Opinion ID: 2631901
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Officer Masaki's Elicitation Of Ketchum's Address

Text: With respect to Officer Masaki's elicitation of Ketchum's address, the prosecution challenges the circuit court's COL Nos. 5 and 6, citing Ah Loo for the proposition that, notwithstanding that police officers had briefly detained Ketchum and, therefore, had seized him, he was, nevertheless, not in custody when Officer Masaki questioned him. Thus, the prosecution posits that Miranda warnings were not foundational to the evidentiary admissibility of the substance of Ketchum's response to Officer Masaki's question regarding his address. In his answering brief, Ketchum concedes that, inasmuch as this court overruled Blackshire in Ah Loo to the extent that Blackshire had held that a person seized within the meaning of article I, section 7 of the Hawai`i Constitution was, as a per se matter, in custody for purposes of article I, section 10, the circuit court erred in relying upon Blackshire. [28] Nonetheless, Ketchum maintains that the totality of the circumstances reflect that Officer Masaki had subjected him to custodial interrogation. We agree. With respect to whether Officer Masaki's question constituted interrogation, the record reflects that it was obviously not reasonably designed to confirm or dispelas briefly as possible and without any coercive connotation by either word or conduct[a] reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. Ah Loo, 94 Hawai`i at 212, 10 P.3d at 733 (citation omitted). To the contrary, Officer Masaki admitted that he was aware that Ketchum's residential address was relevant to establishing whether Ketchum constructively possessed any drug contraband that might be found anywhere in the residence. Thus, Officer Masaki, of necessity, reasonably knew or should have known that asking Ketchum his address, having discovered him, early in the morning, in bed in the residence, was likely to yield an incriminating response. That being the case, Officer Masaki's testimonial assertion at the suppression hearing that he had posed the question merely to identify Ketchum as one of the people whom he had located and to include the information in his follow up report was simply a post hoc rationalization of his having elicited an incriminating admission by Ketchum of his residential address. Accordingly, we hold that Officer Masaki subjected Ketchum to interrogation. See supra Section III.A.1. The question whether Ketchum was, at the point Officer Masaki elicited his address, in custody is admittedly a difficult one. It cannot be said that Officer Masaki's questions were so sustained or coercive as, in and of themselves, impliedly to accuse Ketchum of committing a crime, nor does Ketchum argue that they were. Moreover, the record reflects that probable cause to arrest Ketchum had not yet developed, insofar as the drug contraband predicating the charges against Ketchum was apparently not discovered until well after Officer Masaki posed his questions. Nevertheless, the totality of the circumstances reflect that an innocent person in Ketchum's shoes could reasonably have believed that he or she was not free to go and was being taken into custody indefinitely; thus, the point of  de facto  arrest had arrived and, for purposes of article I, section 10 of the Hawai`i Constitution, Ketchum, therefore, was in custody. Given the layout and relatively compact size of the apartment, as well as the fact that the door accessing Bedroom 1 from the central living room stood open, see supra note 4, Ketchum could not but have been aware that numerous police officers had forcibly opened the front door, entered the apartment, and were in the process of securing the occupants of the apartment. It was in this context that Officer Masaki encountered Ketchum and Wright in Bedroom 1, announced his office and purpose, and ordered Ketchum and Wright to display their hands. In relatively rapid succession thereafter, Officer Masaki elicited from Ketchum his address and turned [him] over to the team of NVD officers while Officer Flores was serving Wright with the warrant to search the same bedroom, and another officer photographed both Ketchum and Wright where they had been discovered in Bedroom 1. Ketchum, along with all of the other occupants of the premises, was then escorted to the garage, subjected to field booking procedures, and, at some point, flex handcuffed. Both Detective Towne and Officer Kaya acknowledged in their testimony that, once in the garage, Ketchum was under arrest, and, according to Officer Flores, Ketchum was formally arrested when drug contraband was located in Bedroom 1, an event that, as we have noted, apparently did not occur until after Ketchum had been escorted to the garage and subjected to the field booking procedures. The circumstances surrounding Ketchum's questioning contrast sharply with those surrounding Ah Loo's, which transpired within the context of a lawful temporary investigative encounter by three patrol officers in a public place and accompanied by no greater exhibition of authority than that inherent in the officers' mere presence and no display of force whatsoever. See Ah Loo, 94 Hawai`i at 209, 10 P.3d at 730. Officer Masaki's questioning of Ketchum, considered in a vacuum, might seem as innocuous as the officers' inquiry of Ah Loo regarding his age. However, the totality of the circumstancesin particular, the forcible entry into the residence of numerous police officers, who were simultaneously locating and detaining any and all occupants discovered within the residence, and the fact that Officer Masaki's first act was to state his authority and order Ketchum and Wright to display their handsreflects a show of force and authority far exceeding that which inhered in the officers' mere presence. We believe, on the record before us, that the point of de facto arrest (albeit that the arrest was unsupported by probable cause) had arrived before Officer Masaki elicited Ketchum's residential addressand, therefore, that Ketchum was in custody for purposes of article I, section 10for the simple reason that, given the totality of the circumstances described above, an innocent person [in Ketchum's position] could [indeed, would] reasonably have believed that he [or she] was not free to go and that he [or she] was being taken into custody indefinitely, Kraus, 793 F.2d at 1109. We therefore hold that Officer Masaki subjected Ketchum to custodial interrogation for purposes of article I, section 10 of the Hawai`i Constitution. Inasmuch as that custodial interrogation was not preceded by the warnings prescribed by Miranda and Santiago, the prosecution failed to establish the foundation requisite to rendering Ketchum's response admissible at trial. Accordingly, the circuit court's COL Nos. 5 and 6 were not wrong.