in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Connecticut Constitution. Arizona v. Miranda, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). An evidentiary hearing was held before this court on November 10, 2004, during which the court heard testimony from the following witnesses: officer Bradford J. Seely of the Bridgeport Police Department, and officer Jorge Larregui of the Bridgeport Police Department.
I
The court finds the following facts. On the evening of January 28, 2004 at approximately 10:30 p.m. the Bridgeport Police Department received a telephone call from someone concerning four suspicious men wearing dark clothing and ski masks near a silver sports utility vehicle parked in front of 22 Gilmore street. The caller stated that some of the men were running in the area of the nearby Waltersville school. Officer Bradford J. Seely was dispatched to the area and upon arriving there noticed a silver sports utility vehicle parked directly in front of 22 Gilmore street with the motor running. Seely pulled his patrol car behind the truck, put on his overhead strobe light and shone his spotlight into the rear of the vehicle. He was able to ascertain that there was at least one person in the vehicle sitting on the front driver's side. Seely then got out of his patrol car and approached the vehicle with his weapon holstered. The occupant rolled down the window and Seely asked him for his license, registration, and insurance card. While the operator was retrieving these items, Seely asked him "What are you doing here?" to which the operator replied "Waiting for my friends." Seely then asked the operator "Who are your friends?" to which, the operator replied "Daniel, Randy, and Jonathan." The operator then handed the officer a state of Connecticut identification card which identified the operator as Romero Jones. At this time, Seely heard a call over his radio handset from a voice he recognized as that of Officer Jorge Larregui that there were three men running down Steuben Street toward Gilmore Street and that he was in pursuit. As Seely looked up he could see Larregui and another patrol car turning onto Gilmore Street pursuing three males who were running in Seely's direction. At that point, Seely told Jones to put his hands on the steering wheel, keep them there, and stay in the vehicle. Seely then intercepted and detained one of the males running in his direction who was later identified as Randolph Armstrong. The three men, Randolph Armstrong, Jonathan Rivera, and Daniel Scott, were later positively identified by the victims Jason Rivera and Amy Atanacio as the assailants who invaded their home approximately one block away. After the three men were detained, Seely returned to the sports utility vehicle. Moments later Larregui approached Seely at the parked sports utility vehicle. Seely then asked Larregui to stay there at the vehicle while he spoke with the person who had made the original complaint. As Larregui approached the vehicle he could see three Ziploc bags containing a green substance in the snow beneath the driver's window. The substance later tested positive as marijuana. The driver's door was open and as he approached closer, Larregui could see two more Ziploc bags containing the same green substance on the driver's floor near the gas pedal. As Larregui reached to retrieve the two Ziploc bags on the floor, without provocation, Jones stated "That's all that I have." Once positive identifications of the three apprehended men were made by Rivera and Atanacio, the police concluded that there was a connection between the break-in at Rivera and Atanacio's apartment and Jones who was sitting in the motor vehicle with the motor running. Jones was subsequently placed under arrest.
II
The defendant has moved to suppress his oral statements given in response to Seely's questions asking "What are you doing here?" and "Who are your friends?" The defendant claims that these questions constitute custodial interrogation and that the questions occurred prior to his receiving Miranda warnings. "This claim has validity only if the defendant was subject to custodial interrogation, and he bears the burden of showing that his answers to ". . . Seely's questions "were the result of custodial interrogation." State v. Dixon, 25 Conn.App. 3, 8, quoting State v. Vitale, 197 Conn. 396, 409, 497 A.2d 956 (1985). "Custodial interrogation means questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way . . . Before one suspected of the commission of a crime is entitled to . . . Miranda warnings, two conditions are required: the suspect must be in the custody of law enforcement officials . . . and the suspect must be subjected to interrogation." State v. Dixon, 25 Conn.App. 3, 8. To determine whether a suspect is in custody so as to require Miranda warnings, the test is whether a reasonable person, in view of all the circumstances, would have believed that he or she was not free to leave. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554 (1980); State v. Pinder, 250 Conn. 385, 409 (1999). State v. Atkinson, 235 Conn. 748, 753-61 (1996). State v. Medina, 228 Conn. 281, 289 (1994). State v. Hoeplinger, 206 Conn. 278, 286-87 (1998). State v. Shashaty, 205 Conn. 39, 47-48 (1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1027 (1998). State v. Lapointe, 237 Conn. 694, 727 (1996).
"Custody for purposes of Miranda is a factual determination." State v. Ostroski, 186 Conn. 287, 292 cert. denied, 459 U.S. 878, 103 S. Ct 173, 74 L.Ed.2d 142 (1982). While one may be able to put forward a reasonable argument that Jones was in custody the moment that Seely pulled behind him with his strobe light on or when Seely instructed Jones to place his hands on the steering wheel, the defendant is, nevertheless, unable to meet his burden because this court finds that there was no interrogation of Jones, and therefore there was no constitutional basis for Miranda warnings to be given.
In State v. Dixon, 25 Conn. App 3 (1999), two New Haven police officers on patrol observed a man behaving suspiciously while sitting alone in the rear seat of a car that was parked with the motor running and in an area that was known by the police as a high crime area. The officers approached the man and asked him to step out of the car. The man stepped out of the car and identified himself as Jesus Baez. Baez then stated that he was waiting for friends who were in the apartment complex near where the car he was sitting in was parked, but he did not know the names of his friends or the name of the owner of the car he was in.
Additional officers were summoned to the location and unsuccessfully searched for Baez's friends. However, as the officers were leaving the scene, they saw Dixon and two other men coming out of the apartment complex. All three men ran at the sight of the police. After a brief pursuit all three men were apprehended and detained. Before Miranda was given to Dixon, one of the officers, Sergeant Peter Bontempo, asked Dixon what he was doing at the premises, to which Dixon replied that he was visiting his girlfriend in apartment B-7. A brief investigation showed that apartment B-7 was vacant, but the investigation later led to the discovery of narcotics that were ultimately traced to the defendant. Dixon was subsequently charged and convicted of drug-related offenses.
On appeal Dixon claimed that the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress his statement made to the police in response to the question asking what he was doing at the apartment complex. Dixon claimed that the question constituted custodial interrogation and that the question occurred prior to his receiving Miranda warnings. The appellate court upheld the trial courts denial of Dixon's motion to suppress and reasoned that although custody was conceded by the state, "the single question was not an interrogation, but rather a routine administrative type of question that was not designed to elicit incriminating evidence." State v. Dixon, 25 Conn.App. 3, 7. The court went on to state that "[e]very question posed to a defendant in custody is not equivalent to an interrogation. The test to be employed to determine whether an interrogation has occurred is whether, under all circumstances involved in a given case, the questions asked are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect." Id. at 8. Furthermore, "questions that are asked after an event or occurrence that would naturally tend to evoke such an inquiry do not constitute interrogation." Dixon, 25 Conn.App. 3, 8-9. After Dixon ran away at the sight of the police, the question "What are you doing here?" "was asked at the threshold of the encounter and was arguably aimed at determining the nature of the situation confronting the police at that time." Dixon, 25 Conn.App. 3, 9.
In this case as in Dixon the police were confronted with a situation that they were attempting to assess. Seely responded to a call regarding suspicious men wearing ski masks who had been near a suspicious sports utility vehicle. As in Dixon, the question "What are you doing here?" was simply an administrative type question that the police used as a starting point to determine the nature of the situation confronting them at that time, as was Seely's follow up question "Who are your friends?"
In State v. Copeland, 205 Conn. 201 (1987), the defendant was arrested, informed of his Miranda rights, and taken into custody for disorderly conduct and threatening. While at the location where Copeland was arrested, the officers were informed that there had been a fire at the building that had erupted shortly after Copeland was involved in the altercation that precipitated his arrest. On the way to the police headquarters, one of the officers noticed the strong smell of gasoline coming from Copeland. A fire investigator involved in the case suggested that Copeland's clothes be seized as evidence for a potential arson charge. One of the officers asked Copeland for the clothing that he was wearing in exchange for different clothing and Copeland stated "Why do you want my clothes, they don't smell like gasoline?" Copeland was subsequently charged and convicted of arson in the first degree.
On appeal Copeland argued that the trial court erred by not granting his motion to suppress his statement "Why do you want my clothes, they don't smell like gasoline?" The appellate court upheld the trial court's ruling and stated that "interrogation under Miranda refers both to express questioning and to any words or actions on the part of the police that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect." Copeland, 205 Conn. 201, quoting State v. Vitale, 197 Conn. 396, 411. The police officer had "merely asked the defendant for his clothing, while handing him a change of clothing." Copeland, 205 Conn. 201, 208. The statement by the suspect was not in response to a question designed to elicit an incriminating response.
In this case as in Copeland the question asked was not the type of question that the police should have known was reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. The police merely asked Jones what he was doing at that location. The questions and Jones's answers had no independent ability to produce an incriminating statement. Absent Randolph Armstrong, Jonathan Ramos, and Daniel Scott running from the direction of the home invasion toward the parked sports utility vehicle, Jones's statements to Seely that he was waiting for his friends and that Daniel, Randy, and Jonathan were his friends were inconsequential.
The court thus concludes that even if Jones were in custody at the time that Officer Seely asked him what he was doing there and who his friends were there was no interrogation for purposes of Miranda. The defendant's motion to suppress is therefore denied.
Harper, J.