Court Opinion

ID: 9848083
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:12:31.575337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:00.738515
License: Public Domain

Benton, J.,
dissenting.
I believe that Walter May’s statement pertaining to ownership of the luggage was improperly admitted into evidence. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) the Supreme Court stated:
[T]he prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of [a] defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self- incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.
*357Id. at 444 (emphasis added).
Within the context of a traffic stop the Supreme Court has also concluded:
If a motorist who has been detained pursuant to a traffic stop thereafter is subjected to treatment that renders him “in custody” for practical purposes, he will be entitled to the full panoply of protections prescribed by Miranda.
* * *
[T]he only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect’s position would have understood his situation.
Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440, 442 (1984) (citation omitted).
I believe that the majority opinion’s conclusion that the evidence merely shows a traffic stop which proceeded into a Terry-style detention overlooks the significant way in which May’s freedom of action was curtailed by law enforcement officers.
This was not, even at its inception, a routine traffic stop for a speeding violation. The record shows that Trooper English first saw the vehicle being driven by Walter May as it “left the Chippenham toll booth area, exit seven.” After following the vehicle and prior to stopping the vehicle, Trooper English determined that it was “what is known as a profile vehicle” because the vehicle had Florida rental license plates and was riding low in the rear. He stopped the vehicle for a speeding violation approximately four miles north of exit seven at a point one and one-half miles south of exit nine. May was directed to exit the vehicle and sit on the front seat of Trooper English’s vehicle. May’s passenger, Palmer, remained behind in May’s vehicle. Trooper English entered his vehicle and proceeded to question May for approximately one-half hour. He determined from May that the vehicle was rented in Miami to Robin Willis and that May had a valid operator’s license. English asked May whether the car was stolen and confirmed through a radio check that the car had not been stolen. Trooper English further questioned May as to whether he was carrying illegal contraband or drugs. He also asked May if he could search the vehicle. May testified that he asked Trooper English why he wanted to search the vehicle and Trooper English responded that he would send for the dogs if May would not consent *358to the search. Trooper English testified that May verbally agreed to a search of the vehicle and that to the best of his knowledge May did not ask why he wanted to search the vehicle.
Twenty-eight to thirty-three minutes after the stop, and as Trooper English was still writing the traffic citation, Trooper Lucas, who had received a call from Trooper English, came to the scene and sat on the rear seat of Trooper English’s vehicle. Trooper Lucas identified himself and gave May a consent to search form. May sat for five minutes with the form and then signed it.
As one of the troopers retrieved the key from the ignition of May’s car, the other trooper watched May and Palmer at the highway guardrail near the trunk. May testified that Trooper English opened the luggage in the trunk and that Trooper English warned May and Palmer not to “try anything because it’s easy to get nervous.” May denied being asked who owned the luggage. On the other hand, Trooper English testified that he watched May and Palmer as Trooper Lucas opened the trunk and asked, “whose luggage?” Trooper English testified that he heard May reply, “mine”. The luggage was opened and found to contain a total of 115 pounds of marijuana. May and Palmer were arrested and then given Miranda warnings.
I believe that the statement “mine” should have been suppressed because May had not been given the Miranda warnings. The evidence compels a conclusion that May was “subjected to treatment that rendered him ‘in custody’ for practical purposes” when he was stopped for a speeding violation, removed to the confines of Trooper English’s vehicle and interrogated, and that the circumstances of the detention “sufficiently impair [ed] his free exercise of his privilege against self-incrimination.” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. at 437.
Berkemer, while holding that Miranda warnings need not be given in all traffic stops, does not hold that Miranda warnings are never required in traffic stops, and also does not hold that a suspect is only entitled to Miranda warnings after he is arrested. Id. at 440. The Court did state, however, that there will arise on occasion the difficult question whether custodial interrogation has occurred during a traffic stop situation and that the police and the courts will be required to resolve the question on a case-by-case *359analysis. See id. at 441; see also United States v. Gibson, 392 F.2d 373, 376 (4th Cir. 1968); State v. Herem, 371 N.W.2d 40, 42 (Minn.App. 1985). Thus, not all roadside questioning by police will lead to the admissibility of statements, as the majority apparently concludes it will, on the ground that “traffic stop” questioning does not require Miranda warnings. Furthermore, custodial interrogation may occur although there has been no formal arrest. See People v. Austin, 128 Misc. 2d 923, 925, 491 N.Y.S.2d 982, 984 (1985); Commonwealth v. Meyer, 488 Pa. 297, 306, 412 A.2d 517, 521 (1980). The Miranda phrase, “otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in a significant way,” suggests a deprivation of freedom more stringent than the ordinary stop of a vehicle, see Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 435-40, but is not limited to formal arrest. See Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444.
May was stopped both for a speeding violation and because Trooper English suspected that he was a drug carrier. Although he was not initially informed by Trooper English that he was under suspicion because he met “a drug profile,” he was informed of the speeding violation and placed in the trooper’s vehicle. He was not told that he was free to leave; moreover, he was in fact not free to leave because he was being charged for a speeding violation. No reasonable person in May’s position would believe that he was free to leave or to disobey the directive to get into the trooper’s vehicle. He was required to cooperate while the trooper prepared a traffic citation for speeding. Although he was not told that he was under arrest, his detention at that point was functionally equivalent to a formal arrest. See Herem, 371 N.W.2d at 43. It is reasonable to assume that had he attempted to leave he would have been formally arrested. I believe that a motorist, in circumstances such as here, who is charged by a trooper with exceeding the speed limit, placed in the confines of the trooper’s vehicle for the purpose of being charged, and interrogated regarding matters unrelated to the traffic violation prior to the issuance of the citation, has had his “freedom of . . . action curtailed to a ‘degree associated with formal arrest.’ ” Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 440; see also Meyer, 488 Pa. at 305-06, 412 A.2d at 520-21.
Having removed May to his vehicle and away from the public’s view, Trooper English for a period of twenty-eight to thirty-three minutes proceeded to test his suspicion that May was a criminal agent. Furthermore, when Trooper Lucas arrived May was not *360lingering in the trooper’s vehicle because of his own free will. Trooper English was still completing the traffic citation. This was not merely a brief, noncoercive, roadside stop conducted in the public view. Here the questioning within the confines of the trooper’s vehicle was not different than stationhouse interrogation. See United States v. Schultz, 442 F.Supp. 176, 181 (D. Md. 1977). It was prolonged, it was unrelated to the traffic violation, and it was coercive. May certainly was aware that he could not leave until the questioning ceased, the citation, which had not been written, was given to him, and the trooper released him.
Although the trial court was entitled to disregard May’s testimony that Trooper English threatened to “call for the dogs” if May did not consent, I believe it is significant that Trooper English, who was present in the courtroom when May testified regarding that fact, did not rebut that testimony when he testified subsequent to May. In substantial part May’s testimony was consistent with Trooper’s English’s testimony; furthermore, the trial court’s only comment as to the credibility of the witnesses relates to the identification of the luggage:
THE COURT: The Court believes from the evidence what happened was the trunk was raised. The trooper saw the suitcase and asked whose it is. The defendant indeed indicated it was his. So, the Court rejects that much of his testimony today that conflicts with the trooper’s as to that portion.
Unlike Berkemer, where the trooper “decided as soon as the motorist stepped out of his car that [the motorist] would be charged with a traffic offense” but “never communicated his intentions to [the motorist],” Trooper English not only communicated his intent to charge May with a traffic offense, but he removed him from the relative freedom of his own vehicle and the public way into Trooper English’s vehicle. Furthermore, at least forty-five minutes transpired between the initial stop and the search of the trunk. While the trunk was being opened both May and his passenger were directed to stand by the guardrail at the rear of the vehicle and warned not to try anything. The circumstances of May’s detention from the moment he was placed in the trooper’s vehicle through the search of the trunk of May’s vehicle were sufficient to constitute “custody” within the meaning of *361Miranda and Berkemer. I believe that May’s treatment can “fairly be characterized as the functional equivalent of a formal arrest,” Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 442, and that the unwarned statement made by May subsequent to his detention in Trooper English’s vehicle was inadmissible and should have been suppressed. For this reason, I would reverse the conviction and remand for a new trial if the Commonwealth be so advised.