Compos v. People

484 P.3d 159

Vincent Joseph COMPOS, Petitioner,

v.The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.

Supreme Court Case No. 20SC143

Supreme Court of Colorado.

April 12, 2021

Attorneys for Petitioner: Megan A. Ring, Public Defender, Julia Chamberlin, Deputy Public Defender, Denver, Colorado

Attorneys for Respondent: Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Rebecca A. Adams, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado

En Banc

JUSTICE GABRIEL delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 This case presents two questions for our review. First, we must decide whether Vincent Compos's Miranda rights were violated when, after taking him into custody but prior to providing him with Miranda warnings, the police asked him his name. Second, we are asked to decide whether the division below erred in establishing a "new crime exception" to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 478-79, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and applying it here.¹

¶2 We now conclude that the question as to Compos's name amounted to a custodial interrogation, but, on the facts presented here, Compos's response was admissible at trial because the question was akin to the type of routine booking question that has been deemed to be excepted from Miranda's reach. For this reason, we affirm the judgment of the division below, albeit on other grounds, and in light of our determination, we need not consider and thus vacate the portion of the division's judgment establishing, sua sponte, a new crime exception to Miranda.

I. Facts and Procedural History

¶3 Compos and his ex-girlfriend dated for a few weeks before she decided to end the relationship. At about that time, the ex-girlfriend obtained a protection order that, among other things, prohibited Compos from contacting her.

¶4 Shortly after the relationship ended, Compos appeared at a Super Bowl party that the ex-girlfriend and her children were also attending. As a result, the ex-girlfriend left the party early and returned home with her children.

¶5 Later that evening, Compos arrived uninvited at the ex-girlfriend's home and let himself inside. The two began arguing, and during this argument, Compos threatened to kill the ex-girlfriend and her family. Compos then pulled out a gun and pointed it at the ex-girlfriend and her son.

¶6 At this point, the ex-girlfriend grabbed her phone, called 911, and then got her children and fled the house, not waiting for the police to arrive. In the course of her 911 call, the ex-girlfriend told the police that Compos was at her house and that he was not supposed to be there.

¶7 Within minutes after leaving her house, the ex-girlfriend was pulled over by police officers who had seen her vehicle leave the home. After explaining who she was and what had happened, she gave the police permission to go to her house, and she gave them her keys.

¶8 While the police were speaking with the ex-girlfriend, other officers arrived at her home and saw Compos inside at the bottom of the stairs leading to the back door where the officers were standing. The officers ordered Compos to come up the stairs, and Compos started to comply, but he then stopped and yelled at the officers that he had a gun and that they were going to have to shoot him. At that point, one of the officers tased Compos and incapacitated him. The officers then handcuffed Compos and took him into custody.

¶9 Approximately five minutes later, one of the officers spoke with Compos outside a patrol car. The officer asked Compos his name, to which Compos falsely responded "John Rocha" and provided a birthdate. Although the officer was aware of at least one protection order restricting Compos's activities, and although the officer also knew that Compos was on bond, he did not provide Miranda warnings before asking Compos his name.

¶10 As pertinent here, prosecutors thereafter charged Compos with criminal impersonation (based on his false statement that his name was "John Rocha") and with violating the protection order. Compos moved to suppress all of the statements that he had made in response to the police officer's questions (including the false statement regarding his name), arguing, among other things, that those statements were the products of a custodial interrogation conducted without the required Miranda warnings. Following a hearing, the trial court denied this motion, concluding that although Compos had been in custody, the question about his name was not designed to elicit an incriminating response and therefore did not violate Compos's Miranda rights.

¶11 The case proceeded to trial, and the jury ultimately convicted Compos of criminal impersonation and the lesser-included offense of false reporting. Thereafter, Compos pleaded guilty to the protection order violation count, which had been bifurcated; the parties reached a stipulation to resolve this case and several others pending against Compos; and the court sentenced Compos to a controlling term of three years in the Department of Corrections.

¶12 Compos then appealed, arguing, as pertinent here, that the trial court had erred in not suppressing his statement that his name was "John Rocha" because, in Compos's view, he had made this statement in the course of a custodial interrogation conducted without the benefit of the warnings required by Miranda , 384 U.S. at 444, 478-79, 86 S.Ct. 1602. The People countered that, notwithstanding the circumstances of the interrogation, the trial court had correctly treated the officer's inquiry as a non-investigative, administrative question covered by the so-called "routine booking question" exception to Miranda.

¶13 In a unanimous, published opinion, a division of the court of appeals determined that it did not need to resolve the dispute as framed by the parties. People v. Compos, 2019 COA 177, ¶ 15, ––– P.3d ––––. Instead, the division, acting sua sponte, concluded that "when an individual is interrogated in violation of Miranda, and his response to questioning is itself a crime [here, false reporting or criminal impersonation], the exclusionary rule will not bar admission of the response at any subsequent trial for charges based on the criminal act committed in the response." Id. at ¶ 26. The division thus adopted what has been called the "new crime exception" to the exclusionary rule, which this court has previously applied in the Fourth Amendment context but never in the context of an alleged Miranda violation. Id. at ¶¶ 18-19, 26 (citing People v. Doke, 171 P.3d 237, 239 (Colo. 2007) ).

¶14 Compos petitioned this court for a writ of certiorari, and we granted that petition.

II. Analysis

¶15 We begin by addressing the applicable standard of review. We then discuss Miranda's governing principles regarding custodial interrogations and the routine booking question exception, and we apply those principles to the facts presented here. Finally, we briefly address the division's adoption of a new crime exception to Miranda.

A. Standard of Review

¶16 When reviewing a suppression order, we defer to the trial court's factual findings if they are supported by competent evidence in the record. Verigan v. People, 2018 CO 53, ¶ 18, 420 P.3d 247, 250. We, however, review the trial court's legal conclusions de novo, and we will reverse such conclusions when the trial court applied an erroneous legal standard or came to a conclusion of constitutional law that was not supported by the factual findings. Id., 420 P.3d at 250-51.

B. Miranda and the Routine Booking Question Exception

¶17 The self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment provides, "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." U.S. Const. amend. V. In Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, the Supreme Court concluded that the protection of this privilege during custodial questioning requires the application of certain "procedural safeguards." Thus, the Court stated, "Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed." Id.

¶18 Because the Miranda Court was primarily concerned that the "interrogation environment" created by the interplay of interrogation and custody could "subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner," id. at 457, 86 S.Ct. 1602, the above-noted procedural safeguards are not required unless a suspect is both in custody and subject to interrogation, People v. Davis, 2019 CO 84, ¶ 16, 449 P.3d 732, 737.

¶19 Here, all parties agree that Compos was in custody. Accordingly, we must decide whether the officer's inquiry as to Compos's name amounted to an interrogation.

¶20 In Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U.S. 582, 600-02, 110 S.Ct. 2638, 110 L.Ed.2d 528 (1990), the Supreme Court addressed this very question. There, the Commonwealth argued that a police officer's questions to the defendant regarding, among other things, his name and address did not constitute an interrogation within the meaning of Miranda . Id. at 600, 110 S.Ct. 2638. Five Justices of the Court, however, disagreed. See id. at 601, 110 S.Ct. 2638 (plurality opinion); id. at 608, 110 S.Ct. 2638 (Marshall, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (agreeing that a custodial interrogation had occurred).

¶21 In the Muniz plurality's view,

custodial interrogation for purposes of Miranda includes both express questioning and words or actions that, given the officer's knowledge of any special susceptibilities of the suspect, the officer knows or reasonably should know are likely to "have ... the force of a question on the accused," and therefore be reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response.

Id. at 601, 110 S.Ct. 2638 (citation omitted) (quoting Harryman v. Estelle, 616 F.2d 870, 874 (5th Cir. 1980) ). Based on this standard, the plurality rejected the Commonwealth's contention that the questions at issue did not amount to a custodial interrogation. Id.

¶22 The...