Case Title: PEOPLE OF MI V FREDERICK G ATTEBURY JR

Citation: 

Docket Number: 115225

State: michigan

Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Date: 2001-04-24T00:00:00Z

Document:
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Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 48909 
C hief Justice 
Justices 
Maura D. Corrigan  
Michael F. Cavanagh 
Elizabeth A. Weaver 
Marilyn Kelly 
Clifford W. Taylor 
Robert P. Young, Jr. 
Opinion 
Stephen J. Markman 
FILED APRIL 24, 2001  
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,  
Plaintiff-Appellant,  
v  
No. 115225  
FREDERICK G. ATTEBURY, JR.,  
Defendant-Appellee.  
BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH  
CORRIGAN, C.J.  
We granted the prosecutor’s application for leave to  
appeal to consider the propriety of the trial court’s  
application of the “public safety” exception to Miranda v  
Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966).  
Because we conclude that the circumstances of this case fall  
within the rule of New York v Quarles, 467 US 649; 104 S Ct  
 
2626; 81 L Ed 2d 550 (1984), we reverse the decision of the  
Court of Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the trial  
court.  
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND  
On January 19, 1996, defendant approached his estranged  
wife in a shopping center parking lot in Marysville and  
threatened to shoot her.  After explaining that he had a gun,  
defendant ordered his wife into the driver’s seat of her car.  
He then displayed a handgun he had tucked into his pants and  
forced his way into the back seat of her car before his wife  
could drive away.  Fearing for her life, defendant’s wife fled  
on foot to a nearby video store and promptly called the  
police.  When the police arrived minutes later, defendant had  
left the area.  
Defendant’s wife filed a complaint and the police  
obtained a warrant for defendant’s arrest on a charge of  
assault with a dangerous weapon, MCL 750.82; MSA 28.277.  Two  
days after the incident in the parking lot, three police  
officers went to defendant’s apartment to execute the warrant  
for his arrest.  In addition to information in the arrest  
warrant regarding the nature of the alleged offense, the  
officers knew that defendant had recently been treated for  
mental problems at a local hospital.  Officer Larry West  
testified as follows at defendant’s suppression hearing:  
2  
 
  
 
We knew that prior to this incident taking 
place on or about the 18th, which would have been 
the night before the alleged assault, there was a 
broadcast put on the police radio with Mr.  
Attebury’s 
name 
attached 
to 
it, 
that 
the  
psychiatrist 
had 
alerted 
the 
police 
he 
was  
homicidal at that point or had homicidal thoughts.  
Using a key provided by the landlord, the officers  
entered defendant’s apartment without knocking. Once inside  
the apartment, they discovered that defendant was taking a  
shower.
 Officer West described the officers’ initial  
interaction with defendant:  
Q. Tell the Judge briefly what transpired in 
or around the bathroom area of the shower.  
A.  After we entered the home, it was to our 
left.  I knocked on the door, advised him who we 
were, why we were there.  He was given permission 
to continue his shower.  
After he finished he went to get dressed. We  
showed him the warrant.  While he was getting 
dressed, because he was going in and out of a 
dresser and what not, we asked him whether there  
were weapons in the home. 
He said that there  
wasn’t.  
Q.  Did he tell you—what are the things that 
he told you with regard to questions you asked him 
about the weapon? 
Tell the Judge what the  
questions were and what his answers were?  
A.  Whether there were weapons in the home, he 
said not at this time.  And we asked him because  
there was a weapon indicated in the warrant if he 
had that weapon there or where it was at.  He  
indicated to me at that time he had taken it to his  
brother’s house.  
Q.  And did you later locate a weapon at the 
brother’s house?  
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A. Yes, we did.  
Q.  Were it not for his statement to you as to 
the location of that weapon, do you think you would 
have tracked it down, it being at the brother’s 
house by other means?  
A. That would have been doubtful.  
Q. Okay. Did you know before asking the 
question about the weapon whether he had the weapon 
in the home or what he had done with the weapon?  
A.  No. We had no idea where the weapon was  
at that time.  
Q.  What was your concerns [sic] with regard 
to that weapon? What concerns?  
A.  The fact of not knowing Mr. Attebury. Not  
knowing him.  There were three police officers in 
his room. 
We are certain that he allegedly 
threatened to kill one person and he would have 
access to a weapon. We didn’t know where one was, 
if he had thrown it in the ditch or river, if he 
had it stashed somewhere in his home, if he had a 
person who was hiding when he heard us come in, any 
of those scenarios that have come up.  
It is undisputed that the police did not advise defendant of  
his Miranda rights before asking about the gun. 
When the  
officers later informed defendant of his rights, defendant  
again explained that he had given the gun to his brother.  
Faced with the charge of assault with a dangerous weapon,  
MCL 750.82; MSA 28.277, defendant moved to suppress his  
initial statement to the police and the gun on the ground that  
his 
federal 
constitutional 
rights 
had 
been 
violated.  
Defendant argued that his statement regarding the whereabouts  
4  
 
 
 
 
 
of the gun was unlawfully obtained in violation of the Miranda  
rule, and that the gun itself was the “fruit of the poisonous  
tree,” see Wong Sun v United States, 371 US 471, 488; 83 S Ct  
407; 9 L Ed 2d 441 (1963).  After an evidentiary hearing, the  
trial court denied defendant’s motion on the ground that the  
facts fell within the public safety exception set forth in  
Quarles.  At trial, Officer West testified specifically about  
defendant’s statement in the apartment regarding the location  
of the gun described in the arrest warrant.  A jury convicted  
defendant as charged and the trial court sentenced him to a  
two-year term of probation.  
The Court of Appeals, over a dissent, reversed  
defendant’s conviction and remanded for a new trial.1  The  
majority concluded that the facts of this case were “markedly  
and significantly different” from the situation in Quarles,  
because the police were “not confronted with an immediate  
threat 
to 
the 
public.” 
Given 
the 
“unthreatening”  
circumstances under which the police first encountered  
defendant and the fact that the police had no “indication that  
the gun was located in a place where it was endangering the  
public,” the majority reasoned that “the police were not  
confronted with a situation where they had to make a split  
1 Unpublished opinion per curiam, issued April 13, 1999, 
reh den June 21, 1999 (Docket No. 197053).  
5  
 
second 
decision 
between 
giving 
Miranda 
warnings 
and  
neutralizing 
a 
volatile danger to public safety.”  Rather,“the  
questioning 
of 
defendant was clearly investigatory and did not  
relate in any way to an objectively reasonable concern for  
public safety.”  Accordingly, the majority concluded that the  
“type 
of 
exigent 
circumstances that justify application of the  
narrowly tailored public safety exception to the Miranda rule  
were not present in the case at hand.”  The majority ruled  
that the defendant’s statement should have been suppressed  
because it was obtained in violation of the Miranda rule, and  
that the gun should have been suppressed “given that its  
discovery was the illegal fruit of the Miranda violation.”  
In the dissenting judge’s view, the circumstances of the  
case, including the nature of the alleged offense and  
defendant’s homicidal tendencies, gave the arresting officer  
“an 
objectively 
reasonable 
justification 
to 
question 
defendant  
regarding the whereabouts of the gun before instructing  
defendant regarding his Miranda rights.”  In particular, he  
opined that “while one might question the wisdom of the  
officer’s decision to grant defendant the liberty to dress  
himself without restraint, the exigency justifying the  
officer’s question, e.g., the safety of the arresting  
officers, was nonetheless present when the officer questioned  
defendant regarding the location of the gun that was used to  
6  
 
 
 
commit the crime named in the warrant.”  The dissent concluded  
that “under the circumstances of this case, the questions  
posed to defendant by the arresting officer were reasonably  
prompted by a concern for the safety of the officers, and  
therefore, the questions come within the exception to the  
Miranda rule recognized in Quarles.” 
The dissenting judge  
would have affirmed.  
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW  
We review a trial court's factual findings in a ruling on  
a motion to suppress for clear error.  To the extent that a  
trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress involves an  
interpretation 
of 
the 
law 
or 
the 
application 
of 
a  
constitutional 
standard to uncontested facts, our review is de  
novo.  See People v Daoud, 462 Mich 621, 629-630; 614 NW2d 152  
(2000); People v Stevens (After Remand), 460 Mich 626, 631;  
597 NW2d 53 (1999).  
III. THE MIRANDA RULE AND THE QUARLES PUBLIC SAFETY EXCEPTION  
In its landmark Miranda decision, the United States  
Supreme Court announced the general rule that the prosecution  
in a criminal case may not use a statement “stemming from  
custodial 
interrogation 
of 
the 
defendant 
unless 
it  
demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to  
secure 
the 
privilege 
against self-incrimination.”  Id. 
at 444.  
As a basis for the rule, the Miranda Court explained that in  
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order to effectively combat the “inherently compelling  
pressures” of custodial interrogation, an accused must be  
“adequately and effectively apprised” of rights associated  
with the interrogation. 
Id. at 467.  In the years since  
Miranda, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly  
described the required advice of rights as being a  
“prophylactic” measure designed to protect the exercise of an  
accused’s Fifth Amendment rights.  See Dickerson v United  
States, 530 US 428, ___, n 2; 120 S Ct 2326, 2333, n 2; 147 L  
Ed 2d 405 (2000) (citing cases).  Although some of these  
decisions, including Quarles, might have been read to suggest  
that Miranda warnings are not constitutionally required,2 the  
Court has recently confirmed that the Miranda decision  
“announced a constitutional rule.”  Dickerson, 120 S Ct 2336.  
In so doing, however, it also explained that the Miranda rule  
was not “immutable.”
 120 S Ct 2335. 
Most notably, for  
purposes of this case, Dickerson described the Quarles public  
safety exception as merely being a “modification” of the  
Miranda rule. Id. Accordingly, Quarles remains “good law”  
after Dickerson.  
2  For instance, in Quarles, supra at 654, the Court  
quoted Michigan v Tucker, 417 US 433, 444; 94 S Ct 2357; 41 L 
Ed 2d 182 (1974), for the proposition that the “prophylactic” 
Miranda warnings are “not themselves rights protected by the 
Constitution, but [are] instead measures to insure that the 
right against compulsory self-incrimination [is] protected.”  
8  
 
 
 
 
 
  
In Quarles, a woman approached a police officer alleging  
that she had just been raped by an armed man. She described  
her assailant and told the officer that the man had gone into  
a nearby grocery store. Entering the store, the officer saw  
the suspect, who turned and ran toward the rear of the store.  
The suspect was briefly out of the officer’s sight. When the  
officer apprehended the suspect a moment later, the officer  
frisked the man and discovered that he was wearing an empty  
shoulder 
holster. 
 
The officer then handcuffed him and—without  
giving Miranda warnings—inquired about the location of the  
gun.  The suspect nodded toward some cartons and said that it  
was “over there.”  Subsequently, the gun was found and the  
suspect was charged with criminal possession of a weapon.  
The issue before the Quarles Court was whether the  
officer “was justified in failing to make available to  
respondent the procedural safeguards associated with the  
privilege 
against 
compulsory 
self-incrimination 
since  
Miranda.” 
Quarles, supra at 655. 
The Court answered this  
question in the affirmative, concluding that “overriding  
considerations of public safety” justified the officer’s  
failure to provide Miranda warnings before asking “questions  
devoted to locating the abandoned weapon.”  Id. at 651. It  
then explained that the Miranda rule does not apply “in all  
its 
rigor” 
to 
situations 
involving 
police 
questions  
9  
“reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety.”  Id.  
at 656.  
In 
defining, 
more precisely, the parameters of the public  
safety exception, the Court first rejected the notion that the  
availability of the public safety exception should depend on  
the subjective motivation of the officers involved:  
In a kaleidoscopic situation such as the one 
confronting these officers, where spontaneity 
rather than adherence to a police manual is  
necessarily the order of the day, the application 
of the exception which we recognize today should 
not be made to depend on post hoc findings at a 
suppression hearing concerning the subjective 
motivation of the arresting officer. [Id. at 656.]  
The Court also suggested that application of the public safety  
exception was limited to situations involving an “immediate”  
public safety concern.  Id. at 657, 658, n 8. It described  
the exigency faced by the arresting officers in Quarles as  
follows:  
So long as the gun was concealed somewhere in 
the supermarket, with its actual whereabouts  
unknown, it obviously posed more than one danger to 
the public safety: an accomplice might make use of 
it, a customer or employee might later come upon 
it. [Id. at 657.]  
Although the Quarles Court repeatedly referred to “public  
safety,” its use of the phrase “public safety” clearly  
encompassed the safety of the officers as well as the general  
public. See id. at 658-659, n 8. Finally, the Court drew a  
specific distinction between questions objectively necessary  
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to secure the public safety and those with an investigatory  
purpose, explaining that only the former can trigger  
application of the public safety exception.  Distinguishing  
Quarles from its earlier decision in Orozco v Texas, 394 US  
324; 89 S Ct 1095; 22 L Ed 2d 311 (1969), the Court explained:  
In Orozco four hours after a murder had been  
committed at a restaurant, four police officers 
entered the defendant's boardinghouse and awakened 
the defendant, who was sleeping in his bedroom. 
Without giving him Miranda warnings, they began 
vigorously to interrogate him about whether he had 
been present at the scene of the shooting and 
whether he owned a gun. The defendant eventually 
admitted that he had been present at the scene and 
directed the officers to a washing machine in the 
backroom of the boardinghouse where he had hidden 
the gun. We held that all the statements should 
have been suppressed. In Orozco, however, the  
questions about the gun were clearly investigatory;  
they did not in any way relate to an objectively  
reasonable need to protect the police or the public  
from any immediate danger associated with the  
weapon. In short there was no exigency requiring 
immediate action by the officers beyond the normal 
need expeditiously to solve a serious crime. [Id.  
at 659, n 8 (emphasis added).]  
The 
preceding 
excerpt nicely captures the relevant elements of  
the Quarles public safety exception: for it to apply, the  
police inquiry must have been an objectively reasonable  
question necessary to protect the police or the public from an  
immediate danger.  
IV. APPLICATION OF THE PUBLIC SAFETY EXCEPTION 
  This case presents the first occasion we have had to  
apply the Quarles public safety exception to Miranda. As an  
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initial matter, the parties agree that defendant was in  
custody at the time of Officer West’s questions.  At the  
suppression hearing, West testified that defendant was “in  
custody” and had no right to leave.  Moreover, defendant does  
not contend that his statements to the police were anything  
less than completely voluntary. 
Defendant voluntarily  
answered 
the 
officer’s questions, knowing that the police were  
in his apartment to execute a warrant for his arrest in  
connection with the threats he made against his wife.  
Accordingly, there was no due process violation, see Spano v  
New York, 360 US 315; 79 S Ct 1202; 3 L Ed 2d 1265 (1959), and  
no violation of the express language of the Fifth Amendment  
self-incrimination clause, see generally Oregon v Elstad, 470  
US 298, 304-309; 105 S Ct 1285; 84 L Ed 2d 222 (1985); see  
also Daoud, supra at 637 (recognizing that “the Fifth  
Amendment itself protects only against compelled self­
incrimination”).  
With respect to application of the public safety  
exception itself, we agree with the analysis of the Court of  
Appeals dissent.  The Court of Appeals majority erred by  
limiting application of the public safety exception to  
questions necessary to protect the public other than the  
police themselves.  See Quarles, supra at 658-659, n 8. It  
also erred in concluding that the situation did not pose an  
12  
immediate danger. Viewed in an objective fashion as Quarles  
requires, once the officers allowed defendant to dress, and  
defendant began to rummage through his dresser drawers, any  
reasonable person in the officers’ position would have been  
concerned  for his own immediate safety.  Not only did the  
officers know that the arrest warrant stemmed from an incident  
in which defendant threatened his wife with a gun, but they  
also knew that defendant had previously expressed homicidal  
and suicidal thoughts.3  While the officers might have, in  
hindsight, mitigated the exigency by physically restraining  
defendant before he was allowed to dress, their failure to do  
so does not alter our analysis.  The fact remains that an  
exigency existed.  The logic underlying Quarles is based on  
the existence, rather than the cause of, a “public safety”  
exigency.  
Finally, contrary to defendant’s argument, the United  
States Supreme Court’s decision in Orozco, supra, does not  
command a different result.  There, as noted above in the  
3  Compare United States v DeSantis, 870 F2d 536 (CA 9, 
1989) (concluding that the exception applied where the police 
questioned the defendant regarding the presence of weapons in 
a bedroom of an otherwise unoccupied apartment in response to 
the defendant’s request to change into clothes located in that 
bedroom), with United States v Mobley, 40 F3d 688 (CA 4, 1994) 
(concluding that the exception did not apply where the police 
encountered the naked defendant alone in his apartment, had 
performed a security sweep, and inquired regarding the 
presence of weapons as they were leading the defendant away).  
13  
 
 
excerpt from Quarles, supra at 659, n 8, the sleeping suspect  
was awakened only after being surrounded by four police  
officers.  He was then questioned vigorously while he remained  
in bed.  Under the circumstances, the officers’ questions “did  
not in any way relate to an objectively reasonable need to  
protect the police or the public from any immediate danger  
associated with the weapon.”  Id. Here, however, defendant  
easily could have hidden the weapon in one of the dresser  
drawers to which he had immediate access.  Thus, as in Quarles  
rather than Orozco, the officers’ initial attempts to  
ascertain the location of the gun were directly related to an  
objectively reasonable need to secure protection from the  
possibility of immediate danger associated with the gun.  
Moreover, the pre-Miranda questioning in the present case  
related solely to neutralizing this danger.  The officers only  
asked about the whereabouts of the gun and not other broader  
questions relating to investigation of the crime. This case  
is thus unlike Orozco, where the pre-Miranda questioning  
included general investigation, such as whether the suspect  
was at the scene of the crime, which was unrelated to any  
immediate danger to the officers or the public.  Here, once  
the officers were satisfied that defendant posed no immediate  
threat of danger to them, they informed defendant of the  
Miranda rights and began their general investigation.  For all  
14  
 
 
 
 
of these reasons, the pre-Miranda questioning at issue in this  
case falls squarely within the public safety exception to  
Miranda.  
In sum, we hold that the officers were justified in  
forgoing immediate adherence to the Miranda rule, given the  
exigencies of the situation in defendant’s apartment at the  
time of his arrest.  Accordingly, the trial court did not err  
in refusing to suppress defendant’s statement or the gun.  The  
judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the judgment  
of the circuit court is reinstated.  
WEAVER, TAYLOR, YOUNG, and MARKMAN, JJ., concurred with  
CORRIGAN, C.J.  
CAVANAGH and KELLY, JJ., concurred in the result only.  
15