Source: https://www.mjpetro.com/press-releases/18-usc-3501c-and-the-six-hour-rule-boilerplate-rules/
Timestamp: 2018-04-21 05:22:28
Document Index: 24694154

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3501', '§ 3501', '§ 3501', '§ 3501', '§ 3501', '§ 3501', '§ 3501', '§ 3501']

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Michael J. Petro
United States of America v. Dhawndric McDowell, No. 10-2543
Dhawndric McDowell occasionally worked for the Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) as a confidential informant, but his primary job was selling cocaine for a Mexican drug cartel. One of his suppliers, known to him only as “Jose,” agreed to assist the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) with a sting.
Under the direction of federal agents, “Jose” arranged to deliver ten kilograms of cocaine to McDowell at a drop point in Chicago. McDowell was arrested at the point of delivery.
Once in federal custody, McDowell announced to the agents that he was an informant for the Chicago police. Because it was after hours and they needed to sort out this claim, the agents asked him if he would be willing to waive his right to prompt presentment before a magistrate judge. See FED. R. CRIM. P. 5(a). McDowell agreed, signed a written Rule 5(a) waiver, and spent the night in jail.
The next morning he signed a Miranda waiver and confessed his involvement in cocaine trafficking. He was taken before a magistrate judge early that afternoon. Based on his confession and other evidence, a jury convicted McDowell of conspiracy and attempted possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
McDowell became a confidential informant for the CPD in 2008, but unbeknownst to his “handler,” continued to sell cocaine on the side. In the fall of that year, in an independent investigation, the DEA developed a cooperating source—a high-ranking member of a Mexican cartel who supplied cocaine to Chicago-area dealers, including McDowell. Federal agents thereafter arranged a series of stings using this source.
On December 1, 2008, the supplier—known to McDowell only as “Jose” and whom he had never met—called McDowell to collect on a drug debt. The next day Jose called again and offered McDowell a large quantity of cocaine at $28,500 a kilogram. In this conversation (all these calls were recorded), Jose asked McDowell, “How many [kilograms] do you want me to send you?” McDowell replied, “Whatever you can.” Jose promised ten kilos, and McDowell agreed to meet Jose’s runner that evening to take delivery. Jose directed him to a parking lot next to a Dollar Bazaar store on the west side of Chicago.
At the appointed hour—6 p.m.—McDowell pulled into the Dollar Bazaar parking lot driving a Porsche SUV. An undercover officer approached and asked if he needed “ten,” to which McDowell replied, “Yeah.” (This transaction was audio- and video-recorded.) McDowell popped his trunk and the runner placed a bag containing sham cocaine inside. The runner then sought payment, asking McDowell if he had “something for me.” McDowell replied that he had been told by Jose that “he can get me on the next one.” When McDowell got back in his SUV, officers converged on the scene. DEA agents arrested McDowell … It was approximately 6:30 p.m.
The agents took McDowell to a local police precinct and made him wait in a conference room while they verified his surprising claim that “I work for you.” At 10 p.m. McDowell’s CPD handler arrived and confirmed that McDowell was indeed a CPD informant. But the Chicago officer also told the agents that McDowell was not working under the direction of the CPD at the time of the transaction that led to his arrest.
Because it was after normal business hours, the federal agents asked McDowell if he would waive his right to prompt presentment before a magistrate judge. See FED. R. CRIM. P. 5(a) (“A person making an arrest . . . must take the defendant without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge . . . .”). He agreed and signed a written Rule 5(a) waiver consenting to forgo his right to be taken before a federal magistrate for a period of up to 72 hours.
The common-law rule of “prompt presentment” required a law-enforcement officer to take an arrested person before a magistrate “as soon as he reasonably could.” Corley, 556 U.S. at 306. This requirement is codified at Rule 5(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which provides that “[a] person making an arrest within the United States must take the defendant without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge . . . unless a statute provides otherwise.”
In McNabb the Supreme Court established an exclusionary remedy for confessions taken in violation of the common-law prompt-presentment requirement; the Court reaffirmed its McNabb holding in Mallory. Thus, under the rule known as McNabb-Mallory, “an arrested person’s confession is inadmissible if given after an unreasonable delay in bringing him before a judge.” Corley, 556 U.S. at 306.
Congress modified the McNabb-Mallory rule in 1968 with legislation that also responded to the Court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Corley, 556 U.S. at 309. Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 3501 in an effort to override Miranda and mitigate the effects of the McNabb-Mallory rule. Id. Subsections (a) and (b) of the statute address Miranda and are not at issue here. Id.
Subsection (c) addresses the McNabb-Mallory exclusionary rule:
[A] confession made or given by a person . . . while such person was under arrest or other detention in the custody of any law-enforcement officer or lawenforcement agency, shall not be inadmissible solely because of delay in bringing such person before a magistrate judge . . . if such confession is found by the trial judge to have been made voluntarily . . . and if such confession was made or given by such person within six hours immediately following his arrest or other detention: Provided, That the time limitation contained in this subsection shall not apply in any case in which the delay in bringing such person before such magistrate judge . . . beyond such six-hour period is found by the trial judge to be reasonable considering the means of transportation and the distance to be traveled to the nearest available such magistrate judge . . . . 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c).
This reasoning misunderstands the relationship between Rule 5(a), § 3501(c), and the McNabb-Mallory rule. As we have explained, under Rule 5(a), an arrested person has a right to prompt presentment before a magistrate without unnecessary delay.
Under McNabb- Mallory a confession obtained in violation of the right to prompt presentment must be suppressed if the delay was unreasonable or unnecessary.
Finally, under § 3501(c) law-enforcement officers have a six-hour safe harbor within which to question a suspect before presentment, but the court must apply McNabb-Mallory to a confession made outside the six-hour time limit and before presentment. In other words, the prompt-presentment right is found in Rule 5(a); § 3501(c) and McNabb-Mallory establish the remedial framework for assessing violations of the right.
And like other important rights, the right to prompt presentment may be waived. By signing this waiver, McDowell gave up his right to prompt presentment for the length of time specified in the waiver. By giving up the right to prompt presentment, McDowell necessarily gave up the corresponding remedy of McNabb-Mallory, as modified by § 3501(c).
There is no dispute that McDowell signed the Rule 5(a) waiver knowingly and voluntarily.
McDowell’s voluntary waiver of his Rule 5(a) right therefore eliminated any need for the district court to address the remedial framework of § 3501(c) and McNabb-Mallory. McDowell’s confession was admissible without regard to the delay in presentment. Where, as here, the defendant waives his Rule 5(a) right, there is no reason for judicial inquiry into whether the delay in presentment was unreasonable or unnecessary under § 3501(c) and McNabb-Mallory.