Opinion ID: 1353139
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Admission of Statements and Items Seized from Appellant's Person

Text: Appellant next claims that the trial court erroneously permitted the Commonwealth to introduce statements he made to police at the time of his arrest and items seized from his person. This issue is unpreserved. Defense counsel filed no motions to suppress the statements made by Appellant after he was apprehended at the Madisonville bus station or to suppress the knife, bus ticket, and bloody shoes found on Appellant at the time of the arrest. Rather, Appellant now argues that the trial court should have conducted a suppression hearing on its own motion. At the outset, it should be noted that the entry of a valid guilty plea effectively waives all defenses other than that the indictment charged no offense. [37] Further, a guilty plea constitutes a break in the chain of events, and the defendant therefore may not raise independent claims related to the deprivation of constitutional rights occurring before entry of the guilty plea. [38] Where a defendant has entered an unconditional plea of guilty, he may not later challenge allegedly improper lineup identifications or the police's failure to provide Miranda warnings. [39] Accordingly, Appellant now is unable to challenge the constitutionality of his arrest and the admission of certain pieces of evidence due to his unconditional plea of guilty. Interestingly, Appellant essentially concedes this conclusion. Rather, according to Appellant, the principle set forth in Quarles and its progenythat a valid guilty plea waives all defenses other than that no offense has been charged by the indictmentdoes not apply in situations where only the sentence, not the validity of the guilty plea, is being challenged. Appellant insists that Sanders v. Commonwealth [40] is inapplicable to this issue, as the Commonwealth proposes, because the suppression issue there related only to the defendant's guilt. Furthermore, Appellant notes that the court in Sanders specifically stated that a valid guilty plea does not waive a right to appeal the sentence. [41] Here, Appellant argues that a suppression hearing should have been conducted to limit the evidence introduced during the penalty phase, and such a challenge is not waived by entry of a valid and unconditional guilty plea. Unfortunately, we cannot reach the merits of this novel issue because no motion to suppress was ever presented to the trial court. Of course, in capital cases, we will review even unpreserved errors pursuant to Sanders. [42] However, such an analysis is necessarily predicated upon a determination that an error actually occurred. Here, no error occurred because the trial court has no duty to conduct a suppression hearing on its own motion. We find this argument similar to Appellant's assertion, infra, that the trial court should have, sua sponte, offered him an opportunity to withdraw his guilty plea. The trial court must ensure a fair trial; the trial court is not burdened by the duty to try the case on behalf of defense counsel. Even when an objection or motion has been made, the burden continues to rest with the movant to insist that the trial court render a ruling; otherwise, the objection is waived. [43] Hence, absent a defense motion to suppress, the trial court committed no error in admitting the evidence to which Appellant now objects.