Opinion ID: 2300873
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Public Safety Exception

Text: Appellant challenges the trial court's determination that his statement in response to the officer's question (what's that?) during the search was not subject to suppression, given that Officer Reisinger's question was a mechanism designed to elicit an incriminating statement from [appellant], and the officer's concern for his safety was misplaced and inappropriately handled. Appellant claims that there were many other options available to the officer to ensure his safety from, e.g., being stuck by a needle, other than asking him generally about what was in the sock and that the tactic used by Reisinger was laden with trick and artifice, specifically designed to elicit a statement by appellant. The government argues that safety concerns justified Officer Reisinger's inquiry about a suspicious-looking lump in appellant sock. The question presented for our resolution is whether the narrow public safety exception to Miranda 's rule of exclusion established in New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984), [6] applies here. In Quarles, the Supreme Court held that there is a `public safety' exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect's answers may be admitted into evidence. Id. at 655, 104 S.Ct. 2626. In a situation in which police officers ask questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety, the doctrinal underpinnings of Miranda  do not apply. Id. at 656, 104 S.Ct. 2626. This is because the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination. Id. at 657, 104 S.Ct. 2626. The Quarles exception applies to questions prompted by concern for public safety, see Trice v. United States, 662 A.2d 891, 895 (D.C.1995), as well as for the safety of an individual police officer. See United States v. Jones, 567 F.3d 712, 714-15 (D.C.Cir.2009) ( Miranda should not apply to situations `in which police officers ask questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety,' or for the safety of the arresting officers.' (quoting Quarles, 467 U.S. at 656, 658-59, 104 S.Ct. 2626)). We review de novo the trial court's legal conclusion that appellant's response to Officer Reisinger's question is admissible under the public safety exception. See Byrd v. United States, 618 A.2d 596, 599 (D.C.1992). The public safety exception is a `function of the facts of cases so various that no template is likely to produce sounder results than examining the totality of the circumstances in a given case.' United States v. Reyes, 353 F.3d 148, 152 (2d Cir.2003) (quoting United States v. Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 36, 124 S.Ct. 521, 157 L.Ed.2d 343 (2003)). The Supreme Court has expressed confidence that police officers can and will distinguish almost instinctively between questions necessary to secure their own safety or the safety of the public and questions designed solely to elicit testimonial evidence from a suspect. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 657, 104 S.Ct. 2626. The public safety exception applies only where there is an objectively reasonable need to protect the police or the public from any immediate danger associated with [a] weapon. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659 n. 8, 104 S.Ct. 2626. What is objectively reasonable, of course, depends upon the circumstances of the arrest. United States v. DeSumma, 44 F.Supp.2d 700, 704 (E.D.Pa.1999). In determining whether a question is justified by concern for safety, courts have considered factors including the known history and characteristics of the suspect, the known facts and circumstances of the alleged crime, and the facts and circumstances confronted by the officer when he undertakes the arrest. United States v. Williams, 483 F.3d 425, 428 (6th Cir.2007). In this case, the trial court found that, based on the totality of the circumstances, Officer Reisinger acted reasonably, out of a concern for his own safety, in inquiring of appellant regarding the bulge in his sock. The court credited Officer Reisinger's testimony that [i]n my 12 years, I've seen a lot of thingsrazor blades, knives. So you always want to check to make sure before you grab anything that you know what it is that you're grabbing. Cf. Johnson v. United States, 350 A.2d 738, 739 (D.C.1976) (noting, in Fourth Amendment context, that officer with four-and-a-half years of experience and fear that appellant may have been armed acted reasonably in searching bag given that he made arrests for finding weapons in bags before). We have not had occasion to address a situation involving a concern for an officer's safety over possible injury from needles and sharp objects; our cases to date have concerned only concealed or abandoned guns. See, e.g., Green v. United States, 974 A.2d 248, 254, 258-59 (D.C. 2009) (holding officers' question about location of gun was traceable to an objectively reasonable concern for safety where officers were in high-drug area to investigate tip that a man of a certain description had a gun and officers saw man fitting description make a furtive gesture to his waist); Dyson v. United States, 815 A.2d 363, 365, 369 (D.C.2003) (holding police officer had objectively reasonable basis for safety concern where defendant ran from police into alley tugging his waistband, and officer thought he saw the butt of a handle of a gun, and suspected gun hidden in alley into which defendant fled would create legitimate threat to public safety); see also Trice, 662 A.2d at 897 (noting in case where Miranda warnings were given that public safety exception would have applied to locate missing weapon suspected to be in home with small children). Other courts have held that asking an arrestee, during the conduct of a search, whether he had any needles on him comes within the public-safety exception because even though the risk presented by a needle (or other sharp object) differs from that of a gun, the danger of transmission of disease or contact with harmful substances is real and serious enough. United States v. Carrillo, 16 F.3d 1046, 1049-50 (9th Cir. 1994). In United States v. Lackey, 334 F.3d 1224, 1227-28 (10th Cir.2003), the court held that, in the context of a search incident to arrest, the purpose of the question, `Do you have any guns or sharp objects on you?' is not to acquire incriminating evidence; it is solely to protect the officers, as well as the arrestee, from physical injury. Similarly, in United States v. Webster, 162 F.3d 308, 332 (5th Cir.1998), the court held that the police acted constitutionally when they asked [the suspect] whether he had any needles in his pockets that could injure them during their pat down; such questioning, needed to protect the officers, does not constitute interrogation under Miranda.  We think that in the circumstances of this case, where the officer, in the process of searching appellant, came upon an unknown bulge in appellant's sock, it was objectively reasonable that the officer would be concerned about what was in the bulge before he placed his hand on or inside the sock. The officer, therefore had objective justification for asking a question. See Quarles, 467 U.S. at 656, 104 S.Ct. 2626 ([T]he availability of the exception does not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers involved.). But what question could the officer ask that would reasonably protect him from injury, yet be consistent with Miranda 's mandate? The safety exception, we emphasize, is narrow, Quarles, 467 U.S. at 658, 104 S.Ct. 2626, and must be justified by the specific circumstances. It must not `be distorted into a per se rule as to questioning people in custody on narcotics charges,' United States v. Estrada, 430 F.3d 606, 613-14 (2d Cir.2005) (quoting Reyes, 353 F.3d at 155), or used as a ruse to elicit unwarned statements otherwise prohibited by Miranda. In some of the reported cases, the officer's question was specific as to the nature of the potentially injurious objects the officer was seeking to identify. See, e.g., Lackey, 334 F.3d at 1227-28 (Do you have any guns or sharp objects on you?). In this case, Officer Reisinger asked a general question, what's that? That question, though framed in general terms, must be viewedand can be justified only bythe specific circumstances. For example, the D.C. Circuit Court held in Jones that the question do you have anything on you? was reasonably prompted by a concern for public safety, in light of the totality of the circumstances. In Jones, the circumstances were that the officers had reason to believe that the suspect of an armed murder would likely be carrying a firearm, and, when approached by an officer, the suspect fled through a crowd to a dimly lit stairwell, the officer heard shots fired from his left, children were present in the area, and the officer asked the question within thirty seconds of apprehending the suspect and did not inquire further after the suspect acknowledged having a burner in his waistband. 567 F.3d at 716-17. In United States v. Williams, 181 F.3d 945, 954 n. 13 (8th Cir.1999), the court held that although the officer did not specifically refer to weapons or safety concerns in the question posed to the suspect, [I]s there anything we need to be aware of?, and despite the fact that the question was broad enough to elicit other information, the question was justified under the specific circumstances encountered by police. The Williams court considered that a confidential informant had provided information that the suspect was trafficking narcotics from his apartment, the officers belie[ved] that drug dealers were known to possess firearms, the officers could not have known if any armed individuals were present in the apartment or preparing to enter the apartment, the officers could not have known whether other hazardous weapons were present in the apartment that could cause them harm if they happened upon them unexpectedly or mishandled them in some way, and the suspect had in the past been charged with unauthorized use of a weapon. Courts have cautioned against conditioning the applicability of the safety exception on an officer's ability to ask questions in a specific form. See United States v. Newsome, 475 F.3d 1221, 1223 (11th Cir.2007) (holding that the question, [I]s there anything or anyone in the room that I should know about?, was justified under public safety exception when officers entered motel room under the impression that there were at least two people in the room and only encountered one person at the door, and officers knew they were dealing with a possibly armed, violent felon). Where the circumstances present an arresting officer with objectively reasonable grounds for safety concerns, and a question is asked to allay that concern and does not go beyond that concern, the question itself `need not be posed as narrowly as possible because precision crafting cannot be expected in the circumstances of a tense and dangerous arrest.' Jones, 567 F.3d at 716-17 (quoting Estrada, 430 F.3d at 612). Viewed in the context of appellant's arrest and search, Officer Reisinger's question, asked upon seeing a bulge in appellant's sock that could conceal a needle or other sharp or harmful object that would have posed a risk of injury to the officer as he patted down and searched the sock, reflected his stated aim to ascertain and neutralize any threat from what he had seen. Crook v. United States, 771 A.2d 355, 359 (D.C.2001). This was not a fishing expedition, or a ruse to elicit incriminating evidence, such as has been found in cases where the danger inherent in a confrontation has passed, and the officers have continued to ask questions of a non- Mirandized, arrested defendant. See United States v. Jackson, 544 F.3d 351, 353-60 (1st Cir.2008) (holding that questioning about location of gun was improper where police went to apartment of person suspected of having acquired a stolen gun, police surrounded him, took him outside, and obtained consent from other occupant to search apartment); United States v. DeSumma, 272 F.3d 176, 178, 181 (3d Cir. 2001) (public safety exception did not justify question about weapons where suspect had been handcuffed and patted-down and officers had no basis to believe he was armed or violent); United States v. Brathwaite, 458 F.3d 376, 377-78, 383 (5th Cir. 2006) (holding public safety exception did not justify questions about guns during execution of search warrant of home for evidence of check and identity card counterfeiting and occupants were handcuffed). Officer Reisinger asked the question, what's that?, immediately upon seeing the bulge in the sock as he was searching appellant and about to make physical contact with the bulge. He did not follow up with more questions, which suggests that he recognized the distinction between safety-related questions and investigatory questions, and limited himself to the former. See Quarles, 467 U.S. at 659, 104 S.Ct. 2626 (noting that the officer asked only the question necessary to locate the missing gun before advising [the suspect] of his rights); Reyes, 353 F.3d at 154-55 (noting the significance of the arresting officer's disinclination to exploit the situation by asking further questions); Carrillo, 16 F.3d at 1050 (emphasizing the officer's deliberate refusal to ask further question). Under the circumstances, we conclude, Officer Reisinger's inquir[y] f[e]ll squarely within the public-safety exception to Miranda v. Arizona , recognized by the Supreme Court in New York v. Quarles .  United States v. Brown, 449 F.3d 154, 159 (D.C.Cir.2006). Thus, we hold that the trial judge did not err in denying the motion to suppress the first of appellant's statements ([I]t's just some weed.).