Opinion ID: 202702
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion to Suppress Materas's Statements

Text: 26 We review the denial of a motion to suppress de novo as to questions of law, and for clear error as to questions of fact. United States v. Vongkaysone, 434 F.3d 68, 73 (1st Cir.2006). We will uphold the district court's decision if any reasonable view of the evidence supports the decision. United States v. Hawkins, 279 F.3d 83, 85 (1st Cir.2002). 27 Under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 479, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), evidence obtained as a result of police interrogation prior to the defendant being read his  Miranda rights cannot generally be used against the defendant in the prosecution's case in chief. The consequences of a Miranda violation, however, are limited. For instance, the Miranda rule is not subject to the fruits of the poisonous tree doctrine. 4 United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630, 642, 124 S.Ct. 2620, 159 L.Ed.2d 667 (2004) (plurality opinion); see also Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 307, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985) ([T]he Miranda presumption . . . does not require that the [unwarned] statements and their fruits be discarded as inherently tainted.). As another example, the prosecution can use uncompelled statements obtained without Miranda warnings for impeachment purposes. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 307-08, 105 S.Ct. 1285 (citing Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971)). 28 No one disputes that Materas's initial statement regarding the location of the drugs was obtained in violation of Miranda. Although the government agreed not to use the statement, Materas argues that suppression of only that statement is not an adequate remedy to redress the violation of his rights. He claims that use of the statement for impeachment purposes would deny a defense that he did not know the drugs were present. Further, he urges us to consider his entire interrogation as one ongoing event resulting from the hostile circumstances surrounding his initial statement, and asks us to suppress all statements made during that time. He describes his initial coercion as turning on a spigot that led to his continued confessions. 29 Materas's arguments are unpersuasive. As to Materas's second argument that all of his statements should be suppressed because of the coercive nature of his initial divulgement, the district court correctly limited the consequences of the Miranda violation to the one statement elicited prior to reading the defendant his rights. The district court found that there was nothing particularly coercive about the circumstances of the waiver of Materas's Miranda rights and that Detective Bourgeois acted in good faith. These factual findings are firmly grounded in the record and therefore not clearly erroneous. 30 Based on these findings, we agree with the district court that there is no evidence that the police were attempting to undermine the purposes of the Miranda rule to gain subsequent Mirandized confessions. See Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 616, 124 S.Ct. 2601, 159 L.Ed.2d 643 (2004). Other than asking where the drugs were located, the police did not ask any other questions before explaining to Materas his rights in another location, fifteen minutes later. As the court found, the first questioning was not at all systematic or extensive. See id. at 615-16, 124 S.Ct. 2601 (discussing a number of factors related to the effectiveness of Miranda warnings, including the completeness and detail of the questions and answers in the first round of interrogation, . . . and the degree to which the interrogator's questions treated the second round as continuous with the first.). The district court believed that Materas understood his rights and voluntarily waived them, and therefore the court was justified in limiting the scope of the Miranda violation to its usual consequences, i.e., excluding only the pre- Miranda statement. See United States v. Esquilín, 208 F.3d 315, 319 (1st Cir.) (A subsequent administration of Miranda warnings to a suspect who has given a voluntary but unwarned statement ordinarily . . . suffice[s] to remove the conditions that precluded admission of the earlier statement. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Elstad, 470 U.S. at 314, 105 S.Ct. 1285)); see also Patane, 542 U.S. at 642, 124 S.Ct. 2620 (`[T]he exclusion of unwarned statements . . . is a complete and sufficient remedy' for any perceived Miranda violation. (quoting Chávez v. Martínez, 538 U.S. 760, 790, 123 S.Ct. 1994, 155 L.Ed.2d 984 (2003) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part))). 31 We also reject Materas's purely hypothetical argument that his initial statement should have been disallowed for impeachment purposes. Because Materas's subsequent Mirandized statements would not have been suppressed, it would make no sense for Materas to have claimed any kind of lack of knowledge defense. After waiving his Miranda rights, he repeatedly admitted that the drugs seized during the search were his. With this direct evidence, the government would have had no reason to use his initial statement for impeachment purposes. Furthermore, we will not assist a defendant in using [t]he shield provided by Miranda . . . [as] a license to use perjury by way of a defense, free from the risk of confrontation with prior inconsistent utterances. Harris, 401 U.S. at 226, 91 S.Ct. 643.