Opinion ID: 513263
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: miranda violation and suppression of fruits

Text: 67 Sangineto raises two contentions concerning the failure of Sergeant Cox and Ranger Pike to administer the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), following his arrest at the 7-Eleven. Initially, he argues that the cocaine seized from his truck is inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree because both were found only as a result of interrogation conducted without the benefit of Miranda warnings. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). Sangineto also asks us to decide whether the initial failure to administer Miranda warnings taints his subsequent consent to search his truck and motel room, which occurred after he had been fully advised of his Miranda rights. 7 68 At the outset, we reiterate briefly the critical facts that inform our analysis. While Special Agent Holmes traveled back to the Pidgeon Perch apartment to wait for the Hispanic callers to make further contact, Sergeant Cox and Ranger Pike watched the 7-Eleven. After the officers observed Sangineto and Vargas make a second telephone call, they concluded the suspects were leaving the convenience store; they moved in and arrested them. Cox and Pike failed to read either defendant the Miranda warnings. Subsequently, Cox asked the defendants about their means of transportation. Sangineto replied he was in the old truck parked around the corner of the 7-Eleven. 69 When Holmes arrived on the scene, he verified that Sangineto and Vargas were the callers to the Pidgeon Perch apartment. The DEA agent then effected what he characterized as an official arrest, and fully read them their rights in both English and Spanish. The defendants were driven to Sangineto's truck, where Sangineto signed a consent form permitting the officers to search the vehicle. The consent form had been explained to Sangineto before he signed. Later on, Sangineto signed a consent form to search his room at the Days Inn Motel. Police searched the room and found three kilograms of cocaine in a trunk hidden under the bed. Cocaine was also eventually found in Sangineto's truck.
70 Sangineto argues that his pre-Miranda statement concerning the existence and whereabouts of his truck should have been suppressed. Additionally, he argues that, because only his answer enabled police to find his vehicle and the narcotics hidden inside, the cocaine should have been suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree. 71 The magistrate concluded that the questioning of Sangineto after his arrest but before the Miranda warnings were administered was illegal, but the response that Mr. Sangineto made concerning the truck was not in itself an incriminating one. He further noted that Sangineto does not claim that the question leading to the location of the truck invalidated the later consensual search. Sangineto took issue with both conclusions in filing objections to the magistrate's report. The district court adopted the magistrate's report and recommendation and affirmed in a brief order. 72 It is undisputed that Sangineto was in a custodial situation, which mandated Miranda warnings. California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 3520, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275 (1983) (Miranda warnings are required where there is a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest). Those warnings were not administered until Holmes arrived on the scene. It is equally clear that Officer Cox's question concerning Sangineto's means of transportation constituted interrogation. Arizona v. Mauro, 481 U.S. 520, 107 S.Ct. 1931, 1935, 95 L.Ed.2d 458 (1987) (interrogation refers to direct questioning by law enforcement officers and its functional equivalent); Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980) (same). When police ask questions of a suspect in custody without administering the required warnings, Miranda dictates that the answers received be presumed compelled and that they be excluded from evidence at trial in the [government's] case in chief. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 317, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 1297, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985). Indeed, this bright-line rule applies even if the pre-warning statements are voluntary. Id. at 304, 317, 105 S.Ct. at 1297. Thus, Sangineto's statement concerning the existence and whereabouts of his truck should have been suppressed. 73 We disagree with the lower court that Sangineto's statement was not incriminating. The statement enabled the police to locate the truck and eventually the cocaine hidden inside. It also served to connect Sangineto to the truck and the narcotics. 74 The more troublesome issue is whether the Miranda violation requires suppression of the narcotics found in the truck. We frame the issue as follows: whether nontestimonial physical evidence proximately derived from a Miranda violation is inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree. 8 For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that the cocaine should not be suppressed. 9 75 The Supreme Court in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985), has charted the analytical course. In Elstad, police officers came to Elstad's house armed with an arrest warrant. Elstad, who was a suspect in a burglary of a neighbor's residence, made an incriminating statement to police without having been given the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona. After Elstad was taken to police headquarters, he was advised of his Miranda rights. Elstad indicated that he understood his rights, but wished to speak to police. He then gave a written statement describing his involvement in the burglary. 76 Elstad was charged with first degree burglary. He moved to suppress his initial oral statement and the signed confession, arguing that the statement he made in response to questioning at his house 'let the cat out of the bag' and tainted the subsequent confession as 'fruit of the poisonous tree,' citing Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). Elstad, 470 U.S. at 302, 105 S.Ct. at 1289 (citation omitted). The trial court excluded Elstad's first incriminating statement to police because he had not been given Miranda warnings, but admitted the written confession. Elstad was convicted, but the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the confession should also have been excluded. The Oregon Supreme Court denied review. 77 The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires the suppression of a confession, made after proper Miranda warnings and a valid waiver of rights, solely because the police had obtained an earlier voluntary but unwarned admission from the defendant. Id. at 303, 105 S.Ct. at 1290. The Court ruled that a suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet uncoercive questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his rights and confessing after he has been given the requisite Miranda warnings. Id. at 318, 105 S.Ct. at 1297-1298. 78 In reaching this conclusion, the Court made several telling observations which have particular significance to the instant case. The Court first reiterated that the prophylactic Miranda warnings were not directly compelled by the Constitution, but instead were measures to insure that the right against compulsory self-incrimination was protected. Id. at 305, 105 S.Ct. at 1291 (quoting New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 654, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 2630, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984)). Thus, a police officer's failure to administer Miranda warnings did not necessarily mean there was a violation of the fifth amendment.  'Absent some officially coerced self-accusation, the Fifth Amendment privilege is not violated by even the most damning admissions.'  Ibid. (quoting United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 187, 97 S.Ct. 1814, 1818-1819, 52 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977)). 79 In light of this, the Court explained the underlying reasoning supporting the long-standing prohibition against using pre-Miranda statements in the Government's case in chief. 80 The Miranda exclusionary rule ... serves the Fifth Amendment and sweeps more broadly than the Fifth Amendment itself. It may be triggered even in the absence of a Fifth Amendment violation. The Fifth Amendment prohibits use by the prosecution in its case in chief only of compelled testimony. Failure to administer Miranda warnings creates a presumption of compulsion. Consequently, unwarned statements that are otherwise voluntary within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment must nevertheless be excluded from evidence under Miranda. Thus, in the individual case, Miranda's preventive medicine provides a remedy even to the defendant who has suffered no identifiable constitutional harm. 81 Id. 470 U.S. at 306-07, 105 S.Ct. at 1291-92 (citations and footnote omitted; emphasis in original). 82 The Court pointed out that the Miranda presumption of compulsion, although irrebuttable for purposes of the Government's case in chief, did not require that the statements and their fruits be discarded as inherently tainted. Id. at 307, 105 S.Ct. at 1292. As an example, the Court cited Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971), where the Court ruled that, although voluntary statements taken in violation of Miranda could not be used in the Government's case in chief, the presumption of coercion did not bar their use for impeachment purposes on cross-examination. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 307, 105 S.Ct. at 1292. Where an unwarned statement is preserved for use in situations that fall outside the sweep of the Miranda presumption, 'the primary criterion of admissibility [remains] the old due process voluntariness test.'  Id. at 307-08, 105 S.Ct. at 1292-93 (quoting Schulhofer, Confessions and the Court, 79 Mich.L.Rev. 865, 877 (1981)). 83 The Elstad Court also relied on Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974). There, the Court was asked to extend the Wong Sun fruits doctrine to suppress the testimony of a witness for the prosecution whose identity was discovered as a result of a statement taken from the accused without the benefit of full Miranda warnings. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 308, 105 S.Ct. at 1292-1293. Because the breach of Miranda procedures in Tucker did not involve actual compulsion, the Court concluded that the unwarned questioning did not abridge the defendant's constitutional privilege; it merely departed from the prophylactic standards of Miranda. Ibid. As the Elstad Court explained, Since there was no actual infringement of the suspect's constitutional rights, the case was not controlled by the doctrine expressed in Wong Sun that fruits of a constitutional violation must be suppressed. Ibid. Although the unwarned confession had to be suppressed, the third-party witness's testimony did not. 84 Elstad makes clear that a failure to administer Miranda warnings, without more, does not automatically require suppression of the fruits of the uncounseled statement. Where the uncounseled statement is voluntary, and thus not a product of inherently coercive police tactics or methods offensive to due process, id. at 317, 105 S.Ct. at 1297, there is no fifth amendment violation and the fruits may be admissible in the Government's case in chief. United States v. Bengivenga, 845 F.2d 593 (5th Cir.1988) (en banc); United States v. Cherry, 794 F.2d 201, 207-08 (5th Cir.1986); cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1056, 107 S.Ct. 932, 93 L.Ed.2d 983 (1987); United States v. Cherry, 759 F.2d 1196, 1208-10 (5th Cir.1985). See Elstad, 470 U.S. at 308, 105 S.Ct. at 1292-93 (We believe that [the] reasoning [of Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974) ] applies with equal force when the alleged 'fruit' of a noncoercive Miranda violation is neither a witness nor an article of evidence but the accused's own voluntary statement.) (emphasis added). 10 Cf. United States v. Jones, 846 F.2d 358 (6th Cir.1988) (where defendant's pre-Miranda statements are involuntary and coerced, the fruit--a gun--is inadmissible). 85 To be sure, the admission of nontestimonial physical evidence which is derived from a Miranda violation may marginally reduce the incentives to administer Miranda's prophylactic warnings. On the other hand, we believe [t]he arguable benefits from excluding such [evidence] by way of possibly deterring police conduct that might compel admissions are ... far outweighed by the advantages of having relevant and probative [evidence], not obtained by actual coercion, available at criminal trials to aid in the pursuit of truth. Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. at 462, 94 S.Ct. at 2373 (White, J., concurring). Whereas the goal of the fourth amendment's exclusionary rule is to deter unlawful police conduct, Elstad, 470 U.S. at 306, 105 S.Ct. at 1291, the goal of the fifth amendment's exclusionary rule is to assure trustworthy evidence. United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 187-88, 97 S.Ct. 1814, 1818-19, 52 L.Ed.2d238 (1977); Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. at 448, 94 S.Ct. at 2366. In the vast majority of cases, as in our case, there is plainly no reason to believe that nontestimonial physical evidence derived from uncounseled statements is untrustworthy. 86 There is an additional reason supporting admission of nontestimonial physical evidence derived from a Miranda violation. Miranda warnings, as we have noted, need only be given after a suspect is taken into custody or his freedom has otherwise been significantly restricted. In Elstad, the Court recognized that even the most diligent law enforcement official will have difficulty defining custody for purposes ofadministering Miranda, and thus we cannot expect police to act without error. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 309, 105 S.Ct. at 1293. The Court said, If errors are made by law enforcement officers in administering Miranda procedures, they should not breed the same irremedial consequences as police infringement of the Fifth Amendment itself. Ibid. Consequently, where police simply fail to administer Miranda warnings, the admissibility of nontestimonial physical evidence derived from the uncounseled statements should turn on whether the statements were voluntary within the meaning of the fifth amendment. 87 We conclude that the cocaine found in Sangineto's truck was admissible, even though knowledge of the existence and whereabouts of the truck were proximately derived from a Miranda violation. Sangineto does not claim that his statement concerning the truck was not voluntary, within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment. The record does not indicate otherwise. Indeed, the magistrate noted that all the evidence is that Mr. Sangineto was extremely agreeable and cooperative throughout the evening, much more so than his co-defendant Vargas apparently wanted him to be. Whatever the reason for the officers' failure to administer Miranda warnings, the incident had none of the earmarks of coercion. Id. 470 U.S. at 316, 105 S.Ct. at 1296-1297. Since there was no element of coercion present in this case, we see little reason to permit highly probative evidence ... to be irretrievably lost to the factfinder. Id. at 312, 105 S.Ct. at 1294. 11 88
89 We also reject Sangineto's contention that the earlier Miranda violation taints his consent to search the truck and the motel room. Sangineto signed the two consent forms after Holmes administered Miranda warnings in Spanish and English. As the Court stressed in Elstad, [a] subsequent administration of Miranda warnings to a suspect who has given a voluntary but unwarned statement ordinarily should suffice to remove the conditions that precluded the admission of the earlier statement. Id. at 314, 105 S.Ct. at 1296. As in Elstad, the question here is whether the consent to search was made knowingly and voluntarily. 90 The magistrate examined the surrounding circumstances and the entire course of police conduct with respect to the suspect in evaluating the voluntariness of Sangineto's consent to search his truck and motel room. See id. at 318, 105 S.Ct. at 1297-1298. In each case, the magistrate ruled that Sangineto had been fully informed of his rights, including his right to refuse the search, yet the defendant gave a knowing and voluntary consent to search. The magistrate also concluded that all the evidence is that Mr. Sangineto understood English sufficiently well to communicate effectively in the language and read it. These findings are not clearly erroneous. 12 Accordingly, the Miranda violation in this case did not taint Sangineto's consent to search and the cocaine seized from the truck and the motel room were admissible.