U.S. v. Quinn

• Decision Date: 23 March 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-1388,86-1388
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Daniel J. QUINN, Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 153

815 F.2d 153

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Daniel J. QUINN, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 86-1388.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

March 23, 1987. ^*

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc

Denied March 23, 1987.

Margaret D. McGaughey, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Richard S. Cohen, U.S. Atty., Portland, Me., and William H. Browder, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty., Bangor, Me., were on brief, for appellant.

Daniel Patrick Leonard with whom James Michael Merberg, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for defendant, appellee.

Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, BOWNES and TORRUELLA, Circuit Judges.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.

This case was previously before us when the government appealed from an order of the United States District Court for the District of Maine suppressing certain statements and physical evidence seized in connection with the arrest of defendant-appellee, Daniel Quinn, and a co-defendant, Thomas Streifel. The detailed facts are found in that opinion. United States v. Streifel, 781 F.2d 953, 954-57 (1st Cir.1986). A summary will suffice for present purposes.

In March of 1984, a reliable informant told investigators from the Drug Enforcement Administration that a house in Naples, Maine, later found to be rented to one Cushner, was used as a "stash house" to store marijuana and that the persons involved used rented cars to transport the controlled substance. As a result of the informant's communications, agents followed a vehicle driven by one Sterner to the Cushner house. After Sterner's car left the house, they stopped and searched it, finding five bales of marijuana in the trunk.

Afterwards, on the same day, DEA agents commenced preparations to get a warrant to search the Cushner house. Pending issuance of the warrant, five officers, and a dog trained to identify marijuana by smell, went to the Cushner premises to "secure" them. Shortly after the five arrived, two of them, Steadman and Holmes, temporarily left to make a phone call that would give agents in Portland more information to be included in the search warrant. While the two officers were absent, two cars drove into the plowed Cushner driveway at about 10:45 in the evening. The first car, driven by Streifel, pulled in back of one of the agents' cars, and the other car, driven by appellee Quinn, parked behind the Streifel car. Streifel and Quinn were asked by a uniformed officer for identification and to explain why they were at the cottage. Streifel produced his license and a rental agreement for his car while Quinn produced a car registration in his name. By way of explanation for their presence, Quinn replied that he was following Streifel to the house, as Quinn had been interested in renting it for the summer. Quinn and Streifel were told that they could not leave until the two absent officers returned.

At about 10:50 these two, Steadman and Holmes, arrived. They parked their car in back of Quinn's car. There is a dispute as to whether after this action Quinn could have moved his car from the driveway. Appellee says he could not. The government says he could and cites to the transcript to support its contention that in fact other cars had done so. Agent Steadman asked both Quinn and Streifel what they were doing there, and they repeated that they had come to look at the cottage because Quinn was interested in renting it. Quinn and Streifel gave conflicting answers to questions about how they had met and how long they had known each other.

At approximately 11:10 the dog was instructed to "find the dope," and it stopped at the trunk of Quinn's car, reacting positively. Quinn was asked for permission to search the car, and he granted it, opening the trunk himself. The dog jumped inside and began digging at the floormat. The agent in charge of the dog then observed marijuana seeds and coffee grounds. Removing a blanket from where the dog was digging, the officer smelled marijuana remains. Quinn then asked that the dog be removed and the officer complied. Cushner himself then arrived, and Agent Steadman asked him several questions including his relation to the house and whether he knew Quinn and Streifel. At this point, at about 11:25 p.m., Cushner and Quinn were given Miranda warnings. After a few more questions Agent Steadman and another officer accompanied Cushner inside the house. They found a plastic bag containing marijuana lying on a bureau. At approximately 11:45 p.m., Cushner, Quinn, and Streifel were arrested.

When this case was first before us, we determined that at least the initial questioning and detention of Streifel and Quinn at the scene had been a lawful Terry stop. Streifel, 781 F.2d at 959. We vacated and remanded for the district court to decide when, if ever, "the Terry stop of Streifel and Quinn matured into custodial interrogation necessitating the administration of Miranda warnings." Id. at 960. We said that "[i]f the district court determines that Streifel and Quinn were placed in custody within the meaning of Miranda before they were advised of their rights, it may order suppressed any statements elicited in violation of Miranda, and, in light of its order, it should also make such rulings concerning the suppression of other evidence as it deems appropriate." Id. at 962.

No further evidence was taken on remand. Relying on the original record, the district court arrived at essentially the same determination as before, finding that a de facto arrest without probable cause had occurred at the time Agents Steadman and Holmes "returned to the Cushner cottage and parked their cruiser in such a manner that neither defendants' car could be moved from the driveway." According to the court, the officers "affirmatively chose to block defendant in." The court likened the situation to a "stationhouse interrogation," turning a brief and temporary stop "into one fraught with pressure for defendants Quinn and Streifel." Therefore, it suppressed the statements made by Quinn to Steadman without Miranda warnings and all the materials obtained from Quinn's automobile, as the fruits of an illegal arrest.

In selecting the purported blocking of defendants' car as the incident converting a Terry stop into an arrest, the district court explained that this event "in the total context then existing, was a determining factor tipping the balance in favor" of an arrest finding. The "total context," as elsewhere discussed by the court, was that there were as many as five policemen and a police dog at the scene, defendants' identification was not returned to them, they were kept apart while being questioned, and their interrogation was not done in a public place but in a remote cottage late at night. While there was no physical contact between the officers and defendants, no display of weapons, and no statements at this time indicating an arrest, the court concluded that an atmosphere was created threatening and coercive enough to warrant--indeed to require--the administration of Miranda warnings. The court also found that, since the agents lacked probable cause when the de facto arrest occurred, they could not use the fact that the dog later alerted to Quinn's car as justification for the search of the automobile's trunk. The court believed that Quinn's consent to the search of the trunk of his automobile was a result of the atmosphere of police domination followed by the dog's sniff, a situation made possible only by the illegal detention. In summary, the court ordered the suppression of every kind of evidence gathered after Agent Steadman arrived at the scene. 633 F.Supp. 535.

Contrary to the court below, we believe that the actions of the police in the 20-25 minutes that transpired from the time Agents Steadman and Holmes returned until the dog sniff revealed the presence of marijuana, amounted to a reasonable continuation of the initial Terry stop in a "swiftly developing situation." See United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 1575-76, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985). The only new factors that occurred after what we previously determined was a lawful Terry stop, were Steadman's parking of his car behind Quinn's car and the addition of Steadman and his companion to the three officers already present. All the other circumstances that the district court mentioned as the "context" within which the two new agents arrived, were present during the situation we earlier ruled was a lawful Terry stop. Thus the only question is whether the blocking of the car, the augmentation of the police presence by two more officers and the continuance of the inquiry, transformed the original Terry stop into either a de facto arrest or (if any different) a situation imposing "restraints comparable to those of a formal arrest." Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 441, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3151, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984).

I. THE ADDITIONAL EVENTS DID NOT CHANGE THE TERRY STOP INTO AN ARREST.

The Supreme Court has said that "the exception for limited intrusions that may be justified by special law enforcement interests is not confined to the momentary, on-the-street detention accompanied by a frisk for weapons involved in Terry and Adams [v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972) ]." Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 700, 101 S.Ct. 2587, 2593, 69 L.Ed.2d 340 (1981). The Terry exception to the traditional rule disallowing detentions without probable cause has been widened in the last decade to encompass other circumstances where officers may make brief investigative stops or seizures of individuals upon reasonable suspicion that they may have committed, are committing, or are about to commit a crime. No mechanical checklist has been assembled to facilitate distinguishing between such investigative stops, on the one hand, and those detentions, on the other, which though not technical, formal arrests are the "equivalent of an arrest" and therefore require probable cause. People v. Hicks, 68 N.Y.2d 234, 508 N.Y.S.2d 163, 500...