Supreme Court 

No. 2022-63-C.A.

(P1/20-1885AG)

State :

v. :

Marklyn Brown. :

 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision 

before publication in the Rhode Island Reporter. Readers 

are requested to notify the Opinion Analyst, Supreme 

Court of Rhode Island, 250 Benefit Street, Providence, 

Rhode Island 02903, at Telephone (401) 222-3258 or 

Email opinionanalyst@courts.ri.gov, of any typographical 

or other formal errors in order that corrections may be 

made before the opinion is published.
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Supreme Court 

No. 2022-63-C.A.

(P1/20-1885AG)

State :

v. :

Marklyn Brown. :

 

Present: Suttell, C.J., Goldberg, Robinson, Lynch Prata, and Long, JJ.

O P I N I O N 

Justice Long, for the Court. The state appeals from an order granting the 

defendant’s (defendant or Mr. Brown) motion to suppress evidence of a conversation 

between Mr. Brown and his mother recorded by the Providence police in an 

interview room at the Providence Police Department (police station). On appeal, the 

state argues that the trial justice erred in suppressing this conversation because Mr. 

Brown did not possess a reasonable expectation of privacy while at the police 

station.1

 For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the order of the Superior 

Court. 

1 Initially, the state also appealed the trial justice’s order suppressing segments of 

the defendant’s station-house interrogation and argued that the trial justice 

improperly determined that Mr. Brown invoked his right to remain silent pursuant 

to the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The state has abandoned 

this argument on appeal. 
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Facts and Procedural History

We recite the following summary of relevant facts, which appear in the record 

of the proceedings in Superior Court. This matter arises out of the Providence 

police’s seven-hour interrogation of Mr. Brown, attendant with his arrest and 

eventual indictment for a shooting that resulted in the death of Ms. Berta PereiraRoldan, and Mr. Brown’s subsequent attempt to suppress the content of this stationhouse interrogation.

2

On February 6, 2020, at approximately 6:15 a.m., Providence police officers 

executed an arrest warrant at the home of Mr. Brown’s mother and apprehended Mr. 

Brown. Later that morning, at approximately 9:45 a.m., five different Providence 

police officers began questioning Mr. Brown in an interview room at the police 

station about his alleged involvement in Ms. Pereira-Roldan’s death, and sought to 

obtain a confession from him. Throughout the duration of this interrogation, the 

interrogating officers engaged in repeated attempts (1) to convince Mr. Brown that 

2 Along with two additional codefendants—Mr. Johnny Veng and Mr. Jimmy 

Castillo—the state charged Mr. Brown with the following offenses: (1) murder; (2) 

four counts of discharging a firearm while committing a crime of violence; (3) 

conspiracy to commit murder; (4) three counts of assault with a dangerous weapon; 

(5) conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon; (6) two counts of 

possession of a stolen firearm; (7) carrying a stolen firearm while committing a crime 

of violence; (8) two counts of carrying a pistol without a license; (9) conspiracy to 

carry a pistol without a license; (10) discharging a firearm within a compact part of 

the City of Providence; and (11) carrying a firearm while having been previously 

convicted of a crime of violence. 
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the state had obtained overwhelming evidence of his guilt in this matter; (2) to 

persuade Mr. Brown to admit his involvement in killing Ms. Pereira-Roldan based 

on a theory that he accidentally shot her; and (3) to pressure Mr. Brown into 

accepting responsibility for his alleged actions through their insistence that he had a 

moral obligation to do so. 

Despite the efforts of the five officers, Mr. Brown refused to incriminate or 

otherwise implicate himself in this matter; instead, he adamantly maintained that he 

did not wish to speak with them and expressed his wish to speak with his mother. 

Specifically, Mr. Brown repeatedly expressed not only his unwillingness to 

communicate with the interrogating officers, but also his exclusive desire to speak 

with his mother, as exemplified by the following exchange with Detective Theodore 

Michael beginning on page twenty-two of the interrogation transcript: 

“MR. BROWN: I want to talk to my mom. That’s all I 

want to talk to. 

“[DETECTIVE] MICHAEL: I can make that happen. I 

can definitely make that happen. ’Cause we told your 

mom that we would call her. Your mom doesn’t know 

what’s going on, just to let you know. Okay? I will get 

on making a call to your mom to come down here. Okay? 

“MR. BROWN: Yeah, ’cause that’s the only person I 

really want to talk to as of, like, right now. Only person I 

want to talk to.”
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Despite their explicit acknowledgment of Mr. Brown’s decision to remain silent, the 

interrogating officers continued to question him in the attempt to extract a 

confession. 

After more than three hours of interrogation, the interrogating officers finally 

honored Mr. Brown’s request and permitted him to speak to his mother. 

Immediately before allowing Mr. Brown’s mother to enter into the interview room, 

the following interaction took place between Mr. Brown and Detective Michael

Otrando: 

“MR. BROWN: WHAT’S GOING ON?

“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: Boss. Mom’s here. 

“MR. BROWN: All right. How can I speak with her?

“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: We’re gonna bring Mom in 

here.

“MR. BROWN: Okay. 

“[DETECTIVE] OTRANDO: We’re gonna leave this 

room. 

“MR. BROWN: Fair enough. I appreciate that.”

During the fifty-minute conversation between Mr. Brown and his mother, the 

interrogating officers recorded and listened to their discussion by using recording 

equipment present in the interview room. After the interrogating officers terminated 
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their conversation, they continued to question Mr. Brown for three additional hours

until they acquiesced to his repeated requests to return him to his cell. 

Following this interrogation, Mr. Brown moved to suppress the statements he 

made to the interrogating officers and argued that the officers violated his Fifth 

Amendment right against self-incrimination; his Sixth Amendment right to counsel;

and his right under article 1, section 13 of the Rhode Island Constitution against selfincrimination. Additionally, Mr. Brown moved to suppress the recorded statement 

he made to his mother at the Providence police station and argued that the officers’

surreptitious recording violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States 

Constitution; violated the Rhode Island Constitution; and constituted an 

unauthorized wiretap pursuant to G.L. 1956 § 11-35-21. 

On December 9, 2021, a justice of the Superior Court heard Mr. Brown’s 

motions to suppress. During the hearing, the state confirmed the seven-hour length 

of the interrogation and explained that, during this seven-hour period, Mr. Brown 

had a fifty-minute conversation with his mother. Additionally, the state stipulated

(1) that Mr. Brown’s mother could not recall having been told that the police would 

record her conversation with Mr. Brown in the interview room and (2) that the 

officers could not recall having informed her that the recording equipment would be 

operational during her conversation with her son. Regarding the interrogation’s 

initiation, Det. Michael testified that, prior to the interrogation, the interrogating
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officers advised Mr. Brown of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 

436 (1966). 

Ultimately, the trial justice suppressed both the interrogation, beginning at 

page twenty-two of the interrogation transcript, and Mr. Brown’s entire conversation 

with his mother. The trial justice determined that Mr. Brown asserted his right to 

remain silent when he stated that he wanted to speak with his mother and only with

his mother, thus clearly implying that he did not want to speak with them. With 

respect to Mr. Brown’s conversation with his mother, the trial justice determined 

that those same statements to the interrogating officers, recorded on page twentytwo of the interrogation transcript, also clearly implied that Mr. Brown reasonably 

expected that the officers would not involve themselves in his conversation with his 

mother when left alone with her. In evaluating Mr. Brown’s expectation of privacy, 

the trial justice noted the lack of evidence indicating that the interrogating officers 

informed his mother that they would record their conversation. Finally, the trial 

justice supported his decision to suppress the remainder of the interrogation by 

referencing Mr. Brown’s affirmative statement, once the interrogation resumed, that 

he did not wish to answer any further questions. 

The trial justice subsequently entered an order granting in part Mr. Brown’s 

motions to suppress; the state filed a premature but timely notice of appeal, 
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challenging the trial justice’s decision that Mr. Brown had a reasonable expectation 

of privacy when he spoke to his mother in the interview room.

Standard of Review

 This Court reviews the findings of fact contained in a trial justice’s decision 

on a motion to suppress for clear error. State v. Jimenez, 276 A.3d 1258, 1266 (R.I. 

2022). However, we conduct a de novo review of the record and determine from our 

independent review whether the state has violated the constitutional rights of the 

accused. Id. In the context of our review of a trial justice’s ruling on a motion to 

suppress concerning the Fourth Amendment, we determine, based on the totality of 

the circumstances, whether the state obtained the controverted evidence in violation 

of our constitutional protections against warrantless searches and seizures. See State 

v. Sinapi, 295 A.3d 787, 799 (R.I. 2023). 

Discussion

The United States Supreme Court has established that the Fourth Amendment 

protects individuals against arbitrary government interference into their privacy and 

security. Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 

523, 528 (1967). Additionally, this Court has held that a search violative of the

Fourth Amendment takes place when (1) the government violates an individual’s 

subjective expectation of privacy and (2) our society finds that expectation 

objectively reasonable. Sinapi, 295 A.3d at 800. Finally, this Court has 
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acknowledged that the Fourth Amendment protects people, not the locations they 

occupy; that no single factor determines whether an individual possesses a 

reasonable expectation of privacy; and that the touchstone of this analytic framework 

is reasonableness.3 Id. 

Based upon our independent review of the record in this case, which includes 

a video recording of the interrogation as well as the interrogation transcript, we are 

satisfied that the trial justice conducted a proper analysis of Mr. Brown’s motion to 

suppress and that the Providence police violated Mr. Brown’s Fourth Amendment 

rights as well as his rights pursuant to article 1, section 6 of the Rhode Island 

Constitution when they recorded his conversation with his mother. 

More specifically, the record supports the trial justice’s conclusion that Mr. 

Brown had a reasonable expectation of privacy when he spoke with his mother in 

the interview room. Almost immediately upon arrival at the police station at 9:15 

a.m., Mr. Brown refused to meaningfully engage with the interrogating officers, as 

both his body language during the interrogation and lack of responses to their 

questions show. He informed the officers that he had no answers for them, and he 

3 Regarding article 1, section 6 of the Rhode Island Constitution—this state’s 

analogue to the Fourth Amendment—this Court has held that this provision may 

provide greater protections to individuals than provided under the Fourth 

Amendment. Sinapi, 295 A.3d at 805. Although the Supreme Court controls this 

Court’s application of federal constitutional law, we remain free to interpret our 

constitution in a manner that affords greater protections to individuals in this state. 

See id.; see also State v. Werner, 615 A.2d 1010, 1012 (R.I. 1992).
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further declared that he wished to speak only with his mother, thereby asserting his 

right to remain silent rather than speak with them. Once the officers told Mr. Brown 

that his mother had arrived at the police station, Mr. Brown immediately asked the 

interrogating officers how he could speak with her; Det. Otrando responded by 

representing to Mr. Brown that they would leave the room for the duration of their 

conversation; and Mr. Brown thanked him. Additionally, when discussing his 

mother’s arrival, Mr. Brown described his request to speak with her in the following 

way: “I just want to have my one-on-one with my mom before y’all bring me in 

there. That’s it.” The evidence presented in this record supports the trial justice’s 

finding that both the nature of Mr. Brown’s request and the officers’ words and 

conduct in response to it demonstrated that Mr. Brown possessed a legitimate, 

subjective expectation of privacy in his conversation with his mother. Sinapi, 295 

A.3d at 800. Mr. Brown was entitled to rely on the officers’ assurances of privacy 

when Det. Otrando said “We’re gonna leave this room.” 

Moreover, the totality of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Brown’s 

conversation supports the conclusion that his subjective expectation of privacy is 

one that society would find objectively reasonable. There is no evidence that the 

interrogating officers warned either Mr. Brown or his mother that they planned to 

record their conversation. Further, Mr. Brown’s interaction with Det. Otrando 

supports the inference that the officers created an environment that would lull Mr. 
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Brown and his mother into believing that they would be able to speak privately. Cf.

Arizona v. Mauro, 481 U.S. 520, 526 (1987) (noting that Miranda’s privilege against 

compulsory self-incrimination extends to a variety of psychological ploys used by 

interrogating officers that attempt to compel a suspect into making a confession). 

As the trial justice correctly noted, the interaction that Mr. Brown had with Det.

Otrando clearly implied that the interrogating officers would allow him to speak 

privately with his mother. We therefore conclude that Mr. Brown possessed a 

reasonable expectation of privacy pursuant to the Fourth Amendment. Sinapi, 295 

A.3d at 800.

Although we have determined that Mr. Brown possessed a reasonable 

expectation of privacy pursuant to the Fourth Amendment, we further conclude that 

Mr. Brown possessed an additional—adequate and independent—expectation of 

privacy pursuant to article 1, section 6 of the Rhode Island Constitution. While this 

Court has typically deferred to controlling federal law when interpreting our 

constitutional analogue, we conclude that article 1, section 6 of the Rhode Island 

Constitution also protects Mr. Brown’s conduct as a matter of state constitutional 

law.4

4 Based on this Court’s determination that both the Fourth Amendment and article 

1, section 6 of the Rhode Island Constitution bar the state from using Mr. Brown’s 

conversation with his mother, we decline to reach Mr. Brown’s contention that this 

surreptitious recording constituted an unlawful wiretap pursuant to G.L. 1956 

§ 11-35-21. 
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 In an effort to convince this Court that the trial justice committed a 

reversible error, the state offers several arguments. With respect to the interrogating 

officers’ behavior, the state argues that Mr. Brown did not possess a reasonable

expectation of privacy because Mr. Brown did not ask for—and the police officers 

did not expressly represent that he could have—a private, unrecorded conversation. 

This argument misunderstands bedrock principles of Fourth Amendment 

jurisprudence and those undergirding article 1, section 6. This Court analyzes the 

existence of an individual’s expectation of privacy by evaluating the totality of the

circumstances surrounding the state’s allegedly unlawful conduct. Sinapi, 295 A.3d 

at 799. As a result, the fact that the interrogating officers failed to inform Mr. Brown 

that they would provide him with the opportunity to have an unrecorded 

conversation cannot overcome the reality that they fostered an environment, based 

on their words and conduct, wherein Mr. Brown could reasonably believe that he 

had engaged in a private conversation. Therefore, we reject this myopic 

justification. 

The state next argues that Mr. Brown lacked a reasonable expectation of 

privacy in his conversation based on the fact that, once the meeting concluded, 

Sergeant Fabio Zuena indicated to Mr. Brown his awareness of the content of the 

mother-son conversation, and Mr. Brown responded by correctly assuming that the 
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police had surreptitiously recorded it.

5 The state further asserts that the trial justice 

overlooked this interaction in his analysis. This argument ignores inference. In the 

event that an individual learns that an absent third party has become familiar with 

the content of an ostensibly private conversation, that individual may quite

reasonably infer that a third party has monitored that conversation. Put differently, 

Mr. Brown’s acknowledgement of Sgt. Zuena’s awareness of the content of the 

conversation simply demonstrates that, during this interaction with Sgt. Zuena, Mr. 

Brown learned that the police had eavesdropped on his conversation. The fact that 

Mr. Brown identified the medium through which the police monitored the 

conversation does not necessarily imply that Mr. Brown knew, from the inception 

of the conversation, that the interrogating officers were recording it. 

5 Specifically, the state points to the following exchange between Mr. Brown and 

Sgt. Zuena: 

“[SERGEANT] ZUENA: Trying to help you out, man. 

She’s trying to help you out, man. She told a few things, 

what you guys discussed, man. That’s all. I’m just telling 

you. How the * * * would I know that? 

“MR. BROWN: Camera. 

“[SERGEANT] ZUENA: The cam-, what’s the camera 

got to do with it? 

“MR. BROWN: There’s a camera in this room, and it’s 

probably being voice-recorded. I know what you guys do 

in an interrogation room.” 
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Finally, the state cites to cases from outside Rhode Island in an attempt to 

persuade us that Mr. Brown could not have had a reasonable expectation of privacy 

in a police interrogation room. This argument fails for two reasons. First, we have 

unmistakably held that the Fourth Amendment and article 1, section 6 of the Rhode 

Island Constitution protect people, not the locations they find themselves in. Sinapi, 

295 A.3d at 800. Where, as here, interrogating officers create an environment that 

reasonably allows an individual suspected of a crime to believe that they may have 

a private conversation, an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the 

content of that conversation exists. 

Second, we have held that law enforcement officers lack the authority to 

engage in an indirect interrogation of a suspect when they do not have the authority 

to proceed with a direct interrogation. State v. Travis, 116 R.I. 678, 682-83, 360 A.2d 

548, 551 (1976). Even if this Court assumed that Mr. Brown had a full awareness 

that the interrogating officers recorded his conversation from the outset, Mr. 

Brown’s invocation of his right to remain silent prevented them from attempting to 

extract further information in support of their investigation. See Miranda, 384 U.S. 

at 473-74 (“Once warnings have been given, the subsequent procedure is clear. If

the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, 

that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease.”). Relatedly, our 

decision to affirm the suppression of this conversation comports with existing Fourth 
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Amendment precedent noting that excluding improperly obtained evidence serves 

as a prospective deterrent on impermissible law enforcement behavior. United States 

v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 446 (1976). Therefore, we reject the state’s attempt to 

persuade us otherwise. 

This Court is satisfied from our review of the record that the trial justice 

properly reviewed and granted Mr. Brown’s motion to suppress his station-house 

conversation with his mother. Therefore, we conclude that Mr. Brown possessed a 

reasonable expectation of privacy pursuant to the Fourth Amendment and article 1, 

section 6 of the Rhode Island Constitution. 

Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, we affirm the order of the Superior Court and remand 

the record in this case. 
SU-CMS-02A (revised November 2022)

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

SUPREME COURT – CLERK’S OFFICE

Licht Judicial Complex

250 Benefit Street

Providence, RI 02903

OPINION COVER SHEET

Title of Case State v. Marklyn Brown.

Case Number No. 2022-63-C.A.

(P1/20-1885AG)

Date Opinion Filed May 22, 2024

Justices Suttell, C.J., Goldberg, Robinson, Lynch Prata, and 

Long, JJ.

Written By Associate Justice Melissa A. Long

Source of Appeal Providence County Superior Court 

Judicial Officer from Lower Court Associate Justice Robert D. Krause

Attorney(s) on Appeal

For State:

Virginia M. McGinn

Department of Attorney General 

For Defendant:

Kara J. Maguire

Rhode Island Public Defender