Court Opinion

ID: 9643979
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:45:40.310508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:06.930224
License: Public Domain

TODD, J.:
¶ 1 John Perez appeals the Judgment of Sentence entered by the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on April 24, 1998.1 Following a jury trial, Perez was convicted of three counts of robbery2 and other related offenses3 and was sentenced to eight to twenty years in prison. On appeal, Perez argues that the trial court, by the Honorable Judge Edward J. Bradley, erred in denying his motion to suppress statements that he made to police on the basis that the statements were not obtained within six hours of his arrest.4 For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the trial court’s judgment of sentence.
¶ 2 In reviewing a trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress, this Court must determine whether the record supports the factual findings of the suppression court and the legitimacy of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from those findings.5 Commonwealth v. Brundidge, 533 Pa. 167, 170, 620 A.2d 1115, 1116 (1993). In making this determination, we must consider the Commonwealth’s evidence and so much of the evidence of Perez as remains uncontradicted when fairly read in the context of the record as a whole. Id.
¶ 3 The record supports the following recitation of facts. At approximately 4:30 p.m. on November 24, 1996, Griffin’s Deli in Philadelphia was robbed at gunpoint by three men. Based on information provided by the victims and a videotape of the robbery, police circulated a description of the suspects. The police also obtained a description of the car in which the suspects were seen fleeing, a lime green Chevy Monte Carlo. At approximately 6:15 p.m. that same day, the Oasis Pizzeria, also in Philadelphia, was robbed by three men who matched the description of the men involved in the earlier deli robbery and who also were seen fleeing the scene in a green Chevy Monte Carlo. At approximately 6:20 p.m., police stopped a green Chevy Monte Carlo containing two men who matched the description of those involved in the two robberies. One of these men was later identified as Perez. At approximately 6:30 p.m., the men were arrested and taken into custody.
¶4 At approximately 11:15 p.m., after conducting an investigation of the robberies, Detective George Fetters sat down to interview Perez regarding the robberies. At the time of his arrest, Perez had told Detective Fetters that his name was John Presberry and that his birthdate was November 23, 1978. Perez also provided Detective Fetters with an address and telephone number, and the name of his aunt, Gladys Berrios, with whom he was living. At 11:42 p.m., Detective Fetters checked the name John Presberry in the police computer to determine whether there had been any prior arrests. In doing so, the *875detective discovered that Perez had given him a false name, birthdate, address and telephone number. However, at approximately 12:00 midnight, Detective Fetters was able to obtain the correct telephone number for the woman whom Perez alleged was his aunt. When confronted with the results of the police computer search, Perez finally admitted that his name was John Perez and provided his correct address and date of birth, January 22, 1980.
¶ 5 When provided with Perez’s correct date of birth, Detective Fetters realized that Perez was a juvenile, and at 12:15 a.m. on November 25, 1996, another detective, Detective Harkins, telephoned Berr-ios, who refused to come to the precinct, but gave the detectives permission to speak to Perez.6 By approximately 12:45 а.m., Perez was given his Miranda warnings and agreed to make a statement. Perez then confessed his involvement in both of the robberies.
¶ 6 Rule 123 (formerly Rule 122) of the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure requires that a person who is arrested be brought before a judicial officer for preliminary arraignment without unnecessary delay. Pa.R.Crim.P. 123. The purpose of this requirement is to protect an accused’s right to know the nature and cause of the accusation against him, his right to counsel, and his right to reasonable bail. Commonwealth v. Duncan, 514 Pa. 395, 403, 525 A.2d 1177, 1181 (1987) (citations omitted).
¶ 7 In order to ensure prompt preliminary arraignment following arrest, our Supreme Court has held that prejudicial evidence obtained during unnecessary delay between arrest and arraignment is inadmissible at trial, unless such evidence has no relationship to the delay. Commonwealth v. Futch, 447 Pa. 389, 393-94, 290 A.2d 417, 419 (1972).7 In defining what constitutes “reasonable delay”, the Court explained:
Necessary delay can reasonably relate to time to administratively process an accused with booking, fingerprinting and other steps and sometimes even to make same [sic] limited preliminary investigation into his connection with the crime for which he was arrested, especially when it is directed to possible exculpation of the one arrested.
Id. at 392, 290 A.2d at 418 (citing Adams v. United States, 399 F.2d 574, 579 (D.C.Cir.1968) (concurring opinion)).
¶ 8 However, the flexible standard of Futch proved difficult for law enforcement officers to apply, and in Commonwealth v. Davenport, 471 Pa. 278, 286-87, 370 A.2d 301, 306 (1977), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court established a rule which provided that when an accused is not arraigned within six hours of arrest, any statements obtained after arrest but before arraignment are inadmissible at trial.
¶ 9 The Davenport rule was later modified by the Court in Commonwealth v. Duncan, supra, in which the Court held that statements which are obtained within six hours after arrest are admissible even when arraignment does not occur within six hours after arrest. Id. at 406, 525 A.2d *876at 1182-83. The Court explained its reasoning for the modification as follows:
Our adoption of the more rigid standard of Davenport was an attempt to assure more certain and even-handed application of the prompt arraignment requirement, and provide greater guidance to trial courts and law enforcement authorities .... [I]mplicit in our holding was a determination that a delay of six hours between arrest and arraignment is an acceptable period of time to accommodate conflicting interests without creating such a coercive effect so as to violate the rights of an accused. Therefore, the focus should be upon when the statement was obtained.... If the statement is obtained within the six-hour period, absent coercion or other illegality, it is not obtained in violation of the rights of an accused and should be admissible. In keeping with the underlying objectives of the rule, only statements obtained after the six-hour period has run should be suppressed on the basis of Davenport.
Id. at 405-06, 525 A.2d at 1182-83.
¶ 10 The Davenport-Duncan rule was further refined in Commonwealth v. Odrick, 410 Pa.Super. 245, 251-53, 599 A.2d 974, 977 (1991), in which this Court held that “absent facts pointing to an unnecessary delay due to police misconduct, voluntary statements given by a defendant and initiated within six hours after arrest may not be suppressed just because the process of obtaining the statement runs over six hours.”
¶ 11 In the present case, Perez contends that because he was arrested at approximately 6:30 p.m., and police did not begin interrogating him until 12:45 a.m., the statements he made to police during the interrogation should be suppressed on the ground that they were not obtained within six hours of his arrest. Indeed, the interrogation that produced Perez’s statements did not begin until approximately fifteen minutes past the six-hour period following his arrest. However, in this instance we do not believe that Duncan requires suppression of the statements.
¶ 12 We base our decision on the fact that the delay in this case was deliberately caused by Perez himself. Detective Fetters first sat down to interview Perez at approximately 11:15 p.m., less than five hours following Perez’s arrest. However, as a result of Perez’s lies regarding his name, birthdate, address and telephone number, Detective Fetters was forced to spend additional time determining Perez’s identity. Detective Fetters checked the name John Presberry in the police computer at 11:42 p.m. At that time, he discovered that the name was false, and from 11:42 p.m. to approximately 12:00 a.m., he conducted further research to determine Perez’s identity. At 12:00 a.m., when confronted by police about the misinformation, Perez finally provided his true name and date of birth, thereby revealing that he was a juvenile. Accordingly, another detective then contacted Perez’s aunt, for whom police had located an address and telephone number, to obtain permission to interview Perez. At 12:45 a.m., Perez was read his Miranda rights and Detective Fetters began the interrogation, which ended at approximately 4:30 a.m. Thus, by providing the police with false information, Perez delayed his interrogation by more than one hour, i.e., from 11:42 p.m. to 12:45 a.m.
¶ 13 This Court recognizes that a defendant is under no obligation to provide the police with information as to his identity or any other matter. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966); U.S. Const. amend. V. However, once a defendant chooses to talk with the police, he should not profit from any delay his untruths may cause.
¶ 14 Our conclusion is supported by prior opinions of this Court in which we have expressed a reluctance to allow a defendant to profit from a delay that he caused intentionally. For example, in Commonwealth v. Devan, 338 Pa.Super. *87795, 487 A.2d 869 (1985) (Hoffman, J.; Del Sole, J. concurring in the result; with Montemuro, J. filing a concurring opinion),8 the appellant was arrested at approximately 3:30 p.m. for shoplifting at a department store. At the time of her arrest, the appellant told police that her name was Sylvia Gray and that she was seventeen years old. Consequently, the appellant was turned over to the juvenile division, but police were.unable to verify her name. At approximately 5:20 p.m., the appellant told the police that her name was Charlene Devan. The police were unable to verify this name, and at 8:00 p.m. police reread appellant her Miranda rights and began to question her. At that time, appellant restated that her name was Charlene Devan and instructed police where they could find her identification. After further investigation, the police eventually prepared a new complaint, which was completed at approximately 11:00 p.m. Between 11:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. the officers attempted to have the appellant arraigned, but no magistrate was available. Therefore, the complaint was sent to the magistrate at 9:00 a.m. the following morning and the appellant was not arraigned until approximately noon that day.
¶ 15 The appellant in Devan alleged that because she was not arraigned until approximately 20/é hours after her arrest, under Davenport, her oral statements and the physical evidence obtained as a result thereof should be inadmissible. The Commonwealth argued that the delay was excusable because of exigent circumstances, namely, the appellant’s own actions of lying to the police about her name.
¶ 16 In Devan, this Court, noting that part of the delay in arraigning the appellant was due to her own actions, concluded that the portion of the delay caused by the appellant, namely, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:20, should be excluded in determining whether the Davenport rule had been violated.9 Id. at 872. In doing so, this Court relied on several cases, including Commonwealth v. Gallo, 276 Pa.Super. 562, 419 A.2d 601 (1980) and Commonwealth v. Machi, 294 Pa.Super. 338, 439 A.2d 1230 (1982). These cases involved alleged violations of Rule 1100 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure, which guarantees a defendant a prompt trial. In Gallo and in dicta in Machi,10 this Court stated that a *878defendant cannot profit from a delay in being brought to trial that he or she has caused.11 See also Commonwealth v. Herbert, 348 Pa.Super. 566, 502 A.2d 690 (1985) (Where defendant seeking immunity from prosecution under Rule 1100 made himself “unavailable” for trial by hiding under an alias while incarcerated, that portion of time was properly excluded in determining whether defendant received a speedy trial.).
¶ 17 In light of this Court’s prior guidance, we shall, therefore, employ the same approach we took in Devan, and exclude the period of time between Perez’s arrest, during which he gave police a false name, and the time at which he provided the police with his true identity, i.e., from 6:30 p.m. until midnight. We therefore conclude, for purposes of determining whether Perez’s statements were obtained in violation of the Duncan rule, that the clock should begin ticking at midnight, when Perez provided police with his real name, rather than at the time of his arrest when he provided police with false and misleading information. As Perez’s interrogation ended at 4:30 a.m., Perez’s statement was necessarily initiated and completed by 4:30 a.m., which is within six hours of midnight.
¶ 18 To suppress Perez’s statements under a strict application of the six-hour Duncan rule would reward Perez for lying to the police and would send a message that by using delay tactics, criminal defendants may create a basis on which to suppress a confession. This is clearly not the intended effect of the rule. We are further guided in our decision by the following language by our Supreme Court in Duncan:
This Court never intended that the rule of Davenport be rigidly applied in all situations without regard to the purpose of the rule and the evils sought to be avoided by its application. “At no time did we wish to cut off freely volunteered confessions of guilt, nor did we wish to impede legitimate law enforcement efforts. The primary purpose sought to be obtained was to discourage the obtaining of incriminatory information through coercive means, and it was felt that the mere passage of time while *879under arrest could have a coercive effect on the defendant.”
Duncan, 514 Pa. at 406, 525 A.2d at 1182 (citation omitted).
¶ 19 Recently, in Commonwealth v. Devine, 750 A.2d 899 (Pa.Super.2000), this Court held that where an appellant was held in police custody for nearly five and one-half hours before he was questioned and completed his statement within six and one half hours after being taken into custody, there was no violation of the Davenport-Duncan rule. Id. at 903. Significantly, in its analysis, this Court in Devine discussed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court analysis of applicability of the six-hour rule in Commonwealth v. Washington, 547 Pa. 550, 692 A.2d 1018 (1997), and explained:
the Court in Washington declined to find a violation of the Davenport-Duncan rule since the appellant in that case gave an inculpatory statement within five (5) hours of being questioned in an interrogation room even though he had been in police custody for approximately twenty-eight (28) hours. The Washington Court noted that the record did reveal that appellant had languished in a holding cell while being processed into the criminal justice system on an unrelated charge prior to his removal to the interrogation room and questioning on the murder charge for which he was convicted. Even so, the Court found that no violation of the Davenport-Duncan rule existed due to its premise, which is based upon “a desire to avoid the coercive effect of prolonged police interrogation.” Id. 547 Pa. at 561, 692 A.2d at 1023 (emphasis supplied).
Devine, 750 A.2d at 903.12
¶ 20 Perez does not allege that his confession was coerced, unknowing, or involuntary. As in Washington, supra, there was no prolonged period of interrogation of Perez by police. Rather, Perez seeks suppression of his statements based on a technical application of the six-hour rule. In view of the cause of the delay and circumstances surrounding it in this case, suppression of the statements made to police by Perez would not comport with the spirit behind the rule or with this Court’s previous rulings that a defendant should not profit from a delay which he himself has caused.
¶ 21 For the reasons discussed above, we find no error in the trial court’s denial of Perez’s motion to suppress the state*880ments which he made to police on the grounds that they were not obtained within six hours of his arrest.
¶ 22 Judgment of Sentence affirmed.
¶ 23 Judge JOHNSON files a Dissenting Opinion.

. Perez's subsequent Motion to Reduce Sentence was denied by the Court of Common Pleas on December 14, 1999, which noted that it lacked jurisdiction.

. 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 3701.

. 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 907 (possession of an instrument of a crime); 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 6108 (carrying a firearm on a public street); 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 903 (criminal conspiracy); and 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 2705 (reckless endangerment of another person).

. On February 15, 2000, Perez filed a Petition for Relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9541, on the same grounds. The Petition was dismissed without prejudice by Order dated March 21, 2000, due to the pending direct appeal in this Court.

. The trial judge in the case retired from the bench before an opinion could be issued.

. On December 2, 1996, Perez was certified to stand trial in the Criminal Section of the Philadelphia Municipal Court. Perez’s counsel's subsequent motion to decertify and remand the case to juvenile court for trial was denied by the trial court and Perez was tried as an adult. This issue has not been raised on appeal.

. In Futch, the defendant alleged a violation of Rule 118 (now Rule 102) of the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure which provided:
[w]hen a defendant has been arrested without a warrant, he shall be taken without unnecessary delay before the proper issuing authority where a complaint shall be filed against him.
(a) if the complaint charges a court case, the defendant shall be given an immediate preliminary arraignment.
Futch, 447 Pa. at 391 n. 1, 290 A.2d at 418 n. 1 (citing former Pa.R.Crim.P. 118).

. We acknowledge the Dissent’s position that Devan is not precedential due to the fact that Judge Montemuro’s concurring opinion did not specifically endorse any particular part of Judge Hoffman’s opinion. In cases where a concurring opinion enumerates the portions of the majority opinion in which the author joins or disagrees, analysis of the precedential value of the majority is simple. In cases such as Devan, however, where the concurrence does not explicitly state agreement or disagreement, we must look to the substance of the concurrence.
Based upon our reading of Judge Montemu-ro’s concurring opinion, we do not believe that it rejects the proposition for which we rely on Devan, that a defendant should not profit from a delay which he deliberately has caused. In his concurrence, Judge Montemu-ro advocated a departure from the technical six-hour rule established in Davenport in favor of an approach which would require the Commonwealth to prove that a delay in arraigning a defendant was not unnecessary. Although Judge Montemuro concluded that the Commonwealth had not met that burden in Devan, it is clear that he opposed the six-hour rule as a per se rule of exclusion. Moreover, even if Devan lacks precedential value, this Court may consider it for its persuasive value. See Commonwealth v. Covil, 474 Pa. 375, 378 A.2d 841 (1977).

. In Devan, this Court ultimately held that, even excluding the two hours between the time of the appellant’s arrest, at which she gave a false name, and the time she provided police with her real name, the appellant was not arraigned until 18)4 hours after arrest, and therefore, pursuant to Davenport, reversed the judgment of sentence.

. In Machi, the defendant’s trial was postponed pending a decision by the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the Pittsburgh Police Magistrate’s Court. By the time the Supreme Court rendered its decision that the Magistrate’s Court was constitutional, approximately one year had passed since the filing of the complaint against Machi. Machi was convicted and on appeal argued that he had not received a prompt trial pursuant to Rule 1100. This Court ultimately reversed the judgment of sentence, holding that Machi *878did not waive his fundamental right to a prompt trial because there was no signed statement or on-the-record colloquy to that effect. In Machi, this Court also noted that the record indicated that the postponement of trial was by mutual agreement between the Commonwealth and defense counsel.

. We recognize that Devan was decided pri- or to the Duncan modification of Davenport. However, we do not find the Court’s refusal to allow the appellant in Devan to profit from the delay caused as a result of her lies to the police, or our holding in the present case, to be inconsistent with the Court’s intended purpose in Duncan.
We are also cognizant of this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Goldsmith, 422 Pa.Super. 191, 619 A.2d 311 (1993), in which the appellee gave a statement to police within six hours of his arrest. Shortly after the expiration of six hours, however, the appellee volunteered to police that his prior statement was false and that he wanted to make an accurate statement. Prior to taking the statement, police had appellee sign a form acknowledging that he had been informed by police that after he had been in police custody for six hours, he was not required to talk with police, that everything he told them after the six hours could not be used against him in court unless he waived his rights, and that he wished to continue to talk to police knowing that anything he said could be used against him. In affirming the trial court's suppression of Goldsmith's subsequent statements, this Court ultimately held that the six-hour rule serves constitutional ends and that Goldsmith could not waive its protection. However, this Court expressly limited its review to the specific facts of that case, and stated that:
even if we were to find that waiver is possible, we are compelled to find that the six-hour arraignment rule cannot be waived under the circumstances of this case: where the waiver was executed more than six hours after arrest or where the purported waiver is inadequate to inform appellant of the rights which he forgoes.
Id. at 315 (emphasis added).
Significantly, Perez’s actions, lying to the police, which give rise to our analysis herein, occurred prior to the expiration of the six-hour period following his arrest.

. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court most recently had the opportunity to address the Davenport-Duncan rule in Commonwealth v. Bridges, — Pa. -, -, 757 A.2d 859, 864-65 (2000). In a case involving the interrogation regarding a murder investigation, the Court determined the rule to be inapplicable where a defendant is subject to a custodial interrogation that is unrelated to the purpose for which he or she has been detained. Id. -, 757 A.2d at 870-72. In her Opinion, speaking for the majority of the Court, Justice Neman acknowledged that "[t]he rule has many critics who believe that it arbitrarily sets a time limit for arraignment and excludes statements that may, in fact, have been given knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently.” Id. at - n. 11, 757 A.2d at 871 n. 11 (citing Commonwealth v. Hughes, 521 Pa. 423, 461, 555 A.2d 1264, 1284 (1989) (McDermott concurring) (criticizing the “mechanical and discredited six-hour rule”); Commonwealth v. D’Amato, 514 Pa. 471, 487, 526 A.2d 300, 307 (1987) (observing "[wjhatever validity the Davenport rule retains, its 'six-hour clock’ does not begin to run ... until the defendant has been returned to the judicial district wherein the arrest warrant was issued.”)). Indeed, in his Concurring Opinion, in which Justice Cappy joined, Justice Saylor criticized the rule, stating, "[gjiven the present holding, I now favor abandonment of the Davenport/Duncan construct and reversion to the federal model entailing consideration of the totality of the circumstances in every case.” Bridges, - Pa. at -, 757 A.2d at 883 (citing to Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 285-86, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1252, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991)). Justice Saylor went on to opine, "I find the federal model vastly superior to continuation of a rule so readily capable of avoidance as to function as no rule at all; indeed, I believe that its maintenance on such terms carries with it the potential for diminishing respect for the courts’ authority in the eyes of those subject to their lawful mandates.” Id.