Opinion ID: 2104647
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: appellant's statements as fruits of the arrest

Text: Appellant challenges the legality of both the police entry and their search of Tyrone Wells' apartment and the subsequent arrest. In contesting the entry, appellant argues that the trial court erred in ruling that, because he was a guest in Wells' apartment, he had no standing to challenge the entry. In support of his position, appellant cites Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990), in which the Supreme Court held that an overnight guest in someone's home had standing to challenge an illegal search of the home because society would recognize as reasonable the guest's expectation of privacy there. Id., 110 S.Ct. at 1689-90. In order to prevail on a motion to suppress, the movant must establish both that he [or she] had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the area searched, and that, in fact, the search was illegal. Moore v. United States, 468 A.2d 1342, 1345 (D.C.1983). Appellant can establish neither. This court has held, after Olson, that a visitor has the burden of showing that he or she was an invited overnight guest in order to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy in the host's home. See Lewis v. United States, 594 A.2d 542, 545 (D.C.1991). Appellant was not an overnight guest at Wells' home. He had been in the apartment only three or four minutes when the police arrived. Several other persons were present in the room with appellant. These factors all cut[ ] against normal expectations of privacy. See United States v. Robinson, 225 U.S.App. D.C. 282, 288, 698 F.2d 448, 454 (1983) (appellant who was a guest and was found in room with another person in home where several others were also present did not have standing to challenge warrantless search). [8]
The trial court first ruled that the seizure of appellant in Wells' apartment was a valid Terry stop. The next day, sua sponte, the court announced that after further research it was changing its ruling, and that the handcuffing in this case did result in a degree of detention so as to make the encounter an arrest at a time when the information provided only reasonable suspicion, not probable cause. The court nonetheless denied appellant's motion to suppress, reasoning that because, under Terry, the police would have been justified in taking appellant outside for the showup, the mere fact that the police handcuffed appellant before they had probable cause to arrest should not result in the suppression of the identification. Appellant argues that the trial court's determination that he had been arrested without probable cause was correct, and that the court accordingly erred in not suppressing the identification evidence. The government replies that the trial court erred in ruling that the police did not have probable cause to arrest and that, for this reason, the identification evidence was admissible. We conclude that at the time appellant was arrested in Wells' apartment, the officers had probable cause to make the arrest. Thus, the evidence was not suppressible. Whether probable cause exists to justify an arrest is a mixed question of law and fact subject to our de novo review. See Brown v. United States, 590 A.2d 1008, 1020 (D.C.1991) ( de novo review of probable cause determination, giving deference to trial court's factual findings) (quoting United States v. Campbell, 843 F.2d 1089, 1092 (8th Cir.1988)); see also United States v. Hoyos, 892 F.2d 1387, 1392 (9th Cir.1989), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 80, 112 L.Ed.2d 52 (1990) (determination of probable cause is mixed question of law and fact in which legal issues predominate and is therefore subject to de novo review, with underlying facts reviewed for clear error). The facts developed at the suppression hearing reveal the following events. Pursuing leads from eyewitnesses to the murder, the police knew that two young black men named Rodney and Jarrell (nick-named Peanut), one of whom wore a blue jacket, were suspects in a shooting, that they had stolen a boom box, and that they had been seen heading toward Orange Street, S.E. Less than an hour after the incident, two young black males, one of them carrying a boom box, were seen entering an apartment building on Orange Street, S.E. A police broadcast directed the officers to a particular apartment in the building. When the police entered that apartment, two young black men went down to the floor. One of them, later identified as Jarrell Allen, admitted that a blue jacket on the table was his; the police found ammunition in the pocket of the coat. The police found a boom box in one bedroom and a handgun hidden under the mattress in another bedroom in the apartment. The police then learned that the two youths were named Rodney and Jarrell. On the basis of all this information, we conclude, contrary to the trial court's ruling, that the police had probable cause to arrest appellant. See, e.g., Allen v. United States, 496 A.2d 1046, 1048 (D.C.1985) (Court of Appeals looks to totality of the circumstances in determining probable cause). The police therefore acted lawfully in handcuffing appellant and taking him out to the sidewalk for a showup identification by Anthony Humes. Because the officers had probable cause to arrest appellant, there is no valid basis for invoking the exclusionary rule. Accordingly, although the trial court erred in ruling that appellant was arrested without probable cause, we conclude that the trial court properly denied appellant's motion to suppress.