Opinion
No. 107,322.
2012-08-31
STATE of Kansas, Appellant, v. Alonzo RIGGANS, Appellee.
Appeal from Wyandotte District Court; Robert P. Burns, Judge. Michael Duma, assistant district attorney, Jerome A. Gorman, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellant. Debera A. Erickson, of Kansas City, for appellee.
Appeal from Wyandotte District Court; Robert P. Burns, Judge.
Michael Duma, assistant district attorney, Jerome A. Gorman, district attorney, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, for appellant. Debera A. Erickson, of Kansas City, for appellee.
Before GREENE, C.J., MALONE and ATCHESON, JJ.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
PER CURIAM.
The State appeals a ruling of the Wyandotte County District Court suppressing both a statement Defendant Alonzo Riggans made to law enforcement officers and a rifle they seized from a closet in his apartment to remedy a violation of his constitutional right against self-incrimination. The district court correctly found the officers failed to inform Riggans of his right to refuse to answer their questions and that failure could not be excused by the public safety doctrine. Under controlling precedent of the United States Supreme Court and the Kansas Supreme Court, that violation of Riggans' rights required exclusion of his statement as evidence against him, but the rifle was untainted and may be used in his prosecution. The district court is, therefore, affirmed in part and reversed in part. The case is remanded for further proceedings.
Factual Background and Procedural History
A pair of Kansas City, Kansas, police officers went to Riggans' apartment on December 14, 2011, based on a tip that two persons wanted on arrest warrants might be there. The officers visited with the apartment complex manager and determined that Riggans had leased the apartment. The officers then confirmed an arrest warrant had been issued for Riggans. They accompanied the manager to Riggans' apartment. The manager identified herself and knocked on the door with the uniformed officers at her side. Riggans answered the door. Officer Lily Szewc told Riggans they had a warrant for his arrest and he would be going to jail. Riggans is in his 60s and, based on the record, used a portable oxygen unit because of significant health problems. He asked the officers if he could get a full tank for the unit before leaving for jail. Officer Szewc said that would be okay but the officers would have to come in and watch him. Riggans agreed.
By that time, a third police officer had arrived. So Szewc and her colleagues followed Riggans into the apartment. They encountered five more people in the living room and kitchen area of the small place. And they saw plain evidence of drug use and paraphernalia in the living room. The officers directed Riggans to sit at the kitchen table; he was not handcuffed. The officers then began to formally identify the other people in the apartment and to run warrant checks on them. The officers determined that each of those persons had at least one arrest warrant. Once a warrant was confirmed, an officer handcuffed the wanted person.
During that process, Captain Steve Haulmark showed up and entered the apartment. In his testimony at the suppression hearing, Capt. Haulmark said at least some of the individuals had been handcuffed when he arrived and he had no specific recollection of anyone other than Riggans not being restrained. Capt. Haulmark described the scene in the apartment as “fluid,” with a significant number of civilians and officers in a confined space. Only Capt. Haulmark and Officer Szewc testified at the suppression hearing; Riggans did not. Nothing in the record suggests that the civilians were resisting the officers or refusing to cooperate in any way or that the circumstances appeared disorderly or chaotic.
Rather than assess who had been handcuffed or, more precisely, who remained unhandcuffed, Capt. Haulmark approached Riggans and asked if there were weapons in the apartment. According to Capt. Haulmark, Riggans said he had “ ‘an old rifle in the closet’ “ of his bedroom. Capt. Haulmark then asked for and received permission from Riggans to retrieve the rifle. The officer went to the closet and took possession of the rifle. At that point, none of the police officers had informed Riggans of his right to remain silent or any of the other rights included in the familiar Miranda warnings. At the suppression hearing, Capt. Haulmark said he quizzed Riggans because he was concerned about officer safety based on the number of people in the close quarters of the apartment's living room area. But Capt. Haulmark's testimony established that he did not consider Riggans a threat to anyone's safety given his obviously frail health and use of oxygen. Capt. Haulmark testified that when he asked about weapons, he did not know that Riggans had a felony conviction making the possession of a firearm itself a felony. See K.S.A.2010 Supp. 21–4204(4).
The State charged Riggans with one count of violating K.S.A.2010 Supp. 21–4204. Defense counsel filed a motion to suppress both Riggans' statement to Capt. Haulmark and the rifle as evidence in the prosecution of this case. The district court held an evidentiary hearing and about a month later, in a ruling made from the bench, suppressed the statement and the rifle. The State timely filed an interlocutory appeal from the district court's order, as provided in K.S.A.2010 Supp. 22–3603.
Legal Analysis
Standard of Review
In reviewing a district court's ruling on a motion to suppress, an appellate court applies a bifurcated standard. The appellate court accepts the factual findings of the district court if they are supported by competent evidence having some substance. The appellate court exercises plenary review over legal conclusions based upon those findings, including the ultimate ruling on the motion. State v. Woolverton, 284 Kan. 59, 70, 159 P.3d 985 (2007); see State v. Thompson, 284 Kan. 763, 772, 166 P.3d 1015 (2007). The prosecution bears the burden of proving the admissibility of the challenged evidence. See State v. Sharp, 289 Kan. 72, 80, 210 P.3d 590 (2009); State v. Ransom, 288 Kan. 697, 705, 207 P.3d 208 (2009).
Constitutional Right Against Self-incrimination
On appeal, the parties frame the issue for this court in terms of Riggans' right against self-incrimination protected by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment provides that “no person ... shall be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself.” The Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights § 10 contains the same protection. The parties do not specifically discuss the Kansas Constitution, but the right against self-incrimination set forth there is substantively no greater than that in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Bankes v. Simmons, 265 Kan. 341, 349, 963 P.2d 412,cert. denied525 U.S. 1060 (1998). The right applies not only to testimony given in court but to pretrial statements made to government agents as well. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 467, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). When those agents detain a person, they may apply subtle and sometimes not so subtle psychological or physical coercion, rendering inculpatory statements involuntary and, therefore, of doubtful reliability. Watkins v. Sowders, 449 U.S. 341, 347, 101 S.Ct. 654, 66 L.Ed.2d 549 (1981) (“an involuntary confession ... is likely to be unreliable”); Miranda, 384 U.S. at 448–53 (describing types of coercion); Murray v. Earle, 405 F.3d 278, 296 (5th Cir.2005) (“[A]n involuntary confession constitutes evidence entitled to little weight, as it is likely to be unreliable.”).
To help preserve a person's right against self-incrimination and to curtail abusive interrogation techniques, the United States Supreme Court has held that law enforcement officers arresting suspects or restraining their liberty in ways functionally equivalent to arrest must inform them that they need not answer questions and, thus, may remain silent. Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U.S. ––––, 130 S.Ct. 1213, 1224, 175 L.Ed.2d 1045 (2010) (Suspects are in “ Miranda custody” if they have been formally arrested or their freedom of movement has been restrained to a degree equivalent to a formal arrest.); Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444–45. That admonition is one of the Miranda warnings. If law enforcement officers fail to provide the Miranda warnings to a person under arrest, that person's statements generally cannot then be introduced as part of the State's principal case against that person. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 306–07, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985); State v. Schultz, 289 Kan. 334, 342, 212 P.3d 150 (2009). In other words, the court will suppress the statements as evidence because law enforcement officers questioned the person under arrest without informing him or her of the constitutional right against self-incrimination. But the law enforcement officers' failure to provide the Miranda warnings does not, in and of itself, taint a person's statements as the product of an overbearing interrogation or as otherwise involuntary. The courts, therefore, have recognized exceptions allowing a suspect's otherwise uncoerced statements given in the absence of Miranda warnings to be admitted as evidence in specific instances. See Elstad, 470 U.S. at 307 (voluntary statement obtained in violation of Miranda may be used to impeach defendant on cross-examination).
Exception to Miranda for Public or Police Safety
Here, the State invoked an exception designed to allow government agents to briefly question a suspect in custody without first administering Miranda warnings when circumstances pose an imminent threat to the safety of law enforcement officers or members of the public. New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 657–58, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984); State v. Johnson, 46 Kan.App.2d 387, 394, 264 P.3d 1018 (2011). As described in Quarles, the safety exception is a “narrow” one, limited “by the exigency which justifies it.” Quarles, 467 U.S. at 658. The exception rests on an evaluation of the particular circumstances of the given situation confronting law enforcement officers. The measure is one of objective reasonableness, thereby discounting the subjective intent of the officers questioning the suspect. 467 U.S. at 656;United States v. Mobley, 40 F.3d 688, 692 (4th Cir.1994). If a reasonable law enforcement officer would recognize an immediate threat to safety, a suspect being detained may be questioned about that threat without receiving Miranda warnings, and any substantive responses may be admitted as evidence. The result would be the same even if the officer actually interrogating the suspect harbored some other or additional purpose, such as obtaining incriminating statements.
The safety exception tends to be fact specific. See United States v. Reyes, 353 F.3d 148, 152 (2d Cir.2003); Mobley, 40 F .3d at 693 n. 2. So courts should be reticent to simply superimpose the result from a past case on a new set of facts. The cases applying the exception for firearms, however, generally involve specific information indicating the suspect recently had a gun or was known to carry a gun. The circumstances in Quarles are illustrative. The officers received a report from a woman that a man matching Quarles' description had just raped her and was armed with a handgun. The officers pursued Quarles to a supermarket and apprehended him inside. He had an empty shoulder holster, suggesting he had abandoned the gun somewhere in the supermarket. After handcuffing Quarles, the officer asked Quarles where the gun was. Quarles responded by indicating some nearby boxes. The officer retrieved the gun, read Quarles the Miranda warnings, and continued to question him. The Supreme Court found no Fifth Amendment violation in admitting the pre- Miranda statements from Quarles. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 651. The Court excused the failure to give Miranda warnings because the police “were confronted with the immediate necessity of ascertaining the whereabouts of a gun which they had every reason to believe the suspect had just removed from his empty holster and discarded in the supermarket.” 467 U.S. at 657.
Safety Exception Inapplicable to Riggans' Arrest
With that backdrop, we turn to the circumstances of Riggans' arrest and Capt. Haulmark's inquiry about weapons. First, the parties effectively agree Riggans had been arrested and his liberty constrained such that the police officers should have informed him of his rights under Miranda before they generally questioned him. We have no reason to dispute that assessment. See J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 2394, 2402, 180 L.Ed.2d 310 (2011) (police custody requiring Miranda warnings entails “ ‘formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with formal arrest,’ “ quoting Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112, 116 S.Ct. 457, 133 L.Ed.2d 383 [1995] );J.D.B ., 131 S.Ct. at 2411 (same) (Alito, J., dissenting); Schultz, 289 Kan. at 341 (outlining factors to be considered in determining if interrogation is custodial and, therefore, requires Miranda warnings). Officer Szewc told Riggans the police had a warrant for his arrest and he was going to jail. As rendered in the record, that exchange between Officer Szewc and Riggans looks to be a formal arrest. Riggans then asked permission to go back into his apartment to get a full oxygen tank—demonstrating his understanding that he was in custody and no longer free to move around at will. The officers' conduct was consistent with Riggans' perception. They escorted him into the apartment, and he remained under their supervision. Riggans was not at liberty to leave his apartment, and he reasonably understood as much. The absence of handcuffs or other physical restraints does not materially affect the legal determination that Riggans had been arrested—both formally and functionally—and was in police custody before Capt. Haulmark questioned him.
The facts here do not support a narrow safety exception excusing the questioning of Riggans without Miranda warnings. See Mobley, 40 F.3d at 693 (safety exception must be narrowly construed). Nothing in the evidence presented at the suppression hearing indicated the Kansas City, Kansas, police officers had any specific factual basis to believe Riggans had firearms or other weapons. Compare Quarles, 467 U.S. at 651–52 (victim told police she had just been assaulted by suspect carrying a handgun); United States v. Newton, 369 F.3d 659, 678 (2d Cir.2004) (suspect's mother had informed police that the suspect possessed a firearm and had recently threatened to kill her and her husband); Reyes, 353 F.3d at 154 (safety exception applicable because, in part, officers had “specific information” suspect “routinely carried a firearm”); Mobley, 40 F.3d at 693 n. 2. As the Fourth Circuit recognized: “Absent other information, a suspicion that weapons are present in a particular setting is not enough, as a general matter, to demonstrate an objectively reasonable concern for immediate danger to police or public.” 40 F.3d at 693 n. 2. Capt. Haulmark posed the inquiry to Riggans more as a matter of hypothetical possibility or standard procedure because there were a number of people in the living room area. But with Capt. Haulmark's arrival there were six civilians and at least four police officers. And one of those six was Riggans, who, because of his frail health, was not considered a potential threat. Nothing in the record suggests any of the other civilians were unruly or belligerent.
Before questioning Riggans about weapons in the apartment, Capt. Haulmark made no apparent effort to determine if the other civilians had been handcuffed. He saw at least some of them in handcuffs and, at the hearing, could not recall seeing anyone other than Riggans without physical restraints. Capt. Haulmark could have determined if all of the civilians other than Riggans had been handcuffed through a quick visual inspection. The persons in handcuffs would have been standing with their hands behind their backs. Even if one or more of them were unrestrained, Capt. Haulmark could have ordered them handcuffed rather than questioning Riggans. At the suppression hearing, Capt. Haulmark testified that all of the civilians should have been handcuffed as soon as the officers saw the drug paraphernalia and evidence of drug use in the living room of the apartment.
At the hearing, Capt. Haulmark also testified that a person who has been handcuffed still could obtain and use a firearm or some other weapon. He did not explain the mechanics of how that sort of feat might be accomplished, so we are disposed to discount that possibility. The district court implicitly found that opinion unavailing. The caselaw reasonably presumes that a handcuffed suspect no longer poses a danger to members of the public or the officers present. See Quarles, 467 U.S. at 655 (After Quarles was handcuffed, nothing suggested the officers were concerned about their own safety.); United States v. Salahuddin, 668 F.Supp.2d 1136, 1142 (E.D.Wis.2009) (suspect had been handcuffed and, thus, “neutralized” as a potential danger to officers). In a case such as Quarles, where a suspect apparently disposed of a dangerous weapon by abandoning it in a public place before being detained, there remains a danger coming within the safety exception. But the handcuffed suspect does not pose the danger—the missing weapon does. Riggans' arrest did not entail that sort of risk to the general public.
In sum, the facts do not portray an immediate threat requiring that Riggans be questioned in the absence of Miranda warnings in the interest of public or police officer safety. See Mobley, 40 F.3d at 693 (safety exception must be rooted in “extraordinary circumstances” posing an “immediate danger”); Salahuddin, 668 F.Supp.2d at 1146 (safety exception inapplicable when there is no “immediate danger”). To apply the safety exception here would convert it from a narrow rule into a broad doctrine that would threaten to swallow up the Miranda warning requirement. Government agents could dispense with the warnings and question suspects about firearms in virtually any circumstance where weapons hypothetically might be present. Accordingly, the district court correctly found Riggans' Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination had been violated because he was questioned without having been given the Miranda warnings and, in particular, the admonition that he need not answer questions. Accordingly, the district court properly suppressed Riggans' statement to Capt. Haulmark.
The record, however, does not support and Riggans does not argue that his statements to Capt. Haulmark were coerced or involuntarily. The violation rests only on the failure of the police officers to inform Riggans of his rights.
Scope of Remedy for Violation
The question of appropriate relief for the violation remains. As we have said, under controlling authority from both the United States Supreme Court and the Kansas Supreme Court, Riggans' remedy requires the exclusion of his statement to Capt. Haulmark. But the rifle itself should not have been suppressed based on the failure of the police officers to give Miranda warnings to Riggans. See United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630, 633–34, 124 S.Ct. 2620, 159 L.Ed.2d 667 (2004); 542 U.S. at 645 (Kennedy, J., concurring, joined by O'Connor, J.); State v. Schultz, 289 Kan. 334, Syl. ¶ 7. The district court, therefore, erred in granting too broad a remedy. The fault, however, cannot be laid entirely on the district court. Neither side cited Patane or Schultz to the district court or on appeal.
In Patane, the United States Supreme Court declined to apply the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine to Fifth Amendment violations resting on the failure of law enforcement officers to give Miranda warnings when a suspect's statements were otherwise voluntary. The five-justice majority, though issuing dual opinions, collectively agreed that exclusion of the statements themselves sufficiently enforced and protected the Fifth Amendment rights at issue. 542 U.S. at 633–34, 645. Excluding physical evidence government agents may have seized as a result of those statements exceeded any necessary protection. 542 U.S. at 636–37. The four dissenting justices would have excluded physical evidence along with the suspect's statements, thereby extending the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine from searches and seizures violating the Fourth Amendment to improperly obtained statements violating the Fifth Amendment—in their view an entirely justified means of vindicating those Fifth Amendment rights. 542 U.S. at 645–46 (Souter, J., dissenting, joined by Stevens, J., and Ginsburg, J.); 542 U.S. at 647–48 (Breyer, J., dissenting).
The Kansas Supreme Court has embraced the majority rule expressed in Patane and, therefore, has refused to exclude physical evidence government agents obtain as the result of statements made by suspects questioned while in custody but before being informed of their right against self-incrimination. See Schultz, 289 Kan. 334, Syl. ¶ 7. On facts strikingly similar to those here, the Schultz court excluded the defendant's statements to law enforcement officers made before he received Miranda warnings. 289 Kan. at 343. But the court also held that guns the officers located and seized based on those statements could be admitted as evidence against the defendant. 289 Kan. at 343–44. We are obligated to apply both Patane and Schultz as controlling authority. They cannot be meaningfully distinguished factually or legally. Accordingly, the district court erred in granting the motion to suppress as to Riggans' rifle.
Other Matters
Before concluding, we offer two additional observations. First, the State suggests the exclusionary rule should not be applied here, even if there were a Fifth Amendment violation, because Capt. Haulmark neither intended to deprive Riggans of a constitutional right nor acted in a flagrant or calculated way in doing so. We discount that argument. It is by no means clear that this aspect of the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule ought to be transplanted from Fourth Amendment violations to Fifth Amendment violations. The State cites no authority for such an expansion.
Even assuming that extension to be proper, the facts here warrant use of the exclusionary rule. The rule deprives the State of evidence in a given case as a means of deterring future law enforcement errors of the same type. The rule reaches errors resulting from institutional negligence, such as inadequate training or field procedures. Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 2419, 2428–29, 180 L.Ed.2d 285 (2011) (exclusionary rule to be applied to prevent repeated or institutional negligence); Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 144, 129 S.Ct. 695, 172 L.Ed.2d 496 (2009) (The exclusionary rule “serves to deter” police conduct that is either intentional or results from “recurring or systemic negligence” and compromises the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment.). Although the record supports the notion Capt. Haulmark did not deliberately set out to violate Riggans' right against self-incrimination, the violation rests on the sort of mistake that could be curtailed or eliminated with additional training regarding the right against self-incrimination, administration of Miranda warnings, and the safety exception. Without more or better training, the violation would likely be repeated. It is, then, a deficiency warranting application of exclusionary rule. The State overextends the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule in arguing otherwise.
Second, the decision we reach today has little, if anything, to say about the scenario in which a law enforcement officer arrests a suspect and, in preparing to search the suspect incident to the arrest, asks if the individual has any weapons, sharp objects, or other items that might cause an injury during the search. That sort of inquiry has been justified under the safety exception, meaning the officer need not administer Miranda warnings before asking the question. See Johnson, 46 Kan.App.2d at 394. That tailored inquiry protects both the officer and the suspect, either of whom could be injured if an undisclosed weapon or sharp object were infelicitously moved during the search. See Reyes, 353 F.3d at 154 ( Johnson-type inquiry within safety exception based in part on risk suspect might be carrying a gun that could accidentally discharge during search). Nothing in our opinion should be construed as commenting on or addressing the propriety of such an inquiry. The factual differences between that situation and what happened here are too great to suggest the holding here ought to be applied in some fashion to a Johnson inquiry.
Conclusion
To sum up, the district court's decision to exclude Riggans' statements to Capt. Haulmark is affirmed; the exclusion of the rifle seized from Riggans' apartment is reversed; and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with those rulings.