Opinion ID: 2782883
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Police Encounter Audio

Text: Because two of the officers involved in the June 24 encounter at the Motel 6 wore videorecording devices on their uniforms, Defendant moved to “suppress” all audio-visual records of law enforcement activities in his case before trial.2 Defendant alleged the audio-visual recordings of him being restrained after the officers entered Room 231 created a danger of undue prejudice that outweighed their limited probative value. While the United States did not intend to offer the entire recording into evidence, it argued that portions of the video were particularly relevant to show “which defendants were present in [Room 231], the relative location of the defendants in the room, [and] the location of contraband.” The magistrate judge ordered the United States to excerpt the recordings to show only the portions that would be presented at trial. The magistrate judge then reviewed the excerpted recordings and denied Defendant’s motion, determining that the recordings were not unfairly prejudicial because they “show[ed] nothing the officers themselves could not testify about.” However, the magistrate judge reserved the final determination of admissibility to the trial judge because the recordings could become unnecessarily cumulative of the officers’ testimony. 2 As the magistrate judge correctly noted, this motion is more appropriately construed as a motion in limine. -7- No. 14-5430, United States v. Roberts Immediately before trial, defense counsel stated that he viewed the video excerpts again and had no objection to the video being shown, but did object to admitting the audio recorded before Defendant and Jamica Woods, one of the co-conspirators present in Room 231, were given a Miranda warning. That audio captured Woods’s statement to Investigator Garrison that the group had come from Knoxville to shop in Johnson City, as well as the officer’s response that people in Johnson City typically went to Knoxville to shop. The district court denied the motion because Defendant waived the issue by failing to raise it in a timely pretrial motion. Alternatively, the court held that the audio would be admissible as a co-conspirator’s statement under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E). The video excerpts preapproved by the magistrate judge were admitted into evidence without objection during trial. On appeal, Defendant claims that the district court improperly admitted the pre-Miranda audio capturing the verbal exchange between Investigator Garrison and Woods after the police entered Room 231. Def.’s Br. 27. A motion to suppress evidence must be raised before trial. Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(3)(C). “Failure to do so ‘by the deadline the court sets under Rule 12(c)’ constitutes waiver of the defense by the party.” United States v. Coss, 677 F.3d 278, 283 (6th Cir. 2012) (quoting Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(e)). Yet, “[f]or good cause, the court may grant relief from the waiver.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(e). While Defendant does not argue “good cause,” he maintains that he raised the suppression issue in a pretrial motion. Def.’s Br. 28. Defendant did file a motion “to suppress all audio-visual records of law enforcement activities in this case on June 24, 2011, at or in a room at the Motel 6 in Johnson City, Tennessee.” But his brief in support of that motion made no mention of the need to suppress the conversation between Investigator Garrison and Woods, -8- No. 14-5430, United States v. Roberts focusing solely on the unfair prejudice that would arise if recordings of Defendant being restrained and Mirandized were admitted at trial. Defendant therefore failed to make his current argument in the pretrial motion. “Even when a party has brought a pretrial suppression motion, . . . any new suppression arguments raised for the first time on appeal that were not contained in the original suppression motion will be deemed waived under Rule 12(e).” United States v. Lopez-Medina, 461 F.3d 724, 738 (6th Cir. 2006). The district court thus correctly denied Defendant’s motion.