Opinion ID: 4577177
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Fentanyl Statement. The defendant first

Text: challenges the district court's refusal to suppress a statement that he made before any Miranda warnings were administered. Some stage-setting is useful. We assume arguendo — as the defendant exhorts — that he was in custody from the moment that the troopers ousted him from his vehicle. On this assumption, the defendant posits that his statement about having [j]ust a little bit of fentanyl, made prior to his receipt of Miranda warnings, should have been suppressed. We think not. Like many general rules, the Miranda rule admits of some exceptions. One such exception allows the admission of unwarned custodial statements given in response to questions necessary to secure [an officer's] own safety or the safety of the public. United States v. Fox, 393 F.3d 52, 60 (1st Cir. 2004) (alteration in original) (quoting New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 659 (1984)), cert. granted, judgment vacated on other grounds, 545 U.S. 1125 (2005). For this exception to apply, the officers' questions must relate to an objectively reasonable need to address an immediate danger and cannot be designed solely to elicit testimonial evidence from a suspect. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659 & n.8. - 15 - The district court concluded that the public safety exception applied to the defendant's fentanyl statement. Simpkins, 2019 WL 148650, at . It found that, during the traffic stop, the Maine State Police followed procedures for a high-risk arrest because they knew from reports of an August 2017 mental wellness check that the defendant owned firearms and other weapons.3 Id. at  & n.3. Following that high-risk protocol, the defendant was handcuffed and patted down for weapons immediately upon exiting his vehicle. See id. at . During the pat-down, the defendant was asked if he had anything on him. Id. Although he replied that he only had a pocketknife, the trooper conducting the pat-down noticed something in the defendant's pocket, apparently by feel, and asked, [w]hat's that? Id. The defendant replied that it was [j]ust a little bit of fentanyl. Id. On this record, it is apparent to us — as it was to the district court — that the question which elicited the defendant's fentanyl statement arose out of an objectively reasonable concern for officer safety rather than an effort to obtain 3Reports of that incident indicated that the defendant had discharged a firearm inside his Rhode Island home and had told the police that he was being watched by the CIA and the DEA. After the defendant was remitted for a psychological evaluation, the police removed a number of firearms and edged weapons from his residence. Those items were returned to him at some time prior to the traffic stop that is at issue here. - 16 - testimonial evidence. See Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659 & n.8. As the defendant conceded below, his personal history justified the precaution of a pat-down for weapons. Though open-ended in nature, the trooper's question was posed in furtherance of a reasonable and briskly conducted check for weapons. What is more, it followed closely on the heels of the defendant's admission that he possessed a weapon in the form of a pocketknife. Under the public safety exception, the trooper was not required to make a split-second decision about whether to subordinate his immediate safety concerns to the admissibility of any answers he might receive to his pat-down-related questions. We conclude, therefore, that the district court, see Simpkins, 2019 WL 148650, at , did not clearly err in receiving the defendant's fentanyl statement into evidence.4 See Quarles, 467 U.S. at 657–58.