Title: Anderson v. Commonwealth

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Hassell, C.J., Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, Goodwyn, and 
Millette, JJ., and Carrico, S.J. 
 
GERALD LORENZO ANDERSON 
 
 
                                OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 090738 
JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR. 
 
 
 
    January 15, 2010 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider the denial of a defendant’s 
motion to suppress the statements he made to the police before 
and after being advised of his rights under Miranda v. 
Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 474-75 (1966).  The principal issue we 
consider is whether the public safety exception to the Miranda 
rule, recognized in New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 658-59 
(1984), applies under the particular circumstances of this 
case to the defendant’s response to a police officer’s 
question whether a gun was loaded. 
BACKGROUND 
 
The material facts are not in dispute.  On January 31, 
2007, Officer Dean Waite of the Richmond City Police 
Department was working off-duty at a private apartment 
complex.  The apartment complex employed Officer Waite to 
enforce its “no trespassing” policy to ensure that only 
residents and those who have reason to be on the property are 
present.  Officer Waite was dressed in his police uniform, 
wearing a police badge, and carrying a weapon. 
 
At approximately 4:00 p.m., while patrolling the 
apartment complex in his police vehicle, Officer Waite saw 
Gerald Lorenzo Anderson standing near an automobile with a 
woman inside it.  Because he did not recognize Anderson or the 
woman as residents of the apartment complex, Officer Waite 
approached the automobile to investigate a possible trespass.
 
As Officer Waite drove near, Anderson walked away from 
the automobile.  When Officer Waite exited his vehicle, 
Anderson looked at him.  Officer Waite said to Anderson, 
“[S]ir, I need to talk to you.”  Anderson continued to walk 
away from him.  After Anderson looked back a second time, 
Officer Waite said to him, “[D]on’t do it.”  At that point, 
Anderson “took off running.” 
 
Officer Waite gave chase and yelled two times, “[P]olice, 
stop.”  Anderson fell twice during the chase.  After the 
second fall, Anderson stood up, turned and faced Officer 
Waite, and put his left hand in the left front pocket of his 
pants.  Anderson then threw a “silverish, grayish object,” 
hitting a tree behind him and landing about five or six feet 
away. 
 
Anderson lay down on his back, and at Officer Waite’s 
direction, rolled over on his stomach.  As he was on top of 
Anderson handcuffing him, Officer Waite looked over to where 
the object had landed and saw a “silverish, gray revolver.”  
 
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Officer Waite rolled Anderson over, brushed the grass off of 
him, “leaned over,” and asked, “Is it loaded?”  Anderson 
replied, “[Y]eah, there can be one in it.” 
 
Officer Waite retrieved the gun, a .38 caliber revolver, 
and put it in his pocket without unloading it.  Officer Waite 
then walked Anderson back to his vehicle.  As they approached 
the vehicle, Officer Waite’s “backup” officer, Officer Jason 
Reece, arrived.  Officer Waite handed the gun to Officer 
Reece, who unloaded it. 
 
Officer Reece conducted a computer background check to 
determine whether the gun was stolen and whether Anderson was 
a convicted felon.  After learning that Anderson was a 
convicted felon, Officer Waite arrested him and advised him of 
his Miranda rights.  Officer Waite then asked Anderson where 
he got the gun.  Anderson replied that he had been shot at two 
weeks prior and that he obtained the gun from his uncle for 
protection. 
 
Anderson was indicted for possession of a firearm by a 
convicted felon in violation of Code § 18.2-308.2.  Anderson 
subsequently filed a motion to suppress the statements he made 
about the gun.  At the suppression hearing, Anderson argued 
that his initial statement about the gun was obtained in 
violation of the Fifth Amendment because he was “in custody” 
and interrogated without first being advised of his Miranda 
 
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rights.  Anderson also argued that, pursuant to Missouri v. 
Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 615-16 (2004), his subsequent 
statements about the gun should also be excluded. 
 
The trial court denied the motion to suppress, finding 
that when Officer Waite handcuffed Anderson, he was in 
“investigatory detention,” not custody, and therefore, 
Anderson’s initial statement that the gun was loaded was not 
obtained in violation of the Fifth Amendment.  The court 
further found that Anderson’s subsequent statements about his 
possession of the gun were not illegally obtained because 
Anderson was advised of his Miranda rights prior to giving 
those statements. 
 
On motion to rehear the suppression issue, Anderson again 
asserted that he was “in custody” for purposes of Miranda at 
the time he answered Officer Waite’s question about whether 
the gun was loaded.  Accordingly, pursuant to Seibert, he 
maintained that his statements made both before and after he 
was given the Miranda warnings should be suppressed.  Anderson 
also asserted that the public safety exception to the Miranda 
rule recognized in Quarles did not apply to this case because 
Officer Waite knew the location of the gun and should have 
assumed that it was loaded. 
 
The trial court denied relief under Anderson’s motion to 
rehear, ruling that the first statement “comes in” under the 
 
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public safety exception to the Miranda rule.  Additionally, 
the court found that because Anderson had been advised of his 
Miranda rights, his second statements about the gun “come[] in 
as well.” 
 
Anderson entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving his 
right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress.  See 
Code § 19.2-254.  The trial court accepted Anderson’s plea, 
found him guilty of possession of a firearm by a convicted 
felon in violation of Code § 18.2-308.2, and sentenced him to 
four years imprisonment with two years suspended. 
 
The Court of Appeals, in an unpublished opinion, 
affirmed the trial court’s denial of Anderson’s motion to 
suppress.  Anderson v. Commonwealth, Record No. 2182-07-
2, slip op. at 6 (Mar. 17, 2009).  The Court concluded 
that it need not decide whether Anderson was “in custody” 
for purposes of Miranda.  Instead, the Court held that 
the public safety exception to the Miranda rule 
recognized in Quarles permitted admission of Anderson’s 
response to Officer Waite’s question of whether the gun 
was loaded.  Id., slip op. at 3-4.  The Court also held 
that, because Miranda warnings were not required prior to 
Officer Waite’s initial question about the gun, “the 
failure to give them could not taint the statements 
[Anderson] made after [he] received the warnings.”  Id., 
 
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slip op. at 5.  Accordingly, the Court affirmed 
Anderson’s conviction.  We awarded Anderson this appeal.  
DISCUSSION 
 
The applicable standard of appellate review is well 
established.  When reviewing a trial court’s denial of a 
defendant’s motion to suppress, we review the evidence in the 
light most favorable to the Commonwealth, according it the 
benefit of all reasonable inferences fairly deducible from the 
evidence.  Hasan v. Commonwealth, 276 Va. 674, 679, 667 S.E.2d 
568, 571 (2008).  The defendant bears the burden of 
establishing that the denial of his suppression motion was 
reversible error.  Id. 
 
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution 
guarantees that “[no] person . . . shall be compelled in any 
criminal case to be a witness against himself.”  In Miranda, 
the United States Supreme Court extended the Fifth Amendment 
privilege against self-incrimination to individuals subjected 
to custodial interrogation by the police.  384 U.S. at 478-79.  
“Under Miranda, before a suspect in police custody may be 
questioned by law enforcement officers, the suspect must be 
warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any 
statement he makes may be used as evidence against him, and 
that he has a right to have an attorney, either retained or 
appointed, present to assist him.”  Dixon v. Commonwealth, 270 
 
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Va. 34, 39, 613 S.E.2d 398, 400 (2005).  The failure to give 
Miranda warnings prior to custodial interrogation violates an 
individual’s constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment; 
therefore, “[s]tatements obtained by law enforcement officers 
in violation of [the Miranda] rule generally will be subject 
to exclusion for most proof purposes in a criminal trial.”  
Id.  One “narrow exception” to the Miranda rule, however, is 
the public safety exception.  Quarles, 467 U.S. at 658. 
 
In Quarles, a woman reported to police that a man with a 
gun had raped her and entered a grocery store.  Id. at 651-52.  
Officers located the man in the store and, while frisking him, 
discovered that he wore an empty shoulder holster.  Id. at 
652.  After handcuffing the man, and without giving him 
Miranda warnings, an officer asked him where the gun was 
located.  Id.  The man nodded toward some empty cartons and 
responded, “the gun is over there.”  Id. 
 
The United States Supreme Court held “that on these facts 
there is a ‘public safety’ exception to the requirement that 
Miranda warnings be given before a suspect’s answers may be 
admitted into evidence.”  Id. at 655.  The Court recognized 
that the “need for answers to questions in a situation posing 
a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the 
prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment’s privilege 
 
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against self-incrimination.”  Id. at 657.  As the Court 
explained:  
We decline to place officers . . . in the untenable 
position of having to consider, often in a matter of 
seconds, whether it best serves society for them to 
ask the necessary questions without the Miranda 
warnings and render whatever probative evidence they 
uncover inadmissible, or for them to give the 
warnings in order to preserve the admissibility of 
evidence they might uncover but possibly damage or 
destroy their ability to obtain that evidence and 
neutralize the volatile situation confronting them. 
 
Id. at 657-58.  The Court also noted that this “exception does 
not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers 
involved,” but rather an officer’s “objectively reasonable 
need to protect the police or the public from any immediate 
danger associated with [a] weapon.”  Id. at 656, 659 n.8. 
 
Anderson contends that both the circuit court and the 
Court of Appeals overextended the public safety exception to 
the Miranda rule by permitting the admission in evidence his 
response to Officer Waite’s question of whether the gun was 
loaded.  According to Anderson, the public safety exception 
applies to questions where there is a need to determine the 
location of a gun, not to determine whether a gun is loaded.  
Because Officer Waite knew the location of the gun, Anderson 
contends that Officer Waite did not have an “objectively 
reasonable need” to know whether the gun was loaded in order 
to protect the public or himself.  Finally, Anderson contends 
 
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that his statements regarding how and why he obtained the gun, 
made after being given Miranda warnings, should have been 
suppressed because they were derivative of the statement he 
made about the gun without the benefit of Miranda warnings. 
 
The Commonwealth responds that Anderson was not “in 
custody” at the time Officer Waite asked him whether the gun 
was loaded and, therefore, Miranda warnings were not required.  
Nevertheless, the Commonwealth asserts that even if Anderson 
were “in custody,” the public safety exception to the Miranda 
rule applies.  In either event, the Commonwealth maintains 
that Anderson’s subsequent statements made after he received 
the Miranda warnings, should not be suppressed. 
 
Assuming, without deciding, that Anderson was “in 
custody” when Officer Waite asked him whether the gun was 
loaded, we hold that Officer Waite’s question was “objectively 
reasonable” to protect the public and himself from the danger 
associated with the gun and, thus, the public safety exception 
to the Miranda rule applies.  We recognize that the 
“prototypical example” for application of the public safety 
exception is the situation, as in Quarles, of a missing 
weapon.  See United States v. Day, 590 F. Supp. 2d 796, 804 
(E.D. Va. 2008).  Nonetheless, nothing in Quarles, limits the 
application of the public safety exception to questions about 
the location of a missing weapon.  Rather, we are of opinion 
 
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that the application of the public safety exception is to be 
determined by the particular circumstances surrounding the 
need for a police officer to ask questions to protect the 
safety of the public and the officer. 
 
As the United States Supreme Court stated: 
The exception will not be difficult for police 
officers to apply because in each case it will be 
circumscribed by the exigency which justifies it.  
We think police officers can and will distinguish 
almost instinctively between questions necessary to 
secure their own safety or the safety of the public 
and questions designed solely to elicit testimonial 
evidence from a suspect. 
 
Quarles, 467 U.S. at 658-59.  “The facts of this case clearly 
demonstrate that distinction and an officer’s ability to 
recognize it.”  Id. at 659.  Officer Waite secured Anderson 
some distance from any backup support.  Meanwhile, the gun lay 
five to six feet away, in a public area during the afternoon, 
with the danger that if loaded someone “might later come upon 
it.”  Id. at 657.  These circumstances do not suggest that 
Officer Waite asked Anderson whether the gun was loaded in 
order to “elicit testimonial evidence.”  Rather, these 
circumstances suggest that an “objectively reasonable” police 
officer in Officer Waite’s position would “instinctively” need 
to know whether the gun was loaded in order to determine how 
quickly to retrieve the gun and “neutralize the volatile 
situation confronting [him].”  Id. at 658-59 n.8.  It was only 
 
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after arresting Anderson and advising him of his Miranda 
rights that Officer Waite continued with investigatory 
questions about Anderson’s possession of the gun. 
 
Thus, we conclude that the public safety exception to the 
Miranda rule permitted the admission of Anderson’s response to 
Officer Waite’s question whether the gun was loaded.  
Furthermore, because Miranda warnings were not required under 
the public safety exception, we conclude that the failure to 
administer them did not taint Anderson’s subsequent statements 
after he was advised of his Miranda rights.  Accordingly, the 
Court of Appeals did not err in upholding the circuit court’s 
denial of Anderson’s motion to suppress any of his statements 
to the police. 
CONCLUSION 
 
For these reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the 
Court of Appeals upholding the circuit court’s denial of 
Anderson’s motion to suppress his statements to the police and 
affirming his conviction for a violation of Code § 18.2-308.2.∗ 
Affirmed. 
                     
∗In light of our resolution of this appeal on the public 
safety exception issue, we need not address the remaining 
issues raised. 
 
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