Opinion ID: 3165795
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Argueta’s Motion to Suppress

Text: The facts relevant to Argueta’s motion to suppress, derived from evidence presented during the suppression hearing, are as follows. In March 2010, Argueta was in state prison on aggravated assault charges to which he had pled guilty. He was released from state custody on March 16, 2010 and sent to an ICE detention facility. Meanwhile, ICE Agent Jason Tyler arranged for Argueta to be brought to an ICE office for interrogation before he was booked into custody on the charges in this case. Questioning the accused before arrest in this way was Tyler’s general practice. As planned, at around midnight on March 23, 2010, Argueta was awakened and transferred to another ICE detention facility in Atlanta for questioning and arrest. He arrived at the ICE facility around 3:00 AM. According to Argueta, he spent the rest of the night shackled by his ankles to another inmate, unable to sleep. He believed that he was on the verge of being deported. He was unaware that he had already been indicted on the charges in this case. Several hours later, at around 9:00 AM, Agent Tyler and ICE Agent James Ballard arrived to interview Argueta about his involvement with MS-13. Initially, the agents did not tell Argueta why they were interviewing him or that he had been indicted. Agent Tyler maintained that this nondisclosure was not a conscious, strategic decision to withhold information from Argueta. Meanwhile, Argueta 16 Case: 14-11890 Date Filed: 12/28/2015 Page: 17 of 30 continued to believe throughout the interview that he was being questioned on an immigration matter, even though he was asked no questions about immigration. At the beginning of the interview, Tyler read Argueta his Miranda rights in his native language, Spanish, and Argueta signed a waiver in Spanish. Although at the suppression hearing Argueta denied signing the waiver form, he acknowledged that the signature on the waiver looked like his handwriting. According to the agents, Argueta also orally waived his Miranda rights. Tyler testified that Argueta appeared to understand the Miranda warnings and provided appropriate responses to all questions. Agent Ballard, who is fluent in Spanish, testified that he had no trouble understanding the questions that Tyler asked. The agents made no promises or threats, and Tyler never told Argueta that he would only use his statements in immigration proceedings. Argueta was then asked about the hotel murder, the basis for Counts 16 and 17, and in response, Argueta made several incriminating statements, which he later testified were untrue. He testified at the suppression hearing that, despite the Miranda warnings, he believed he was not free to remain silent. He explained that he had a first grade education and, although he was a native Spanish speaker, he did not read Spanish well. On appeal, Argueta argues that his Miranda waivers were not knowing and voluntary and thus, his resulting statements were inadmissible. “Miranda protects 17 Case: 14-11890 Date Filed: 12/28/2015 Page: 18 of 30 a person’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination by requiring law enforcement authorities to advise a person subject to custodial interrogation of certain rights and to respect the person’s invocation of those rights.” United States v. Bernal-Benitez, 594 F.3d 1303, 1318 (11th Cir. 2010). A person may waive his Miranda rights “provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently.” Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444. “The Government must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived his Miranda rights.” Bernal-Benitez, 594 F.3d at 1318. We apply a two-part test to determine whether a Miranda waiver was freely given: First, the relinquishment of the right must have been voluntary in the sense that it was the product of a free and deliberate choice rather than intimidation, coercion, or deception. Second, the waiver must have been made with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it. Only if the totality of the circumstances surrounding the interrogation reveal both an uncoerced choice and the requisite level of comprehension may a court properly conclude that the Miranda rights have been waived. Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 421 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted). In assessing the voluntariness of a statement, we “consider the totality of the circumstances, including the details of the interrogation and the defendant’s characteristics.” Bernal-Benitez, 594 F.3d at 1319. The Court’s focus is “on whether the police overreached, considering factors such as the [accused’s] lack of education, or his low intelligence, the lack of any advice to the accused of his 18 Case: 14-11890 Date Filed: 12/28/2015 Page: 19 of 30 constitutional rights, the length of detention, the repeated and prolonged nature of the questioning, and the use of physical punishment such as the deprivation of food or sleep.” Id. (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Generally, courts have held statements involuntary because of police trickery only when other aggravating circumstances were also present.” United States v. Farley, 607 F.3d 1294, 1329 (11th Cir. 2010). The district court did not err in denying Argueta’s motion to suppress. The testimony introduced at the evidentiary hearing established that Argueta was advised of his rights in his native language both orally and in writing and then waived these rights both orally and in writing. No threats or promises were made and both agents testified that Argueta appeared to understand his rights. Although Argueta denied signing the 2010 waiver and testified that he did not understand his rights, the district court credited the agents’ testimony over Argueta’s. The district court’s choice between two plausible views of the evidence cannot be clear error. Ndiaye, 434 F.3d at 1305. We reject Argueta’s argument that the Miranda waiver was involuntary or uninformed based on evidence that he was purposefully sleep-deprived, that the ICE agents intentionally withheld that he had been indicted, and that Argueta was uneducated. Although in some cases “slowly mounting fatigue” may be part of an overall scheme to wear down a witness, see Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315, 322 19 Case: 14-11890 Date Filed: 12/28/2015 Page: 20 of 30 (1959), the district court did not clearly err in finding otherwise here. The record contains no evidence that Argueta was so sleep deprived that he was unable to understand the agents’ questions. Further, Argueta cites to no authority that requires interrogating officers to disclose at the outset that an individual is facing an active indictment, and the record contains no evidence that the officers affirmatively attempted to mislead him. C.f. Farley, 607 F.3d at 1328-31 (holding that even if authorities trick a witness into thinking that an investigation is about terrorism, rather than a crime for which the witness is a suspect, such trickery does not negate a Miranda waiver where there was no evidence the authorities promised to limit questioning to the subject of terrorism or otherwise assured the witness that the statements could not be used against him). Thus, Argueta’s erroneous belief that he was being interrogated for immigration purposes, even if resulting from the agents’ decision to withhold information about the indictment, does not undermine the otherwise valid Miranda waiver. Finally, the record contains no evidence that Argueta’s lack of education affected his comprehension. For these reasons, the district court’s determination that Argueta voluntarily and knowingly waived his Miranda rights was not clearly erroneous.8 8 Because there was no error, this Court need not decide whether the admission of the 2010 statement was harmless error, as the government argues. 20 Case: 14-11890 Date Filed: 12/28/2015 Page: 21 of 30