Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-02211/USCOURTS-ca10-89-02211-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Armando Cordoba
Appellant
Michael Hanrahan
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

ARMANDO CORDOBA, 

Petitioner-Appellant, 

FILED 

UnitAid States Court of Appeals -Tenth circuit 

AlJ\3 0 2 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

No. 89-2211 

MICHAEL HANRAHAN, 

Respondent-Appellee. 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

For the District of New Mexico 

D.C. No. 88-128-JP 

Submitted on the Briefs: 

Teresa E. Storch, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Albuquerque, 

New Mexico, for Petitioner-Appellant. 

Hal Stratton, Attorney General, and Elizabeth Major, Assistant 

Attorney General, Santa Fe, New Mexico, for Respondent-Appellee. 

Before MCKAY, MOORE, and BRORBY, Circuit Judges. 

MOORE, Circuit Judge. 

Appellate Case: 89-2211 Document: 01019371200 Date Filed: 08/02/1990 Page: 1 
Armando Cordoba appeals the dismissal of his petition for a 

writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 u.s.c. § 2254. He contends 

that the district court erred in finding that his conviction did 

not violate the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United 

States Constitution. We find no error in the district court's 

ruling and affirm. 

In the predawn hours of an August morning, Officer Melvin of 

the Albuquerque Police Department, an officer with special 

training in the detection and apprehension of intoxicated 

motorists, arrived at the scene of an automobile accident at a 

deserted intersection in the City of Albuquerque. There Officer 

Melvin found Mr. Cordoba with an injured ankle, leaning against a 

damaged automobile. Officer Melvin initiated his investigation of 

the accident by asking Mr. Cordoba what had occurred. Mr. Cordoba 

responded that he had been drinking and driving. While conversing 

with Mr. Cordoba, Officer Melvin smelled alcohol on Mr. Cordoba's 

breath and noticed that his eyes were bloodshot and his speech 

slurred. Inside the car on which Mr. Cordoba was leaning, Officer 

Melvin saw several full and empty beer bottles. He also observed 

a half-full bottle of beer on the console between the two front 

seats and a cooler behind the driver's seat. 

Within minutes of Officer Melvin's arrival on the scene, an 

emergency rescue unit arrived to take Mr. Cordoba to the hospital. 

Officer Melvin placed Mr. Cordoba under arrest while he was in the 

rescue unit. Officer Melvin then arranged for a blood technician 

to meet Mr. Cordoba at the hospital to administer a blood alcohol 

test. At the hospital, Mr. Cordoba refused to submit to the test. 

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Appellate Case: 89-2211 Document: 01019371200 Date Filed: 08/02/1990 Page: 2 
Officer Melvin subsequently filed a complaint against Mr. Cordoba, 

charging him with driving while intoxicated, driving on the wrong 

side of a divided street, and driving with an open container of 

alcohol. 

Before trial, Mr. Cordoba moved to suppress both his 

statement to Officer Melvin that he had been drinking and driving 

and his refusal to submit to a blood alcohol test. At a bench 

trial, the court heard the evidence supporting the motion to 

suppress simultaneously with the evidence on the merits. The 

court denied the motion, found Mr. Cordoba guilty of driving while 

intoxicated, and sentenced him to thirty days in prison. After 

exhausting all avenues of appeal, Mr. Cordoba filed a petition for 

a writ of habeas corpus. The district court dismissed the 

petition. From this order, Mr. Cordoba now appeals. 

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), requires law 

enforcement officers to advise a defendant of his right against 

self-incrimination before initiating a custodial interrogation. 

Any statement taken during a custodial interrogation in violation 

of the Miranda rule cannot be admitted at trial to establish the 

defendant's guilt. Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 429 (1984). 

A suspect is in custody and entitled to receive the Miranda 

warning if a reasonable person in the suspect's position would 

consider his freedom of action to be curtailed to a "'degree 

associated with formal arrest.'" Id. at 440, 442 {quoting 

California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125 (1983) (per curiam)). 

Mr. Cordoba contends that the trial court's failure to 

suppress his statement that he had been drinking and driving 

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Appellate Case: 89-2211 Document: 01019371200 Date Filed: 08/02/1990 Page: 3 
violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 

because he made the statement during a custodial interrogation 

without having been given the Miranda warning. The district court 

rejected this argument. We conduct a de novo review of the 

district court's ruling. Monk v. Zelez, 901 F.2d 885, 888 (lOth 

Cir. 1990). We review for clear error the trial court's 

determination that Mr. Cordoba was not in custody for purposes of 

Miranda when he admitted that he had been drinking and driving. 

See United States v. Chalan, 812 F.2d 1302, 1307 (lOth Cir. 1987), 

cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___ , 109 S. Ct. 534 (1988). 

Mr. Cordoba contends that the district court erred because he 

admitted to drinking and driving after Officer Melvin had arrested 

him. This contention is meritless. The record indicates that Mr. 

Cordoba made his admission when Officer Melvin arrived at the 

accident scene and before the arrest. 

Mr. Cordoba further contends that even if he was not under 

arrest when he made the statement, he was, nonetheless, in custody 

because he reasonably believed that he was not free to leave. He 

supports this contention by citing Officer Melvin's testimony that 

Mr. Cordoba was not free to leave the scene of the accident until 

the officer had completed his 

A 

investigation. 

police officer's 

Mr. Cordoba's 

argument is not convincing. 

plan has no bearing on 

custody' at a particular 

"unarticulated 

the question whether a suspect was 'in 

time." Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 442. 

Routine traffic stops for roadside questioning, moreover, do not 

sufficiently impair a person's free exercise of the privilege 

against self-incrimination to warrant a Miranda warning. Id. at 

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Appellate Case: 89-2211 Document: 01019371200 Date Filed: 08/02/1990 Page: 4 
440. During a routine traffic stop, as during a "Terry stop", a 

police officer may "ask [a] detainee a moderate number of 

questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain 

information confirming or dispelling the officer's suspicion." 

Id. at 439. See also Terry v. Ohio, 392 u.s. 1 (1968). 

Mr. Cordoba contends, nevertheless, that Officer Melvin was 

required to give the Miranda warning because an investigation of 

an automobile accident is more coercive than a routine traffic 

stop. We disagree. Like 

investigation of an automobile 

a routine 

accident is 

traffic stop, 

analogous to 

the 

the 

investigative detention sanctioned in Terry because an automobile 

accident is sufficient to support a police officer's reasonable 

suspicion that a traffic violation has occurred. An officer 

arriving at the scene of an accident, therefore, may ask a person 

apparently involved in the accident a moderate number of questions 

to determine whether he should be issued a traffic citation, 

whether there is probable cause to arrest him, or whether he 

should be free to leave after the necessary documentation has been 

exchanged. 

In this case, Officer Melvin's investigation fell squarely 

within the limits set by Terry and Berkemer. Upon his arrival at 

the accident scene, Officer Melvin inquired into the circumstances 

of the accident. In response, Mr. Cordoba admitted that he had 

been drinking and driving. This admission coupled with Mr. 

Cordoba's physical condit·ion and the litter of beer bottles in his 

car were sufficient to support a determination that probable cause 

existed to arrest Mr. Cordoba for driving while intoxicated. Only 

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Appellate Case: 89-2211 Document: 01019371200 Date Filed: 08/02/1990 Page: 5 
after his arrest was Mr. Cordoba entitled to receive the Miranda 

warning. Since Mr. Cordoba admitted to drinking and driving 

before his arrest, the trial court did not err in admitting his 

statement. 

Mr. Cordoba next contends that his petition for habeas corpus 

should be granted because the determination of the courts of the 

State of New Mexico that his refusal to submit to a blood alcohol 

test was admissible to establish his guilt does not comport with 

due process of law. New Mexico law authorizes "[o]nly a 

physician, licensed professional or practical nurse or laboratory 

technician or technologist employed by a hospital or physician 

[to] withdraw blood from any person in the performance of a blood 

alcohol test." N.M. Stat. Ann. § 66-8-103 (1987). Mr. Cordoba 

argues that since the person whom Officer Melvin requested to 

administer the blood alcohol test was not authorized to do so 

under New Mexico law, Mr. Cordoba's refusal to submit to the test 

was justified and, therefore, inadmissible to establish his guilt. 

We need not address this argument because even if it is 

correct, the trial court's admission of Mr. Cordoba's refusal to 

submit to the test was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Delaware v. VanArsdall, 475 u.s. 673, 681 (1986) ("[A]n otherwise 

valid conviction should not be set aside if the reviewing court 

may confidently say, on the whole record, that the constitutional 

error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt."). The other 

evidence adduced at trial overwhelmingly supports Mr. Cordoba's 

conviction for driving while intoxicated. Mr. Cordoba admitted 

that he had been drinking and driving; his breath smelled of 

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Appellate Case: 89-2211 Document: 01019371200 Date Filed: 08/02/1990 Page: 6 
alcohol; his speech was slurred; his eyes were bloodshot; there 

were open containers of beer in his car; he had been driving down 

the wrong side of the road; and he had been involved in an 

accident. Since Mr. Cordoba's refusal to submit to a blood 

alcohol test was not necessary to support his conviction, any 

error by the trial court in admitting this evidence was harmless. 

Mr. Cordoba finally contends that his conviction violates the 

Fourteenth Amendment because the evidence was insufficient to 

support it. In a habeas corpus proceeding, we review a challenge 

to the sufficiency of the evidence to determine "whether, after 

viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the 

essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." 

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979) (emphasis in 

original). Mr. Cordoba contends that the evidence does not meet 

this standard because the prosecution did not corroborate his 

admission that he had been drinking and driving as Opper v. United 

States, 348 u.s. 84, 90 (1954), requires. 

We find sufficient evidence to corroborate Mr. Cordoba's 

admission. Mr. Cordoba admitted that he had been drinking and 

driving soon after Officer Melvin discovered him with an injured 

ankle, leaning on a damaged car, at the scene of an accident, at a 

deserted intersection. There was, moreover, ample evidence that 

Mr. Cordoba was intoxicated. Since we find sufficient evidence to 

corroborate Mr. Cordoba's admission, we AFFIRM the district 

court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. 

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