Court Opinion

ID: 9488928
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:59:59.260383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:11.643727
License: Public Domain

NOONAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the opinion of the court except as to the failure to arraign Van Poyck promptly.
The relevant statute lists a variety of officers before whom he could have been arraigned. The statute reads:
For any offense against the United States, the offender may, by any justice or judge of the United States, or by any United States magistrate, or by any chancellor, judge of a supreme or superior court, chief or first judge of common pleas, mayor of a city, justice of the peace, or other magistrate, of any state where the offender may be found ... be arrested and imprisoned ... 18 U.S.C. § 3041.
If arraignment is no longer a simple task, as the court suggests, then the statute should be altered; but its alteration is not our job. The statute is premised on the ability of each of the named officers to make an arraignment.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a) is premised on the statute. It reads:
(a) In General. An officer making an arrest under a warrant issued upon a complaint or any person making an arrest without a warrant shall take the arrested person without unnecessary delay before the nearest available federal magistrate judge or, in the event that a federal magistrate judge is not reasonably available, before a state or local judicial officer authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 3041.
Van Poyck was arrested at 4:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. The arrest was made by local police, executing a federal warrant. It is reasonable to suppose that a federal magistrate or some other judicial officer was available all of Friday afternoon, unless one supposes that all such officers begin the weekend a little early.
*293It will be noted that “reasonably” only qualifies the availability of the federal magistrate. Rule 5(a) makes no such allowance for the convenience of the other judicial officers provided by 18 U.S.C. § 3041. Even if a federal magistrate may “reasonably” be unavailable on a Friday afternoon, no such slack is cut for the other officers.
The court suggests that the “complex procedures” of arraignment somehow “dictate[s]” the conclusion that weekend delays between arrest and arraignment are reasonable “when due to the unavailability of a magistrate.” Although it is true that arraignment cannot be performed in a magistrate’s living room, nothing is so complex about an arraignment that it can’t be performed in federal court on a Friday afternoon following an arrest of a federal suspect pursuant to a warrant. With the issuance of a warrant, law enforcement should be able to foresee any scheduling difficulties posed by the weekend and plan accordingly. Moreover, it is not inconceivable that courts could conduct such arraignments on Saturday mornings, a practice common in at least one other circuit, see, e.g., United States v. Rubio, 709 F.2d 146, 148 n. 2 (2d Cir.1983), and not unheard of in Los Angeles, see, e.g., Man Charged in Airline Extortion Try, LA Times, Jan. 16, 1994, at B3 (federal suspect in airline extortion case was arrested on a Friday night in Los Angeles and then arraigned on a Saturday), or elsewhere in our circuit, see, e.g., Tony Perry & Carlos Lozano, Colbern Arraigned on U.S. Weapons Charges Blast Probe, L.A. Times, May 14, 1995, at A1 (federal suspect in Oklahoma City bombing, who was arrested on a Friday, was arraigned on Saturday in Arizona before a federal magistrate judge). Although Saturday morning arraignments may not be standard practice in California, such a prospect is permitted under California law. See Cal.Civil Proc.Code § 134(a)(3) (West 1995).
Such a practice was also implied by the Supreme Court in its ruling that the combined proceedings in Riverside County, California, involving an arraignment and probable cause determination must occur within 48 hours of arrest, regardless of an intervening weekend, for suspects arrested without a warrant. County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 57, 111 S.Ct. 1661, 1670, 114 L.Ed.2d 49 (1991). The Court held that detaining a person without a warrant and without a probable cause determination for more than 48 hours was presumptively unreasonable. Id. The Court instructed jurisdictions with proceedings that combine arraignment with the probable cause determination to hold such proceedings within 48 hours of arrest, weekends included. Id. Although established to govern probable cause determinations, the 48-hour presumption provides a good benchmark by which to evaluate the reasonableness of any delay in bringing a defendant before a magistrate for arraignment. In either context, “delay for delay’s sake” is unreasonable, even on weekends. Id. at 56, 111 S.Ct. at 1670.
The rule established by the court means that no arraignment need be made before Monday of a person arrested sometime Friday afternoon. If, as often enough happens, Monday is a holiday, the court’s rule invites delaying the arraignment to Tuesday. The rule also invites arrests on Friday afternoon and, even worse, arrests before holiday weekends when a person arrested may be held from 4 p.m. Friday to 9 a.m. Tuesday or 89 hours without arraignment. By implication, the court’s rule might make reasonable even a 5-day delay before arraignment of a person arrested the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving or before Christmas and the Fourth of July when these dates fall on a Thursday. Compare the Supreme Court’s discussion of the possible delay in id. at 47, 111 S.Ct. at 1665.
In my view, the delay in arraignment was not reasonable, so the court’s first ground for admitting Van Poyck’s statement does not survive scrutiny. Whether public policy favors admission is a closer question. I can’t say that this court and the district court were in error in striking the balance in favor of admissibility. Van Poyck has not shown that law enforcement officials deliberately delayed his arraignment to facilitate interrogation or that he did not understand the Miranda warnings that the federal agent gave to him in the car en route to the arraignment. Under these circumstances, 18 U.S.C. § 3051 *294does not bar admission of Van Poyck’s statements.