Opinion ID: 2073303
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Preservation of objections for appellate review

Text: Counsel for Parkinson, prior to trial, moved to suppress for use as evidence at trial Mrs. Breau's out-of-court identification as well as her prospective in-court identification pursuant to Rule 41(e), M.R.Crim.P. The defendant also sought the suppression of the cases of tapes taken by the police from the automobile of his companion on this occasion, but did not include in his pretrial proceeding a request for the exclusion of the plastic strips seized from his person by Officer Bowring. After hearing, a Justice other than the Justice presiding at trial denied the defendant's pretrial motion to suppress the identification testimony and the use of the tapes as evidence, while granting some relief with which we are not concerned in this appeal. When such evidence was introduced at trial, however, no objections were voiced to the out-of-court identification by Mrs. Breau, nor to her in-court identification. Insofar as the two boxes of tapes are concerned, the defendant's counsel at trial, upon the Court's inquiry from him as to any objections, answered that he had none. On the other hand, the Court ruled at trial, over the defendant's objections, that the plastic strips were admissible, because they were legally seized in the course of a lawful arrest. Mere failure to object at trial to the admissibility of evidence which the court in pretrial proceedings refused to suppress will not preclude appellate review of the unfavorable ruling on the motion to suppress. State v. Hazelton, Me., 330 A.2d 919, 922 (1975). Counsel's failure to renew at trial his objection to the evidence will not be construed as a waiver and the ruling on the motion will preserve the point on appeal, unless the record should disclose special circumstances calling for the non-application of the rule. Taylor v. State, 337 So.2d 773 (Ala.Cr.App.1976), cert. quashed, 337 So.2d 776 (Ala.1976). See also State v. Connolly, 133 Vt. 565, 350 A.2d 364, 367 (1975); Riojas v. State, 530 S.W.2d 298, 301 (Tex.Cr.1975); United States v. Lemon, 550 F.2d 467, 473 (9th Cir. 1977). Thus, the correctness of the ruling below which refused to suppress the identification testimony is properly before us for review. Absent special circumstances indicating a conscious and intelligent waiver at trial of any objections to evidence concerning which counsel had raised objections and the same had been overruled at a pretrial suppression hearing, counsel's statement at trial, induced by the court's express inquiry, that he had no objection to the evidence, without more, did not constitute an abandonment of his previous position, but merely indicated his acknowledgment of the court's ruling on the issue. State v. Richards, 229 N.W.2d 229 (Iowa 1975); Lawn v. United States, 355 U.S. 339, 353, 78 S.Ct. 311, 319-320, 2 L.Ed.2d 321 (1958). But see Martelly v. State, 230 Md. 341, 187 A.2d 105, 107 (1963). Hence, the propriety of the ruling below which denied the defendant's pretrial motion to suppress the two boxes of tapes was properly preserved for our review. The reviewability of the seizure of the plastic strips taken from the person of the defendant by Officer Bowring rests on other grounds. Although counsel for the defendant did, prior to trial, present to the court and press his motion to suppress testimonial evidence relating to the identification of the defendant and the real evidence consisting of the two boxes of tapes, his motion to suppress the plastic strips was made for the first time during trial. He conceded knowing the strips had been seized and were in the possession of the State. Although the trial Justice stated that the defendant should have raised this issue in his pretrial suppression motion, nevertheless, he did say he could not see any basis for excluding the plastic strips as it appeared they had been properly seized to a lawful arrest and denied their suppression in relation to the State's motion for their admission in evidence. True, Rule 41(e), M.R.Crim.P., like Rule 41(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, provides that a motion to suppress evidence claimed to have been obtained by an unlawful search and seizure shall be made before trial or hearing unless opportunity therefor did not exist or the defendant was not aware of the grounds for the motion. Some authorities say that this requirement of the rule implements a sound judicial practice designed to prevent interruption in the orderly course of a trial and to avoid a break in the continuity of the jury's attention necessarily resulting from a collateral inquiry into the lawfulness or unlawfulness of evidence in connection with Fourth Amendment rights violation. However, we need not decide in this case whether the defendant would have lost his right to object to the admissibility of the plastic strips which he could have moved to suppress prior to trial, but failed to do, since the Justice below, in the exercise of discretion expressly vested in him by the rule, did not rest his decision on the untimeliness of the objection, but rather ruled on the merits of the question. In such circumstances, the issue is preserved for appellate review. See Giacona v. United States, 257 F.2d 450 (5th Cir. 1958), cert. denied, 358 U.S. 873, 79 S.Ct. 113, 3 L.Ed.2d 104; Sumrall v. United States, 382 F.2d 651 (10th Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1055, 88 S.Ct. 806, 19 L.Ed.2d 853; United States v. Colon, 559 F.2d 1380, 1382, n. 1 (5th Cir. 1977).