Opinion ID: 1740628
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Probable Cause/First Appearance

Text: Chavez argues that the delay in bringing him before a judicial officer violated Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.130 and 3.133, and therefore required suppression of his confession. A trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress is presumed correct. See Medina v. State, 466 So.2d 1046 (Fla.1985). However, under Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 125, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), and County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 56, 111 S.Ct. 1661, 114 L.Ed.2d 49 (1991), Chavez had a constitutional right to have a judicial determination that probable cause existed for his continued detention within the first forty-eight hours after his arrest, and the delay in obtaining that determination is presumptively unreasonable. Cf. Powell v. Nevada, 511 U.S. 79, 83-84, 114 S.Ct. 1280, 128 L.Ed.2d 1 (1994) (observing that, although the four-day delay involved was presumptively unreasonable under McLaughlin, it did not necessarily follow, however, that Powell must `be set free' ... or gain other relief, for several questions remain open for decision on remand, [including] the appropriate remedy for a delay in determining probable cause (an issue not resolved by McLaughlin ), ... or the district attorney's argument that introduction at trial of what Powell said on November 7, 1989, was harmless in view of a similar, albeit shorter, statement Powell made on November 3, prior to his arrest.). In determining whether the trial court erred in denying Chavez's motion to suppress his confession for this reason, we begin by examining the purpose furthered by the criminal defendant's right to a prompt probable cause determination and first appearance. The principles underlying the necessity for a probable cause determination can be found in Gerstein. There, the Supreme Court observed that the Fourth Amendment required such a determination as a prerequisite to a detainee's further restraint of liberty: A democratic society, in which respect for the dignity of all men is central, naturally guards against the misuse of the law enforcement process. Zeal in tracking down crime is not in itself an assurance of soberness of judgment. Disinterestedness in law enforcement does not alone prevent disregard of cherished liberties. Experience has therefore counseled that safeguards must be provided against the dangers of the overzealous as well as the despotic. The awful instruments of the criminal law cannot be entrusted to a single functionary. The complicated process of criminal justice is therefore divided into different parts, responsibility for which is separately vested in the various participants upon whom the criminal law relies for its vindication. McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 343, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819 (1943), quoted in Gerstein, 420 U.S. at 118, 95 S.Ct. 854. The limited purpose of the hearing shaped its parameters, as established by the Supreme Court: The sole issue is whether there is probable cause for detaining the arrested person pending further proceedings. This issue can be determined reliably without an adversary hearing. The standard is the same as that for arrest. That standard-probable cause to believe the suspect has committed a crime-traditionally has been decided by a magistrate in a nonadversary proceeding on hearsay and written testimony, and the Court has approved these informal modes of proof. ... The use of an informal procedure is justified not only by the lesser consequences of a probable cause determination but also by the nature of the determination itself. It does not require the fine resolution of conflicting evidence that a reasonable-doubt or even a preponderance standard demands, and credibility determinations are seldom crucial in deciding whether the evidence supports a reasonable belief in guilt. See F. Miller, Prosecution: The Decision to Charge a Suspect with a Crime 64109 (1969). This is not to say that confrontation and cross-examination might not enhance the reliability of probable cause determinations in some cases. In most cases, however, their value would be too slight to justify holding, as a matter of constitutional principle, that these formalities and safeguards designed for trial must also be employed in making the Fourth Amendment determination of probable cause. Because of its limited function and its nonadversary character, the probable cause determination is not a critical stage in the prosecution that would require appointed counsel. The Court has identified as critical stages those pretrial procedures that would impair defense on the merits if the accused is required to proceed without counsel. Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970); United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967). Gerstein, 420 U.S. at 120-22, 95 S.Ct. 854 (footnotes omitted). While the probable cause hearing may be combined with the first appearance, the purpose of a first appearance is different. It serves as a venue for informing the defendant of certain rights, and provides for a determination of the conditions for the defendant's release. At first appearance, a judicial officer informs the defendant of the charge (providing the defendant with a copy of the complaint), and further informs the defendant that: (1) the defendant is not required to say anything, and that anything the defendant says may be used against him or her; (2) if unrepresented, that the defendant has a right to counsel, and, if financially unable to afford counsel, that counsel will be appointed; and (3) the defendant has a right to communicate with counsel, family, or friends, and if necessary, will be provided reasonable means to do so. Fla. R.Crim. P. 3.130; see generally 1 Wayne R. LaFave & Jerold H. Israel, Criminal Procedure § 1.3(k) (2d ed.1992). Thus, the first appearance certainly provides one point at which the right to counsel may become affixed. See generally Fla. R.Crim. P. 3.111(a). Chavez contends that his last confession was improperly coerced through a deprivation of his right to a first court appearance within twenty-four hours of arrest. We have held that coercion of this type, if properly shown, would be a possible ground for suppression of a confession. See Keen v. State, 504 So.2d 396, 399-400 (Fla.1987), disapproved in part on other grounds, Owen v. State, 596 So.2d 985, 990 (Fla.1992). However, where, as here, a defendant has been sufficiently advised of his rights, a confession that would otherwise be admissible is not subject to suppression merely because the defendant was deprived of a prompt first appearance. [W]hen a defendant has been advised of his rights and makes an otherwise voluntary statement, the delay in following the strictures of [rule 3.130] must be shown to have induced the confession. Keen, 504 So.2d at 400; see also Johnson v. State, 660 So.2d 648, 660 (Fla.1995) (observing that a confession may be suppressed where it was coerced through deprivation of a first court appearance within twenty-four hours); Williams v. State, 466 So.2d 1246, 1248 (Fla. 1st DCA) (reflecting that no per se rule required suppression of confessionwhich was suppressed on other groundsbecause of delay of first appearance until thirty hours after arrest), review denied, 475 So.2d 696 (Fla.1985). On this point, the Court's analysis in Keen is particularly instructive: Keen urges three reasons why his statement should have been suppressed. First, he claims that pursuant to Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.130, which requires an arrested person to be taken before a judicial officer within twenty-four hours of arrest, any statement made in violation of the rule must be suppressed. Keen points out that the statement at issue here was made more than twenty-four hours after his arrest. While a violation of the rule has been shown, we reject Keen's suggestion that an otherwise voluntary statement given after twenty-four hours is per se inadmissible. We agree with the reasoning expressed by the First District Court of Appeal in Headrick v. State, 366 So.2d 1190 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), that each case must be examined upon its own facts to determine whether a violation of the rule has induced an otherwise voluntary confession. Id. at 1191. The court reasoned that when a defendant has been advised of his rights and makes an otherwise voluntary statement, the delay in following the strictures of the rule must be shown to have induced the confession. Id. See also Williams v. State, 466 So.2d 1246 (Fla. 1st DCA), review denied, 475 So.2d 696 (Fla.1985). Sub judice, Keen was advised on his rights to remain silent and his right to counsel on four separate occasions and gave the statement at issue only after voluntarily signing a waiver of rights. Absent a showing that the delay induced this otherwise voluntary statement, we find that the trial court properly denied Keen's motion to suppress. Keen's suggestion that our decision in Anderson v. State, 420 So.2d 574 (Fla. 1982), mandates that his statement be suppressed is unpersuasive. Anderson is clearly distinguishable as there the evidence presented to this Court showed that Anderson had been indicted prior to being taken into custody by Florida law enforcement officials who drove Anderson by car for four days from Minnesota back to Florida. The deputies were aware that Anderson had no counsel in Minnesota and that he desired appointed counsel once returned to Florida. Holding that Anderson's statement should have been suppressed, we found significant the fact that the statement at issue came far after Anderson should have been brought before a judicial officer with the attendant advice of rights and appointment of counsel. Id. at 576. We also found that the record failed to show a valid waiver. Id. The facts sub judice stand in stark contrast. Keen was not indicted until after the statement was given to the detectives, he was advised on four separate occasions of his right to remain silent and his right to counsel, and he signed a waiver before giving the statement. It unequivocally appears from the record that Keen knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waived his rights before making the statement. 504 So.2d at 399-400. Applying the same analysis to this record, we conclude that the failure to provide Chavez with a first appearance within twenty-four hours after his arrest did not compel his confession. Here, as in Keen, the record reflects that Chavez was repeatedly advised of his Miranda rights, and knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived them prior to confessing. Therefore, the trial court properly denied his motion to suppress on that basis. However, the question of whether suppression of Chavez's last confession is appropriate as a remedy for the failure to provide a prompt probable cause determination remains. Because Chavez was not afforded a probable cause determination within forty-eight hours of having been taken into police custody, the burden shifts to the State to show that the existence of a bona fide emergency or other extraordinary circumstance justified the delay; otherwise, a McLaughlin violation has occurred. See McLaughlin, 500 U.S. at 57, 111 S.Ct. 1661. Here, record testimony suggests that the police perceived that exigent circumstances existed because of their efforts to locate the missing child, who had disappeared under untoward circumstances. [32] However, given the amount of time which had transpired between Jimmy's initial disappearance and Chavez's apprehension, those circumstances were not as compelling as they might otherwise have been had the two events occurred more closely in time. It is therefore unclear whether extraordinary circumstances would excuse the officers' failure to obtain a probable cause determination within forty-eight hours of Chavez's arrest. Nonetheless, assuming that the failure to bring Chavez before a magistrate to determine probable cause violated the rule articulated in McLaughlin, we conclude that suppression of his last confession is not an appropriate remedy for the violation. [33] On this record, the unique circumstances leading to Chavez's last confession weigh in favor of admission rather than suppression. Further, even assuming that suppression were appropriate, given the overwhelming evidence of Chavez's guilt, the error in admitting his last confession would be harmless. As stated earlier, probable cause to arrest Chavez in connection with the disappearance of Jimmy Ryce existed at the time of his apprehension. Chavez has not demonstrated that either his arrest on December 6 or his detention during the first forty-eight hours following the arrest was unlawful. During that period of time, Chavez admitted his involvement with Jimmy's disappearance; admitted shooting the boy; admitted disposing of Jimmy's remains; and stated that what he had done would never have happened had he not been sexually battered as a boy in Cuba. During this time, crime scene investigators also had noticed the cement-filled planters on the Scheinhaus property, and suspected that they might contain a cadaver. [34] A tube of JR water-based lubricant and a blood-stained part of the wood floor of the horse farm trailer just inside the front door had been collected by crime scene technicians and packaged for transmittal to serology for processing. The murder weapon, containing Chavez's fingerprint, had already been recovered. While the particulars of how and why Jimmy died and what was done to his body afterwards evolved over this period of time, Chavez's involvement as the perpetrator of the crimes, and the motivation he ultimately revealed for committing them, did not change significantly from what investigators came to know during the first forty-eight hours, as compared to what Chavez disclosed in his last confession which occurred very shortly thereafter. A number of courts which have examined the rationale of Gerstein and McLaughlin have concluded that the failure to provide a defendant with a timely probable cause determination does not require suppression of evidence obtained during an interrogation if sufficient evidence existed at the time the individual was first taken into police custody to arrest the defendant for the crime with which he or she was subsequently charged. In United States v. Daniels, 64 F.3d 311 (7th Cir.1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1063, 116 S.Ct. 745, 133 L.Ed.2d 693 (1996), the defendant was arrested for bank robbery, and arraigned within the forty-eight hour time limit of McLaughlin (some forty hours after his arrest), but he argued that the police delayed his arraignment so that they could gather more evidence against himspecifically, so they could conduct another lineup while Daniels was still in their custody. The Daniels court disagreed, reasoning that McLaughlin prohibited delays designed to gather additional evidence to justify the arrest. It observed that the lineup was conducted to bolster the case against Daniels: Daniels' argument seems to interpret [ McLaughlin ] to preclude law enforcement from bolstering its case against a defendant while he awaits his Gerstein hearing; that is a ludicrous position. Gerstein and its progeny simply prohibit law enforcement from detaining a defendant to gather evidence to justify his arrest, which is a wholly different matter. Probable cause to arrest Daniels already existed and that is what Ewer's affidavit reported. Id. at 314; see also Peterson v. State, 653 N.E.2d 1022, 1025 (Ind.Ct.App.1995) (holding that interrogation of an arrested suspect does not constitute an unreasonable delay where police had probable cause for arrest); State v. Chapman, 343 N.C. 495, 471 S.E.2d 354, 356 (1996) (holding that the interrogation of a defendant about crimes for which he has just been arrested is not an unnecessary delay for purposes of a McLaughlin analysis). As stated in Riney v. State, 935 P.2d 828, 834-35 (Alaska Ct.App.1997): If McLaughlin were interpreted in the manner Riney suggests [that interrogation of an arrested suspect would constitute an unreasonable delay even where the police already have probable cause for the suspect's arrest], it would lead to an unjustifiable disparity in treatment between persons arrested on warrants and persons arrested without warrants. Under even the most expansive interpretation of McLaughlin, persons arrested on warrants can be interrogated following their arrest: no Gerstein hearing is required when a person is arrested on a warrant, because the judicial determination of probable cause for the arrest has already been made. See State v. Vice, 519 N.W.2d at 566. Thus, under Riney's reading of McLaughlin, the existence or non-existence of an arrest warrant would determine whether the police were authorized to question someone they had just taken into custody. Riney suggests no rationale for such a rule, and we perceive no convincing rationale for it either. So long as the police do not detain a suspect for the purpose of gathering probable cause to justify the arrest after the fact, questioning an arrestee about the crime(s) for which he or she has been arrested does not constitute an unreasonable delay under Gerstein and McLaughlin. Here, there was probable cause to arrest Chavez in connection with Jimmy's disappearance at the time he was detained, and the defendant, who was given his Miranda rights four times prior to confessing, also signed an affidavit waiving his first appearance within forty-eight hours of apprehension. [35] The record reflects ample evidence of Chavez's informed waiver of his right to counsel, his knowing waiver of the right to first appearance, and his willing cooperation with the police officers in their investigation of Jimmy's disappearance. [36] Further, even assuming a Fourth Amendment violation occurred due to the failure to comply with the McLaughlin rule, the record here reflects that Chavez's confession was sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). [37] As we stated (in a different context) in Voorhees v. State, 699 So.2d 602, 611 (Fla.1997): Several years after Wong Sun [v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963)], the Supreme Court clarified the analysis to be undertaken when determining whether evidence obtained following an illegal detention must be suppressed. See Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). These factors include whether Miranda warnings were given, the temporal proximity of the arrest and confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and, particularly, the purpose and flagrancy of officer misconduct. Id. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. at 2261-62. The voluntariness of the statement is a threshold requirement, and the burden of showing admissibility is on the state. Id.; see also Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979); Sanchez-Velasco v. State, 570 So.2d 908 (Fla.1990), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 929, 111 S.Ct. 2045, 114 L.Ed.2d 129 (1991). Applying the Brown factors, we conclude that the trial court did not err in denying suppression of Chavez's confession. Here, Chavez was given Miranda warnings three times during the first forty-eight hours of his detention, and was informed of those rights a fourth time immediately prior to his final confession. Chavez gave several incriminating statements during this time, with only the very last version of his confession being given after forty-eight hours had elapsed. Importantly, during the period that Chavez was in police custody, there were numerous breaks, including two separate outings to properties in the Redlands. Although Chavez was in the company of police officers, the testimony of those who observed Chavez, and the photographs depicting him, reflect that Chavez was not constrained in any way during that time. Only hours before giving his final confession, after a period of reflection, Chavez himself initiated the conversation with Detective Estopinan in which he recounted his sexual abuse in Cuba, stating that, but for those experiences, what he had done here would not have occurred. These numerous periods of rest, outings to the southern part of the county, refreshments, and quiet reflection weigh significantly in our analysis. Lastly, we consider the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. Here, as indicated earlier, there was probable cause to arrest Chavez at the time he was first detained, and it is clear that Chavez's continued detention was focused on locating his child victim, rather than on gathering additional evidence to justify the arrest. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. at 56, 111 S.Ct. 1661. While we admonish against, and in no way condone, the delay which occurred here in obtaining a prompt and impartial probable cause determination, the totality of the circumstances reflected in this record does not evidence purposeful misconduct on the part of the officers motivating that delay. Accordingly, after considering the above factors, we conclude that Chavez's final confession, even if made while Chavez was held in violation of the Fourth Amendment, was not the product of the unlawful detention. Cf. Powell, 511 U.S. at 89, 114 S.Ct. 1280 (Thomas, J., joined by Rehnquist, C.J., dissenting) (reflecting that, had the issue of the propriety of suppressing the defendant's statement been reached, applying established precedents, the statement should not be suppressed because the statement was not a product of the McLaughlin violation); Darks v. State, 954 P.2d 152 (Okla.Crim.App.1998) (affirming Darks' conviction, even though he was not given a probable cause determination within forty-eight hours, because he was not coerced into giving evidence he otherwise would not give, and his confession was not a product of an illegal detention). Therefore, under the unique circumstances of this case, the record supports the trial court's denial of Chavez's motion to suppress.