Court Opinion

ID: 9731569
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:50:15.437814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:19.574399
License: Public Domain

Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE MILLS, dissenting: If there is not an exception here to the Miranda rule, there should be! There is ample eyeball evidence that defendant pulled a gun in a parking lot, threatened a man, and ran when the store manager approached. After investigating this incident, a police officer received a radio dispatch that the suspect had been spotted. He and a deputy sheriff immediately proceeded to that location where they saw defendant Hoffman standing in the middle of the road. A chase ensued and the quarry was run to ground at a trailer. Several officers entered the trailer on the heels of Hoffman. Immediately, in the presence of both his mother and father, the police asked defendant where the gun was. His parents both told their son that if he knew where the gun was, to tell the police where it was. (He had not been told he was under arrest, he was not handcuffed.) He then told the officers where the gun was, was handcuffed, was led from the trailer, and then took the police to the weapon. It should not be suppressed. This was hot pursuit. The authorities had a solid I.D., they got a dispatch specifically about this defendant, they spotted him, he ran, they pursued, they caught him, they asked for the gun, both his mother and father said “tell them” and he did! To suppress this is absurd. I dissent.