Opinion ID: 1366491
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Improper Miranda Questioning

Text: On the morning of the murders, defendant made certain statements in response to 3 questions asked by Officer Hartson. Before trial, defendant moved to suppress the statements. The trial judge denied the motion and ruled that the statements were admissible because: [T]hose statements were voluntary, ... they were not obtained in violation of the defendant's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, and ... they were obtained pursuant to public safety concerns of the officers at the time, also concern for the opportunity to rescue anybody that might still be in that apartment, and to protect themselves. Defendant argues that the trial judge erred because the public safety exception does not apply, and his responses were obtained in violation of his Miranda rights.  Miranda requires the police to give certain warnings to a person in custody before interrogating him. United States v. Brady, 819 F.2d 884, 887 (9th Cir.1987), citing Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444-45, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1612-13, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). A person is in custody if he is under arrest, or if his freedom of movement is restrained to a degree associated with formal arrest. Brady, 819 F.2d at 887, citing New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 655, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 2631, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984). Defendant clearly was in custody when Officer Hartson questioned him. After he was removed from the murder scene, Officer Hartson placed defendant in an arm bar and made him kneel on the ground. In fact, Officer Hartson later testified that defendant was not free to leave at the time of the questioning. Thus, because defendant was in custody when Officer Hartson questioned him, Miranda warnings normally would have been required before the statements could be admitted at trial. Exceptions to this general rule exist, however. The Supreme Court has stated that [t]he prophylactic Miranda warnings ... are `not themselves rights protected by the Constitution but [are] instead measures to insure that the right against compulsory self-incrimination is protected.' Quarles, 467 U.S. at 654, 104 S.Ct. at 2630, quoting Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 444, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 2364, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974). In Quarles, the Court recognized a public safety exception to the Miranda requirement, holding 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. 467 U.S. at 656, 104 S.Ct. at 2632. The Court distinguished between questions necessary to secure [the police's] own safety or the safety of the public and questions designed solely to elicit testimonial evidence from a suspect. 467 U.S. at 659, 104 S.Ct. at 2633. The Court concluded that voluntary responses to the first type of questions could be admitted, despite the lack of Miranda warnings. See Quarles, 467 U.S. at 657-60, 104 S.Ct. at 2632-33. Defendant does not argue that his statements were involuntary; instead, he argues that the public safety exception does not apply because the questions asked were investigatory in nature and thus went beyond the scope of the public safety exception recognized by the Court in Quarles. We disagree. At the time that Officer Hartson questioned defendant, the police were operating under a great deal of uncertainty in a very dangerous situation. The police had been denied access to the apartment; yet, they knew that someone was in the apartment, wearing what they thought was a red shirt and suspenders. When they finally gained access to the apartment, the police were greeted with a blood-splattered room, a bloody knife blade lying on the floor, and the body of Mrs. G lying on the living room floor. As the officers surveyed the carnage, the bloodstained, shirtless defendant approached them from the hallway. While one of the officers took defendant into custody, another notified the officers stationed at the back of the apartment that they had detained a male subject. After being told that the subject was not wearing suspenders, one of the officers responded: [t]here is a guy in that apartment with suspenders, you need to find him. It was in response to this situation that Officer Hartson, without first informing defendant of his Miranda rights, asked defendant the following three questions: Q. What is going on? A. We had a big fight. Q. Who else was inside? A. My girlfriend and her daughter. Q. Is anybody else hurt? A. Yeah, they're hurt pretty bad. We're all hurt pretty bad. Only after receiving this information did Sgts. Howk and Stahl proceed further into the apartment. Defendant basically argues that because Officer Hartson did not specifically limit his question to asking who else is in the apartment, the public safety exception does not apply. We disagree. The facts of this case are somewhat analogous to the facts in United States v. Brady, 819 F.2d 884 (9th Cir.1987). In Brady, police officers stopped a car that they believed contained a woman who had been abducted. After they stopped the car, the woman passenger ran toward the officers. The officers then drew their guns on the driver and ordered him out of the car. Although a frisk of the defendant did not turn up any weapons, the officers still feared that a weapon might be within defendant's reach. It was getting dark and the officers faced a growing crowd in a rough neighborhood. To control what they perceived to be a dangerous situation, one of the officers asked defendant a number of questions without first giving him Miranda warnings. In fact, in Brady, the officer tried to obtain the suspect's consent to search the trunk of his car, and after his request was denied, the officer still proceeded to ask about the gun. The question that the court in Brady considered in determining whether the public safety exception applied was whether there was an objectively reasonable need to protect the police or the public from any immediate danger. Brady, 819 F.2d at 888 n. 3, quoting Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659 n. 8, 104 S.Ct. at 2633 n. 8. Thus, the court focused on the nature and context of the questions, and concluded that the questions were motivated by public safety concerns and were not designed to obtain evidence of a crime. Brady, 819 F.2d at 888. Accordingly, the court concluded that defendant's voluntary statements were admissible under the public safety exception, despite the absence of Miranda warnings. The police officers in this case, as in Brady, faced a great deal of uncertainty. They did not know what had occurred in the apartment, how many people were involved, or whether anyone other than the person lying in the front room needed assistance. Moreover, the officers reasonably believed that someone who was wearing a red shirt and suspenders and who did not appear to be physically injured was in the apartment. Officer Hartson's questions were directed at discovering what the police officers would encounter when they entered the apartment  i.e., they were geared toward eliciting information that the police needed to protect themselves and anyone else in the apartment. Merely because Officer Hartson asked more than one question to get this information does not change the nature of his inquiry from one motivated by a need to protect the safety of his fellow officers or members of the public to one designed to obtain evidence of a crime. Accordingly, we find that defendant's statements were made in response to questions that were necessary to secure the safety of both the police and the public, and thus the statements were admissible under the public safety exception to the Miranda requirements.