People v. Taylor

41 P.3d 681

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Franklin TAYLOR, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 01SA333.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

February 25, 2002.

Paul R. McLimans, District Attorney, Fourteenth Judicial District, David M. Waite, Deputy District Attorney, Bonnie S. Roesink, Deputy District Attorney, Craig, CO, Attorneys for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Oliphant, Hammond, O'Hara & Atwell, Kristopher L. Hammond, Steamboat Springs, CO, Thomas K. Carberry, Denver, CO, Attorneys for Defendant-Appellee.

Justice RICE delivered the Opinion of the Court.

The prosecution filed this interlocutory appeal pursuant to C.A.R. 4.1 challenging an order of the Moffat County District Court suppressing certain statements made by Defendant Franklin Taylor. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On February 6th, 2001 Defendant and his passenger, Jennifer Tafoya, were in Defendant's vehicle heading westbound on West Victory Way in Craig, Colorado. Officer Russell Bradford observed Ms. Tafoya in Defendant's vehicle and, aware that there were warrants outstanding for her arrest, informed City of Craig Police Officer Brian Soper of Ms. Tafoya's location. In order to effect Ms. Tafoya's arrest, Officer Soper activated the lights on his patrol car, signaling Defendant to stop his vehicle. In response, Defendant pulled his vehicle into the Centennial Mall parking lot. Officer Soper parked his patrol car immediately behind Defendant's vehicle. Officer Soper testified that Defendant had not committed any traffic violations and was only pulled over because Ms. Tafoya was a passenger in his car.

Officer Soper then approached Defendant's vehicle and informed Defendant that he had been stopped because there were outstanding warrants for Ms. Tafoya's arrest. The officer then arrested Ms. Tafoya by removing her from the passenger's seat, handcuffing her, and placing her in the back seat of his patrol car. She was arrested at 5:38 p.m., about two minutes after Defendant was stopped.

Officer Corey Wagner arrived on the scene to assist Officer Soper and also parked immediately behind Defendant's vehicle. Officer Bradford, in plainclothes and driving an unmarked Jeep Cherokee, arrived sometime thereafter and parked a short distance away. Although close by, he apparently did not leave his vehicle until after Defendant had been formally arrested. Both Officers Soper and Wagner were armed and in uniform, but neither displayed their weapons during the course of the encounter. After Officer Wagner's arrival, Officer Soper reinitiated contact with Defendant, requested his driver's license, retained it,¹ and advised him that they were going to conduct a search incident to arrest.² Officer Soper instructed Defendant to exit the vehicle and, placing his hand upon Defendant's shoulder, escorted him to the rear of the vehicle where Officer Wagner was waiting. Officer Wagner instructed Defendant to place his hands in the air, and after he did so, Officer Wagner frisked Defendant. Defendant volunteered one knife found on his person, and Officer Wagner discovered three more during the patdown for weapons. Officer Wagner kept all the knives.

When asked whether he had "any problem with" the officers searching his vehicle, Defendant responded that he preferred the officers not conduct a search. Officer Soper informed Defendant that the search would proceed regardless and that if there were items in the vehicle that were not his he should so inform them. Defendant said that Ms. Tafoya had placed her purse on the floorboard of the passenger seat but was not sure if she had dropped anything else. While Officer Wagner kept an eye on Defendant, Officer Soper conducted a search of the vehicle's passenger compartment.

The trial court found that Officer Wagner placed Defendant between himself and the vehicle such that Defendant was "essentially pinned" against the back of the vehicle and could not have left without "making a physical maneuver around Officer Wagner." (R. at vol. II, p. 127, 129.) Moreover, when Defendant attempted to move toward the passenger compartment of his vehicle in order to observe the search, Officer Wagner physically restrained him by extending his arm to prevent Defendant's movement toward the passenger compartment.

During the search, Officer Soper discovered a small black case in the vehicle containing what appeared to be drug paraphernalia and a white powdery substance. Returning to the rear of the vehicle where Officer Wagner and Defendant were standing, Officer Soper showed the case to Defendant and asked whether it was his and, if so, what it contained. Defendant, "surrounded by the truck and each of the officers," (R. at vol. II, p. 129), admitted the case was his and that it contained a small amount of cocaine. As a result, the officers informed Defendant that he was under arrest, handcuffed him, and placed him in Officer Wagner's patrol car. Approximately nineteen minutes had passed since Ms. Tafoya's arrest. He was not read his Miranda³ rights either before or after he made the inculpatory statements.

At the jail, during routine intake procedures, Detention Officer Falk asked Defendant whether he had ingested any illegal substances, and Defendant responded that he had used cocaine earlier in the day. Defendant still had not been advised of his Miranda rights. In fact, it was not until Colorado State Patrol Officer Hilling interviewed Defendant later in the evening that he was given Miranda warnings.

Officer Hilling, a drug recognition expert, was called to the jail to determine whether Defendant was under the influence of illegal substances. Defendant was moved from a holding cell to a conference room where the interview occurred. He was not handcuffed, and both he and Officer Hilling were dressed in plainclothes. Officer Hilling advised Defendant of his Miranda rights, and then inquired whether Defendant wanted to talk. Defendant said that he would talk "for a while." (R. at vol. II, p. 104.) When asked whether he had used drugs earlier in the day, Defendant said that he had used drugs earlier that day at approximately 4:00 p.m. When asked how commonly he used drugs, Defendant responded that he used between a half a gram and a gram a month. Defendant also showed Officer Hilling the needle marks on his arm. The trial court found that the interview was "relaxed and casual." (R. at vol. II, p. 133.)

Defendant moved to suppress the inculpatory statements he made in response to the questions posed by Officer Soper at the scene of his arrest, and by Officers Falk and Hilling at the jail. The trial court found that "there was clearly some kind of a detention," (R. at vol. II, p. 129), even though "Mr. Taylor wasn't suspected of having engaged in any criminal activity." Id. It also found that at the time Officer Soper inquired about the ownership and contents of the small black case Defendant was surrounded by armed uniformed police officers and their patrol cars and was "essentially encircled next to the pickup truck." (R. at vol. II, p. 130.) Accordingly, the trial court concluded these questions constituted custodial interrogation, and because Defendant had not yet been advised of his Miranda rights, the trial court suppressed his inculpatory responses. The trial court did find, however, that these statements were voluntarily made.

The trial court also suppressed the statements Defendant made at the jail. The prosecution conceded that Officer Falk's question constituted custodial interrogation, and thus, because Defendant had not yet been given Miranda warnings, the trial court suppressed Defendant's statement made in response thereto. The trial court also suppressed the statements made in response to the questions posed by Officer Hilling. It found that Defendant had been advised of his Miranda rights, had "knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily" waived those rights, and had voluntarily made the inculpatory statements. However, the trial court reasoned that the statements must nonetheless be suppressed as fruits of Defendant's prior inculpatory statements.

The prosecution appealed. We now affirm in part and reverse in part and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

II. PRE-ARREST STATEMENTS

Although this case is primarily concerned with protecting Defendant's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, we must, as a preliminary matter, also consider whether Defendant's Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the stop of his vehicle. One of the factors on which the trial court premised its conclusion that the police violated Defendant's Fifth Amendment rights was its finding that Defendant had been impermissibly detained.⁴ The prosecution disputes this finding and argues the legitimacy of the stop to this court.⁵ Because the Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues raised by this case are inextricable, we consider both.

A. FOURTH AMENDMENT

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that the people shall "be secure in their ... persons against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. It is enforceable against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Colorado v. Bannister, 449 U.S. 1, 2, 101 S.Ct. 42, 66 L.Ed.2d 1 (1980) (per curiam). "The essential purpose of the proscriptions in the Fourth Amendment is to impose a standard of reasonableness upon the exercise of discretion by government officials including law enforcement agents, in order to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions." Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653-54, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979) (internal footnotes and quotation marks omitted); accord Immigration & Naturalization Serv. v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 215, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1983); People v. Paynter, 955...