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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

United States of America, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Ruben Lee Castaneda, 

Defendant. 

No. CR-15-01299-001-PHX-GMS

ORDER 

 Defendant Ruben Lee Castaneda (“Mr. Castaneda”) moves to suppress the fruits 

of a warrantless search and un-Mirandized questioning that took place at the scene of his 

arrest on July 9, 2015. (Doc. 16.) Mr. Castaneda also moves to suppress his recorded 

statements made to El Mirage Police Department (“EMPD”) officers during his 

interrogation at the police station following his arrest. (Doc. 17.) The Court held a 

suppression hearing on July 14, 2016. For the following reasons, the motions are granted 

in part and denied in part. 

BACKGROUND

 On the morning of June 9, 2015, EMPD Officers Madeya and Lazinsky riding in a 

patrol car and Officer Chairez riding in a separate patrol car witnessed Mr. Castaneda on 

a bicycle with a black backpack attached to its handlebars travelling westbound in an 

eastbound lane of traffic. Mr. Castaneda then turned down an alley, and walked his 

bicycle through a hole in a church’s chain link fence, set the bicycle against a storage 

shed, and then spoke with an individual about ninety feet away and out of sight of the 

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bicycle. The three Officers convened and determined that Mr. Castaneda’s conduct 

appeared to be an attempt to avoid the Officers; they decided to initiate contact. Officer 

Madeya determined his name and discovered that an outstanding valid misdemeanor 

arrest warrant had been issued against Mr. Castaneda for failing to appear for a prior 

shoplifting charge. Officer Madeya arrested and handcuffed Mr. Castaneda on the 

warrant. 

 Soon after, Officers Chairez and Lazinsky stated their intent to retrieve Mr. 

Castaneda’s bicycle. As they were walking away, Officer Lazinsky asked Mr. Castaneda 

“if there was anything on the bicycle that he needed to know about.” Officer Chairez 

allegedly heard Mr. Castaneda mention something about a joint; Officer Lazinsky heard 

no response. As the two Officers left, Officer Madeya took Mr. Castaneda to his patrol 

car. On the way, Officer Madeya allegedly heard Mr. Castaneda mumble that “he found 

something in the alley,” that he thought it was a “rifle or something,” and that it had 

“wood and screws.” 

 When Officers Chairez and Lazinsky arrived at the bicycle, they observed the 

backpack attached to the handlebars with a brown towel protruding from it; a rope 

wrapped around the towel was clipped to the handlebars. Officer Lazinsky, without first 

procuring a valid warrant to search the backpack, untied the rope, peered inside the towel, 

and observed what he described as a piece of wood consistent with the stock of a long 

gun. The Officers brought the bicycle back to Officer Madeya’s location. Officers 

Madeya and Lazinsky then pulled the wrapped towel from the backpack, and searched 

the contents of the towel. It contained a sawed-off shotgun. 

 Officers Madeya and Lazinsky transported Mr. Castaneda to EMPD headquarters 

and began the booking process preparatory to his transfer to the Maricopa County jail. 

Part of that process involves inventorying an incoming defendant’s property. 

(Suppression Hearing, Gov. Ex. 1 at 21.) The Officers, thus, searched the remainder of 

the backpack and found, in addition to the shotgun, shotgun shells, drug paraphernalia, 

and other miscellaneous items. According to testimony, once inventoried, the Officers 

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account for the property according to the policies of the EMPD and the Maricopa County 

jail. Any personal property that is evidence of a crime is booked by the EMPD into 

evidence. Otherwise, some limited items of personal property accompany the defendant 

to jail, while all other property is held by the EMPD for safe-keeping. Here, the Officers 

listed any suspicious property, as well as items prohibited from or too large to accompany 

Mr. Castaneda to jail (e.g., his backpack), as either “evidence” or “safe-keeping” on an 

EMPD item submission form. (Gov. Ex. 3.) The Officers also recorded the personal 

items Mr. Castaneda could take to jail on a Maricopa County arrest/booking record. 

(Gov. Ex. 2.) 

 At the station, Officers Madeya and Lazinsky questioned Mr. Castaneda. The 

interrogation was videotaped. At the beginning of the questioning, Officer Madeya read 

Mr. Castaneda his Miranda rights off of a card. When asked if he understood his rights, 

Mr. Castaneda, with his head down on the table, did not initially respond. However, 

upon prompting by the Officers, Mr. Castaneda responded “Yes. Yes, Sir.” The Officer 

then asked if, in light of his rights, he wanted to talk. Again Mr. Castaneda provided an 

unintelligible initial response, but when prompted, said “yeah.” 

 The interrogation lasted for approximately 30 minutes. The Officers asked Mr. 

Castaneda about the shotgun and the drug paraphernalia found in his backpack as well as 

the statements he made to Officer Madeya allegedly about the shotgun. After being told 

that the Officers found a “meth pipe” or “meth” in his backpack, Mr. Castaneda stated: 

“You got me probably using now.” Mr. Castaneda also, at one point, noted that he had 

been restoring bicycles “all day long 83 hours.” While at times Mr. Castaneda could 

recall details about his past and the events leading up to his arrest that day, at other times 

he only provided seemingly unintelligible answers. 

 On October 13, 2015, Mr. Castaneda was indicted for being a previously 

convicted felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 

924(a)(2). 

/ / / 

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DISCUSSION 

I. Physical Evidence Found In Mr. Castaneda’s Backpack 

 The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their 

persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. 

Const. amend. IV. Searches conducted without a warrant “are per se unreasonable under 

the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically established and welldelineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967). “The burden of 

proving that a warrantless search or seizure falls within an exception to the warrant 

requirement is on the government.” United States v. Scott, 705 F.3d 410, 416 (9th Cir. 

2012) (citation omitted). The government must prove the exception by a preponderance 

of the evidence. See United States v. Vasey, 834 F.2d 782, 785 (9th Cir. 1987). 

 The “exclusionary rule—the rule that often requires trial courts to exclude 

unlawfully seized evidence in a criminal trial—[is] the principal judicial remedy to deter 

Fourth Amendment violations.” Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. 2056, 2061 (2016) (citation 

omitted). The rule excludes both the “primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an 

illegal search or seizure” as well as “evidence later discovered and found to be derivative 

of an illegality,” otherwise known as the “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Segura v. United 

States, 468 U.S. 796, 804 (1984); see Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2056. There are exceptions to 

the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine; the prosecution has the burden to prove that they 

apply. See United States v. Twilley, 222 F.3d 1092, 1097 (9th Cir. 2000).

 A. Inevitable Discovery Doctrine 

The inevitable discovery doctrine provides that if, “by following routine 

procedures, the police would inevitably have uncovered the evidence, then the evidence 

will not be suppressed despite any constitutional violation.” United States v. Young, 573 

F.3d 711, 721 (2009) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “The government 

must make this showing by a preponderance of the evidence.” United States v. Reilly, 

224 F.3d 986, 994 (9th Cir. 2000). 

/ / / 

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 In Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640 (1983), the Supreme Court held it not 

“unreasonable for police, as part of the routine procedure incident to incarcerating an 

arrested person, to search any container or article in his possession, in accordance with 

established inventory procedures.” Id. at 648 (internal quotation marks and footnote 

omitted). Here, the government met its burden to show that under routine procedure, Mr. 

Castaneda’s backpack would have been searched and inventoried at EMPD headquarters 

thus lawfully revealing the incriminating evidence. The Officers on scene arrested Mr. 

Castaneda on a valid misdemeanor arrest warrant. Mr. Castaneda was then brought to 

EMPD headquarters to be processed and booked into Maricopa County jail. Upon 

booking, the Officers, acting pursuant to routine procedure1

 and EMPD policy 

inventoried Mr. Castaneda’s property. Such an inventory search would have inevitably 

resulted in discovery of the shotgun, the shotgun shells, and the drug paraphernalia. See 

United States v. Andrade, 784 F.2d 1431, 1433 (1986) (relying on Lafayette and holding 

evidence admissible because the evidence would have been inevitably discovered through 

an inventory search of an arrestee being booked at a DEA holding facility). 

 Mr. Castaneda asserts that the EMPD’s inventory policy, even as applied to 

inventory searches of inmates being booked into jail, is unconstitutionally broad under 

Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1 (1990), and thus it cannot “ever” justify opening Mr. 

Castaneda’s backpack. Wells, however, does not apply as broadly as Mr. Castaneda 

asserts and its limited holding is inapplicable here. In Wells, an officer conducting an 

inventory search of an impounded vehicle found and opened a locked suitcase located in 

the trunk. Wells, 495 U.S. at 2. The Court held that whether an officer may open a 

closed container during an inventory search depended to some extent on the inventory 

policy providing some guidance so as to not permit “uncanalized discretion” that turns an 

inventory search into “a purposeful and general means of discovering evidence of crime.” 

Id. at 4. Wells is inapplicable here for two reasons. First, Mr. Castaneda’s backpack was 

 

1

 During the Suppression Hearing held on July 15, 2016. Officers Lazinsky, Madeya, and Chairez all testified that it was standard police procedure to inventory the property of an arrestee brought into to EMPD headquarters to be booked into County jail. 

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not a closed container. The Officers testified, and exhibits admitted at the suppression 

hearing substantiate, that the brown towel concealing the shotgun protruded out of Mr. 

Castaneda’s backpack which hung open on the handlebars of his bicycle. (Gov. Exs. 4, 

5.) The fact is that when the backpack was found, it was found open. And to the extent 

Mr. Castaneda asserts that the wrapped towel itself constitutes a closed container, the 

Court rejects that assertion as unsupported by the facts and authority. 

 Second, an inventory search of an individual at a police station who is under arrest 

and being booked into jail is distinguishable from the inventory search of an impounded 

vehicle being held at an impoundment facility. As stated above, Lafayette governs the 

circumstances here and holds that regardless of the existence of a sufficient inventory 

policy, it is reasonable for the police, as part of a routine procedure or practice, to search 

the possessions of an individual at the stationhouse who is under arrest and being 

processed for incarceration. Lafayette, 462 U.S. at 645–46; Andrade, 784 F.2d at 1434. 

Such a search is a reasonable procedure because it satisfies the interests of the police “to 

protect an owner’s property while it is in the custody of the police, to insure against 

claims of lost, stolen, or vandalized property, and to guard the police from danger.” 

Bertine, 479 U.S. at 372. The Lafayette Court held that as to such searches, “every 

consideration of orderly police administration benefiting both police and the public points 

toward the appropriateness of the examination” of an arrestee’s possessions during 

booking. Lafayette, 462 U.S. at 647. Here, it is undisputed that it is a routine procedure 

for arresting officers to inventory the property of arrestees pending booking at EMPD 

headquarters and awaiting transfer to Maricopa County jail. The discovery of the 

shotgun hanging out of the backpack was thus inevitable in such an inventory search. 

The inevitable discovery doctrine “requires only that the government show the evidence 

would have been discovered inevitably by lawful means.” Andrade, 784 F.2d at 1433 

n.3. Accordingly, the shotgun and the ammunition are admissible. 

 Finally, Mr. Castaneda argues that the inevitable discovery doctrine cannot rely on 

the Officers’ inventory search at EMPD headquarters because the Officers had no reason 

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to “ever take custody of Mr. Castaneda’s backpack” in the first place. (Doc. 26 at 9.) 

This argument is not persuasive. Officers Lazinsky, Madeya, and Chairez all testified 

that prior to making contact with him they witnessed Mr. Castaneda riding his bicycle 

with the backpack attached to its handlebars. Officer Chairez further testified that he 

witnessed Mr. Castaneda walk and leave the bicycle leaning against a storage shed on the 

church property. The Officers, thus, knew that the bicycle belonged to Mr. Castaneda or 

it at least was recently in his possession. Nevertheless, Mr. Castaneda asserts that the 

Officers should have sought out an individual in the area to take possession of the 

property on Mr. Castaneda’s behalf before they took possession of it themselves. To the 

extent that such a scenario was even possible, “[t]he reasonableness of any particular 

governmental activity does not necessarily or invariably turn on the existence of 

alternative less intrusive means.” See Lafayette, 462 U.S. at 647 (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Given the facts, the Officers had the obligation to take custody of the 

backpack upon Mr. Castaneda’s arrest. 

 The inevitable discovery doctrine governs the admissibility of the physical 

evidence in this case. Accordingly, the evidence found as a result of the Officers’ 

inventory search of Mr. Castaneda’s backpack upon his booking at EMPD headquarters 

is admissible. 

II. Mr. Castaneda’s Statements 

 The Fifth Amendment protects an individual’s right not to be compelled in “any 

criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 607 

(2004) (citation omitted). To ensure that right, the Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona, 

384 U.S. 436 (1966) concluded that “the accused must be adequately and effectively 

apprised of his rights and the exercise of those rights must be fully honored[.]” Id. at 

467. “Miranda conditioned the admissibility at trial of any custodial confession on 

warning a suspect of his rights: failure to give the prescribed warnings and obtain a 

waiver of rights before custodial questioning generally requires exclusion of any 

statements obtained.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 608. “The prosecution bears the burden of 

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proving, at least by a preponderance of the evidence, the Miranda waiver . . . and the 

voluntariness of the confession[.]” Id. at 608 n.1 (citations omitted). 

A. Mr. Castaneda’s Statements Made At the Scene of His Arrest 

 1. Officer Safety Exception 

Officer Lazinsky asked Mr. Castaneda while he was in custody2

 “if there was 

anything on the bicycle that he needed to know about.” The government contends that 

Officer Lazinsky’s question falls within the Quarles exception to the Miranda 

requirement. See N.Y. v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984). The Supreme Court in Quarles 

held that Miranda need not “be applied in all its rigor to a situation in which police 

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

656. The test is whether there was “an objectively reasonable need to protect the police 

or the public from any immediate danger.” United States v. Brady, 819 F.2d 884, 888 n.3 

(9th Cir. 1987) (emphasis added). Put another way, the Court must determine whether 

the question was intended to elicit testimonial evidence or was sparked by a pressing 

need to ensure police and/or public safety. Id. at 888. 

 The government cites three cases in support of its position: Quarles, Brady, and 

Carillo. Both Quarles and Brady are too factually distinct to be applicable here. In both 

cases, the police officers involved asked the defendants about the presence of a gun after 

arriving on the scene due to the alleged commission of a violent crime. See Quarles, 467 

U.S. at 651–52 (victim who reported being sexually assaulted warned police that the 

defendant was carrying a gun); Brady, 819 F.2d at 885 (police responded to a report of a 

man beating a woman and noticed armed gang members in the crowd gathering at the 

scene). Here, the Officers investigated Mr. Castaneda on their own accord because he 

allegedly violated a traffic law and seemed to be avoiding police contact. They also did 

not seek to approach the backpack, which was ninety feet away, until after Mr. Castaneda 

was under arrest and in handcuffs. No facts about Mr. Castaneda, his conduct, or his 

 

2

 The government does not contend that Mr. Castaneda was in custody and had not yet been Mirandized at the time of Officer Lazinsky’s question. 

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arrest give rise to the same potential threat present in Quarles and Brady. 

 In the third case cited by the government, United States v. Carillo, 16 F.3d 1046 

(9th Cir. 1994), the police arrested the defendant on drug charges and transported him to 

a detention facility. Id. at 1049. Once there, a police officer prepared to search the 

defendant’s person. Id. Before he began, and before he provided the defendant with his 

Miranda warnings, he asked the defendant whether he had any drugs or needles on his 

person. Id. The defendant responded that he did not use drugs, rather he sold drugs; the 

defendant moved to suppress the statement. Id. The district court held the statement to 

be admissible under the Quarles exception and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Id. The Ninth 

Circuit looked at three aspects of the interaction: (1) did the questioning officer face 

immediate danger, (2) was the question itself non-investigatory in nature, and (3) did the 

officer cease questioning the defendant or did the officer seek more information. Id. The 

court held that during a search of a prisoner, an officer faces the potential immediate 

danger of contact with syringes and harmful substances. The court determined that the 

question was not investigative because it called for a simple “yes” or “no” answer. 

Finally, the officer only asked the one question even after the prisoner gave an 

incriminating response. Thus the court determined that the officer asked the question 

solely to ensure his own safety. 

 The government contends that like the officer in Carillo, Officer Lazinsky asked 

his question to ensure his safety from immediate danger as he went to “secure and 

inventory [Mr. Castaneda’s] belongings. [Because t]here are limitless unknown items 

that could be in an individual’s belongings.” (Doc. 18 at 11.) Such a vague and broad 

contention of danger falls outside the scope of the Quarles exception. Even in Carillo, 

although the officer did not face the same degree of objective danger faced by the officers 

in Quarles and Brady, the officer still faced specific dangers inherent in searching a 

defendant’s person recently arrested on drug charges, i.e., the heightened risk that he or 

she may be holding drugs or drug paraphernalia in their pockets or other places. Here, 

Officer Lazinsky faced no scenario that made a decision to Mirandize Mr. Castaneda 

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before questioning him unreasonable.3 Carillo, 16 F.3d at 1049. 

 Further undermining the application of the Quarles exception is the nature of the 

question itself; Officer Lazinsky’s question to Mr. Castaneda was vague and 

investigative. Asking if there is “anything” Officer Lazinsky needed to know about 

invites Mr. Castaneda to list specific items of evidence or other incriminating information 

just as much as it addresses officer or public safety; Mr. Castaneda’s alleged answer of a 

“joint” illustrates this point. By contrast, in all three cases cited by the government, the 

officers asked specific questions tailored to determine and ensure their imminent safety 

given the facts surrounding the encounter. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 652 (After stopping a 

defendant whom the officer was told had a gun, frisking him and feeling an empty gun 

holster, the officer then asked the defendant “where the gun was.”); Brady, 819 F.2d at 

885 (The officer responded to a domestic violence call and observed armed gang 

members in the crowd before asking the defendant “if he had a gun in the car.”); Carillo, 

16 F.3d at 1049 (Before searching the defendant’s person after he was arrested on drug 

charges, the officer asked “if he had any drugs or needles on his person.”). An unMirandized custodial question intended to evoke testimonial evidence as opposed to a 

question strictly intended to resolve an officer’s objectively reasonable immediate safety 

concerns cannot be excused by the Quarles exception. 

 The third Castillo factor favors the government since Officer Lazinsky only asked 

one question. Nevertheless, the government cannot invoke the Quarles exception on this 

record. Officer Lazinsky’s question violated Mr. Castaneda’s rights under Miranda. 

Any alleged response to that question that elicited information about the presence of a 

joint or finding “a rifle or something” that had “wood and screws” in an alley is 

suppressed. 

 

3

 Another meaningful distinction here is that unlike the officer in Carillo, who by policy had an obligation to search the defendant’s person upon arrival at the detention facility, see Carillo, 16 F.3d at 1049, Officer Lazinsky was under no such obligation. Moreover, unlike the inherent risks of a needle prick or other exposure when searching an individual, Officer Lazinsky could have secured the backpack in a way that avoided contact with it thus relieving whatever tenuous safety concerns he may have had. 

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 2. Spontaneous Statements Exception 

Next the government contends that Mr. Castaneda’s mumbled statements made in 

Officer Madeya’s presence as Mr. Castaneda was being led to Officer Madeya’s patrol 

car constitute spontaneous remarks not protected by Miranda. The government cites 

People v. Mickey, 818 P.2d 84 (Cal. 1991), a California Supreme Court case, to support 

its position that “Miranda . . . does not ‘prohibit the police from merely listening to . . . 

voluntary, volunteered statements uttered by a person, whether or not in custody, and 

using them against him at the trial.” Id. at 100 (citing Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 

485 (1981)) (internal quotation marks omitted). In Mickey, detectives Mirandized the 

defendant who invoked his right to counsel. Id. at 100. Nevertheless, the defendant, 

while being transported from Tokyo, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii, voluntarily began 

speaking to detectives who never engaged in “express questioning” at any point before or 

during the flight. Id. The Court could not discern “any custodial interrogation within the 

meaning of Miranda” and accordingly ruled the statements admissible since without a 

custodial interrogation, “Miranda simply does not come into play.” Id. (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 

 The facts here differ. Officer Lazinsky’s investigatory question to a handcuffed 

and arrested Mr. Castaneda constitutes a custodial interrogation under Miranda. A very 

short time, if not immediately after Officer Lazinksy posed the question and walked away 

to retrieve Mr. Castaneda’s bicycle, Officer Madeya led Mr. Castaneda to his patrol car. 

On the way, Mr. Castaneda made three comments related to his bicycle and the contents 

of his backpack. The government argues that because Officer Madeya did not ask Mr. 

Castaneda any questions, those comments were spontaneous and voluntary like the 

comments in Mickey. Yet in Mickey, at no point in time did any officer pose any 

investigative question related to the defendant’s alleged crime; rather the defendant, after 

hours of contact with the detectives, eventually began divulging incriminating details. 

The Court found no proximate cause between anything a detective did or said and the 

defendant’s statements. Here, however, a very short period of time passed between 

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Officer Lazinsky’s question and Mr. Castaneda’s comments. Further, Mr. Castaneda’s 

comments related to Officer Lazinsky’s question. The fact that Mr. Castaneda made 

those comments in Officer Madeya’s presence and not to the questioner does not 

somehow make them spontaneous and apart from the custodial interrogation. 

 Because the Officers never apprised Mr. Castaneda of his Miranda rights, use of 

the comments against Mr. Castaneda would violate his Fifth Amendment rights, thus they 

are inadmissible. 

B. Mr. Castaneda’s Recorded Statements Made During His Interrogation 

at EMPD Headquarters 

An individual may waive his or her Miranda rights “provided [that] the waiver is 

made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently.” See Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444. “There is 

a presumption against waiver,” however, “which the Government bears the burden of 

overcoming by a preponderance of the evidence.” United States v. Crews, 502 F.3d 

1130, 1139–40 (9th Cir. 2007) (citation omitted). “To meet this burden, generally, the 

Government must prove that, under the totality of the circumstances, the defendant was 

aware of the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of such 

abandonment.” Id. at 1140. When analyzing the totality of the circumstances, Courts 

typically consider a number of factors including “(i) the defendant’s mental capacity; (ii) 

whether the defendant signed a written waiver; (iii) whether the defendant was advised in 

his native tongue or had a translator; (iv) whether the defendant appeared to understand 

his rights; (v) whether the defendant’s rights were individually and repeatedly explained 

to him; and (vi) whether the defendant had prior experience with the criminal justice 

system.” Id. As to mental capacity, intoxication can preclude voluntariness if it reaches 

the level of incapacitation that it subverts the defendant’s intellect and overcomes his or 

her free will. See, e.g., Medeiros v. Shimoda, 889 F.2d 819, 823 (9th Cir. 1989). 

/ / / 

/ / / 

/ / / 

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 Mr. Castaneda asserts that he had a diminished mental capacity during the period 

of interrogation4

 due to methamphetamine intoxication and related exhaustion such that 

he could not have understood his Miranda rights nor could he have legally waived them. 

There is no direct evidence that Mr. Castaneda was under the influence of 

methamphetamine during his interrogation; nevertheless, Mr. Castaneda argues that 

“[a]vailable evidence tends to indicate that Mr. Castaneda is a consumer of 

methamphetamine, and the statements made by Mr. Castaneda as well as his observed 

behavior during the interview are consistent with the symptoms of methamphetamine 

use.” (Doc. 27 at 3.) Mr. Castaneda’s demeanor while the Officers read him his 

Miranda rights and throughout the interrogation is not reflective of someone so 

intoxicated or of such diminished mental capacity that he is no longer able to exercise his 

intellect or free will. While the Officers did find a used methamphetamine pipe in his 

backpack, and Mr. Castaneda did, at one point, suggest that the Officers may have caught 

him using and that he may have been working all day for 83 hours, such facts are 

insufficient in light of the totality of the circumstances to invalidate his waiver. Crews, 

502 F.3d at 1140. 

 The majority of the Crews factors are present here. After Officer Madeya read 

him his Miranda rights, Mr. Castaneda affirmatively acknowledged understanding his 

rights and then affirmatively agreed to proceed with the interrogation. His rights were 

read to him in English and there is no indication that English was not his primary 

language. Mr. Castaneda also has prior experience with the criminal justice system. 

Moreover, mental capacity is also only one factor; thus, even if the Court were to assume, 

based on the circumstantial evidence, that Mr. Castaneda was intoxicated to some degree, 

the facts do not evidence a level of intoxication overriding the other factors. Finally, 

throughout the interrogation, Mr. Castaneda, amongst other things, recalled details about 

the past day, articulated specifics about where he allegedly found the gun, and expressed 

 

4

 The government provided the Court with a DVD recording of Mr. Castaneda’s interrogation via a notice submitted to the Clerk’s Office on June 10, 2016. 

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that he understood that as a previously convicted felon he could not possess a firearm. 

And to the extent that many parts of his responses were indecipherable to someone 

listening to the recording, the indecipherability seems to be caused by low talking or a 

poor recording and not jumbled or nonsensical speech indicative of intoxication. Given 

those circumstances, Mr. Castaneda’s waiver of his Miranda rights was voluntary, 

knowing, and intelligent and his subsequent statements are therefore admissible.5

 

CONCLUSION 

 For the foregoing reasons, Mr. Castaneda’s motions to suppress are granted in part 

and denied in part. 

 IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that: 

 1. Mr. Castaneda’s Motion to Suppress Evidence (Doc. 16) is GRANTED in 

part and DENIED in part. 

 2. Mr. Castaneda’s Motion to Suppress Defendant’s Statements (Doc. 17) is 

DENIED. 

 Dated this 22nd day of July, 2016. 

Honorable G. Murray Snow

United States District Judge

 

5

 Mr. Castaneda argues that even if he waived his Miranda rights and thus his interrogation was lawful, the Officers induced his admissions regarding the shotgun by confronting him with unlawfully seized evidence; thus under the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine, his admissions must be suppressed. The “doctrine applies . . . when the fruit of the Fourth Amendment violation is a confession.” Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 

298, 306 (1985). Because the Court ruled above that the physical evidence found in Mr. Castaneda’s backpack is admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine, Mr. Castaneda’s alternative point is moot. 

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