Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01337/USCOURTS-ca8-07-01337-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Antonio Ray Liddell
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

1

 The HONORABLE JAMES E. GRITZNER, United States District Judge for

the Southern District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 07-1337

___________

United States of America, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Southern District of Iowa.

Antonio Ray Liddell, *

*

Defendant - Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: October 16, 2007

 Filed: February 25, 2008

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, GRUENDER and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

Antonio Ray Liddell pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm

in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). As permitted by a condition in

his plea agreement, Liddell now appeals the denial of his motion to suppress a postarrest statement made without the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S.

436 (1966). We agree with the district court1

 that the arresting officers’ in-custody

questioning fell within the public safety exception to Miranda established in New

York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984). Accordingly, we affirm. 

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818
-2-

The following facts are undisputed. At approximately 12:45 a.m., Police

Officer Michael Adney stopped a car driven by Liddell for a loud music violation.

Adney arrested Liddell when a check revealed that he was barred from driving in

Iowa. After the arrest, a pat-down search uncovered a bag of marijuana, $183 in cash,

and two cell phones. Adney handcuffed Liddell and placed him in the patrol car.

Meanwhile, Police Officer Jon Melvin arrived to assist and began to search Liddell’s

car incident to the arrest. When Melvin discovered an unloaded .38 caliber revolver

under the front seat, he showed the gun to Adney and asked whether Liddell’s person

had been thoroughly searched after the arrest.

Adney removed Liddell from the patrol car and asked, referring to Liddell’s car,

“Is there anything else in there we need to know about?” Melvin added, “That’s

gonna hurt us?” Adney repeated, “That’s gonna hurt us? Since we found the pistol

already.” Liddell laughed and said, “I knew it was there but . . . it’s not mine,” before

telling the officers there were no other weapons in his car. Melvin completed the

search of the car, finding .38 caliber ammunition and rolling papers used to make

marijuana cigarettes. 

Charged with unlawful possession of the firearm and with unrelated drug

offenses, Liddell entered a conditional plea of guilty to the felon-in-possession charge

after the district court denied a motion to suppress his highly incriminating statement

that he knew the .38 revolver was under the front seat of his car. In the district court

and on appeal, the government conceded that Liddell was in custody and had not been

given Miranda warnings at the time the officers asked the question that elicited this

incriminating statement. Thus, the issue is whether the statement is admissible under

the public safety exception to Miranda as articulated by the Supreme Court in Quarles

and applied by this court in United States v. Williams, 181 F.3d 945 (8th Cir. 1999),

and United States v. Luker, 395 F.3d 830 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 831 (2005).

“Whether facts support an exception to the Miranda requirement is a question of law”

that we review de novo. United States v. Lackey, 334 F.3d 1224, 1226 (10th Cir.),

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818
2

Because this is an objective standard, and because police officers must react

spontaneously to situations posing a threat to public safety, the public safety exception

does not turn on the specific form of questions asked. See Williams, 181 F.3d at 953

n.13; United States v. Newton, 369 F.3d 659, 678-79 & n.8 (2d Cir. 2004). There can

be no doubt that the question posed by the officers in this case was sufficiently

focused on public safety to trigger the public safety exception. By contrast, the Court

explained in Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659 n.8, the post-arrest questioning without Miranda

warnings in Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 325-26 (1969), was “clearly

investigatory.” 

-3-

cert. denied, 540 U.S. 997 (2003); accord United States v. Talley, 275 F.3d 560, 561

(6th Cir. 2001). 

In Quarles, the Supreme Court held that “there is a ‘public safety’ exception to

the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect’s answers may be

admitted into evidence.” 467 U.S. at 655. In this context, protection of the public

safety includes protection of the police officers themselves. Id. at 658 n.7, 659. The

exception does not depend upon the subjective motivation of the questioning officers.

Instead, the Court adopted an objective standard: the exception applies when “police

officers ask questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety.” Id.

at 656, quoted in Williams, 181 F.3d at 953. It does not apply to “questions designed

solely to elicit testimonial evidence from a suspect.” 467 U.S. at 659.2

Liddell argues that the public safety exception does not apply because, at the

time the officers asked the question that prompted his incriminating admission, “there

was no longer an objective reasonable need to protect the police or the public from

any immediate danger” because the revolver had been found, Liddell was handcuffed

and under the control of the two officers, and there were no passengers or nearby

members of the public who could have accessed or been harmed by the contents of

Liddell’s car. The district court rejected this contention, explaining:

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 3 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818
-4-

The discovery of a firearm hidden in a vehicle would lead an officer to

have an objectively reasonable concern that other, possibly loaded,

firearms may also be in the vehicle which could cause harm to an officer

if they were to happen upon them unexpectedly or mishandle them in

some way. The accidental discovery of additional weapons poses a

threat to officer safety and at the time the officers conducted their limited

questioning of [Liddell], given the information then known to them, it

was reasonable for the officers to believe this threat existed. There was

no way for Officer Melvin or Officer Adney to know that the firearm

found under the driver’s seat was ultimately the only weapon or

dangerous device located inside of the vehicle.

The district court’s analysis is consistent with this court’s controlling

precedents. Our prior cases recognized that the risk of police officers being injured

by the mishandling of unknown firearms or drug paraphernalia provides a sufficient

public safety basis to ask a suspect who has been arrested and secured whether there

are weapons or contraband in a car or apartment that the police are about to search.

See Luker, 395 F.3d at 832 (public safety exception applied to post-arrest question

whether there was anything in intoxicated driver’s car the police should know about);

Williams, 181 F.3d at 953-54 (public safety exception applied to post-arrest question,

“is there anything we need to be aware of” in the suspect’s apartment, because the

police “could not have known whether other hazardous weapons were present . . . that

could cause them harm if they happened upon them unexpectedly or mishandled them

in some way”). Accord Lackey, 334 F.3d at 1227-28; contra United States v.

Williams, 483 F.3d 425, 428 (6th Cir. 2007). Here, when the officers found Liddell’s

concealed .38 caliber revolver, they had good reason to be concerned that additional

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 4 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818
3

Exigent means “[r]equiring immediate action or aid; urgent.” Black’s Law

Dictionary 614 (8th ed. 2004).

-5-

weapons might pose a threat to their safety when they searched Liddell’s car incident

to a late-night arrest. 

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge, concurring.

Based on our circuit’s precedents, I concur in the opinion of the Court.

However, I write separately to explain my concern that our decisions applying the

public safety exception to Miranda have strayed from the Supreme Court’s tethering

of the exception to the existence of exigent circumstances.3

 

As an alternative rationale in Williams and then followed in Luker, this court

held that the public safety exception to Miranda applies to situations where a police

officer could happen upon weapons or needles “unexpectedly or mishandle[] them in

some way.” Williams, 181 F.3d at 954. In so holding, this court applied the exception

to the possible handling of an inherently dangerous instrumentality but neglected the

Supreme Court’s requirement of exigent circumstances associated with recovering the

item. Therefore, I concur in the Court’s opinion in this case, even though this record

is bereft of evidence of exigent circumstances associated with the possible discovery

of a weapon in Liddell’s vehicle. 

In Quarles, the Supreme Court recognized the public safety exception to

Miranda and premised the applicability of this “narrow exception to the Miranda

rule” on exigent circumstances. 467 U.S. at 658. There, Quarles, accused of armed

rape, fled into a supermarket. When Quarles was arrested moments later, the police

officers found him wearing an empty holster. Before giving Miranda warnings, the

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 5 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818
-6-

officers asked where the gun was located, and Quarles directed them to the gun’s

location. The Supreme Court upheld the admission into evidence of Quarles’

statement because “[s]o 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. The Supreme Court stated that “[t]he exception will not

be difficult for police officers to apply because in each case it will be circumscribed

by the exigency which justifies it.” Id. at 658. Throughout the opinion, the Court

focused on the urgency of the situation. See, e.g., id. at 657-58 (“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 658

(“[W]e recognize here the importance of a workable rule to guide police officers, who

have only limited time and expertise to reflect on and balance the social and individual

interests involved in the specific circumstances they confront.”). The Supreme Court

did not express any concern that a trained police officer discovering a weapon in an

otherwise secured environment would justify applying the exception. Rather, the

Court did express that the exception would apply when the public “might later come

upon [the weapon],” thereby creating an immediately dangerous situation. Id. at 657.

The Supreme Court further stated that the public safety exception to Miranda

applies when officers ask “questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public

safety” and not to “questions designed solely to elicit testimonial evidence from a

suspect.” Id. at 656, 659. However, the Court clarified that the exigency of the

situation would distinguish between these types of questions. Id. at 659 n.8. To

illustrate this point, the Court compared Quarles with Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324

(1969). Id. In Orozco, four police officers entered Orozco’s boardinghouse and

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 6 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818
-7-

awakened him. 394 U.S. at 325. Without giving Miranda warnings, the officers

interrogated Orozco about a murder committed four hours earlier. The police asked

if he had been present at the scene of the shooting, whether he owned a gun and where

the gun was located. The defendant admitted that he was present at the scene, that he

owned a pistol and that the pistol was located in the washing machine in a backroom

of the boardinghouse. The Orozco Court held that all the statements should have been

suppressed. Id. at 327. The Quarles Court stated:

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.

Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659 n.8 (emphasis added). 

I read Quarles, the public safety exception to Miranda applies

only when (1) an immediate danger to the police officers or the public exists, or (2)

when the public may later come upon a weapon and thereby create an immediately

dangerous situation. Therefore, the public safety exception to Miranda would not

apply to situations where officers could happen upon a weapon “unexpectedly or

mishandle[] them in some way,” unless some evidence of exigency is presented. 

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 7 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818
-8-

The record in this case does not establish the existence of exigent

circumstances. Here, the police had removed Liddell from his vehicle, handcuffed

him, conducted a pat-down search, and placed him into their patrol car. After the

officers had secured both Liddell and his car, they began searching his vehicle. Upon

finding an unloaded .38 caliber revolver under the front seat, the officers asked if

anything else in the car could hurt them. After a discussion with Liddell, the officers

completed the search of Liddell’s car. Although the search of a vehicle that

potentially contains a loaded weapon may well be inherently dangerous, the record

does not establish that any immediate danger existed as a result of the possible

presence of such a weapon in Liddell’s car or that the public might have later come

upon a weapon. There was no evidence, for instance, supporting the necessity of an

immediate search or continued search of the vehicle by the officers, either because of

some immediate safety concern or because the vehicle was to be left unsecured by the

roadside where the public might gain access to any weapon left in it. Because Liddell

was arrested for driving while barred, there was no immediate danger that Liddell

would be allowed to return to his car where he might have access to a hidden weapon.

Furthermore, there was no evidence that the officers could not safely impound and

tow Liddell’s car in order to conduct a search of it at a later time. Based on the record

developed in the district court, the public safety concern was not related to any exigent

circumstances but rather limited to the

Compare United States v. Fox, 393 F.3d 52 (1st Cir. 2004) (applying the public

safety exception on similar facts as in this case), with United States v. Mobley, 40 F.3d

688 (4th Cir. 1994), United States v. Raborn, 872 F.2d 589 (5th Cir. 1989), and

United States v. Williams, 483 F.3d 425 (6th Cir. 2007). In Mobley, agents arrested

the defendant at his front door and made a security sweep of the apartment, which

revealed that Mobley was alone. 40 F.3d at 690. With Mobley outside of the

apartment, the agents asked him whether anything in the apartment could be of danger

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 8 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818
-9-

to the agents who would be conducting the search. The Fourth Circuit held that the

public safety exception to Miranda did not apply because the police had already

secured the apartment and determined that no one else was present. Id. at 693; see

also United States v. Melvin, 2007 WL 2046735 (4th Cir. 2007) (per curium) (relying

on Mobley, the court held that the public safety exception did not apply where officers

questioned Mobley about whether he had a weapon in his car when the car was

secured and already heading to the impound lot). In Raborn, upon being stopped by

DEA agents, Raborn exited his truck, removed a pistol from his holster and placed it

inside the vehicle. 872 F.2d at 592. The agents handcuffed Raborn and the other

passenger and placed them on the ground outside. Unable to locate the gun after a

search of the front seat, one of the officers asked Raborn where he had placed it.

Raborn replied that the gun was under the seat cover. The Fifth Circuit stated that

“[the vehicle] had already been seized and only the police officers had access to the

truck. It is difficult therefore, to find that the public-safety exception applies.” Id. at

595. Finally, the Sixth Circuit has held that the public safety exception to Miranda

applies only if “(1) . . . the defendant might have (or recently have had) a weapon, and

(2) . . . someone other than police might gain access to that weapon and inflict harm

with it.” Williams, 483 F.3d at 428. 

Based on Quarles and the limited record before us, I would conclude that the

public safety exception to Miranda would not apply because there is no evidence that

an immediate danger existed as a result of the possible presence of such a weapon in

Liddell’s car or that the public might have later come upon such a weapon.

Nonetheless, the public safety exception to Miranda applies because the fact that the

officers might have unexpectedly encountered or mishandled a weapon hidden in

Liddell’s vehicle alone is sufficient to justify the application of the exception under

Williams and Luker.

______________________________

Appellate Case: 07-1337 Page: 9 Date Filed: 02/25/2008 Entry ID: 3405818