Benson v. State

• Decision Date: 13 August 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-1183,96-1183
• Citation: 698 So.2d 333
• Parties: 22 Fla. L. Weekly D1942 Tony BENSON, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 333

698 So.2d 333

22 Fla. L. Weekly D1942

Tony BENSON, Appellant, v.STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 96-1183.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Fourth District.

Aug. 13, 1997.

Clifford H. Barnes, Fort Pierce, for appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Patricia Ann Ash, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

PARIENTE, Judge.

The issue we address in this appeal is one of first impression in Florida: whether an exception to the Miranda ¹ rule may arise where a suspect is questioned by police in order to address a life-threatening medical emergency.The question in this case stemmed from the officer's objectively reasonable concern, based on his personal observations, over an immediate threat to defendant's health.Under these narrow circumstances, we find that the failure to administer Miranda warnings before asking defendant how much crack cocaine he had swallowed did not require suppression of defendant's inculpatory response.Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's denial of the motion to suppress.

Defendant was the target of an undercover narcotics investigation.As a part of the undercover operation, the Okeechobee County Sheriff's narcotics division equipped a confidential informant with a monitoring device.The surveillance team then both observed and heard defendant and the confidential informant engaging in a drug buy in defendant's vehicle.At some point, defendant exited his vehicle and returned to the passenger compartment with a film canister.

Several officers then converged on the scene to effect an arrest.The confidential informant subsequently testified that defendant said "it's a bust" and "tried to throw the stuff in his mouth."Deputy Hardin, one of the officers at the scene who observed defendant, described defendant's actions as looking as if he were "eating a bag of peanuts [with] his hand cupped to his mouth and dumping something in his mouth."Deputy Hardin informed the other officers that defendant appeared to be "eating something."

Deputy Hardin and several others then entered the vehicle and grabbed defendant's jaw and head in an attempt to prevent him from swallowing the object in his mouth.A surveillance tape recorded several officers yelling expletives and telling defendant to "spit it out."The officers eventually removed defendant from the vehicle, although not before he had swallowed the "object."

Immediately after removing defendant from the vehicle and without first informing defendant of his Miranda rights, Detective Raulerson asked defendant how many crack cocaine rocks he had swallowed.Defendant responded that he had swallowed one rock.Detective Raulerson described the situation as an "emergency," explaining that he was concerned about the amount of crack cocaine defendant may have swallowed because "if he had swallowed too much we would have needed to take him to the hospital to have his stomach pumped."Detective Duncan, also present at the scene, testified that he heard the other officers telling defendant to "spit it out and not to chew it up anymore and not to swallow it, [b]ecause ... if one swallows too much crack cocaine, it will kill you."

Defendant moved to suppress his admission that he had swallowed one rock of crack cocaine, claiming his response was evoked by questions asked in violation of Miranda.The trial court denied the motion to suppress, finding that the questioning in this situation satisfied a "medical exception" to the Miranda rule.Defendant was subsequently found guilty of possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and resisting an officer without violence.

The state, while conceding that Miranda would otherwise apply, argues that the response should not be suppressed because the circumstances fall within the "public safety" exception to the Miranda rule set forth in New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550(1984).In Quarles, the defendant was arrested in a supermarket.Police believed that just before the arrest the defendant had discarded a loaded firearm inside the supermarket in a place where a third party could gain access.Without first administering the Miranda warnings, police questioned the defendant about the location of the gun.The defendant responded with an inculpatory statement.The Supreme Court concluded that the statement need not be suppressed:

[W]e believe that this case presents a situation where concern for public safety must be paramount to adherence to the literal language of the prophylactic rules enunciated in Miranda.

Id. at 653, 104 S.Ct. at 2630(emphasis supplied).When a life-threatening emergency arises, "the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination."Id. at 657, 104 S.Ct. at 2632.

The Supreme Court held that the availability of the exception does not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers involved.Id. at 656, 104 S.Ct. at 2631-32.The Supreme Court acknowledged that most police officers would act for many different reasons, including protection of the public, protection of themselves, and the desire to obtain incriminating evidence from the suspect.

Whatever the motivation of individual officers in such a situation, we do not believe that the doctrinal underpinnings of Miranda require that it be applied in all its rigor to a situation in which police officers ask questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety.

Id.(emphasis supplied).

Recognizing that emergencies require split-second decisions, the Supreme Court

decline[d] to place officers ... in the untenable position of having to consider, often in a matter of seconds, whether it best serves society for them to ask the necessary questions without the Miranda warnings and render whatever probative evidence they uncover inadmissible, or for them to give the warnings in order to preserve the admissibility of evidence they might uncover but possibly damage or destroy their ability to ... neutralize the volatile situation confronting them.

Id. at 657-58, 104 S.Ct. at 2632-33.

No reported decision in Florida has yet addressed whether a medical emergency exception to Miranda should be created, ² or has even applied the Quarles exception to justify the admission of a defendant's inculpatory statement, under any circumstances.³Since Quarles, however, several state and federal courts have addressed and applied the "public safety" exception to Miranda in a variety of circumstances, including concern for the safety of victims and police officers.⁴In United States v. Carrillo, 16 F.3d 1046, 1049-50(9th Cir.), reversed in part on other grounds sub nom.United States v. Corona, 34 F.3d 876(9th Cir.1994), the ninth circuit upheld the admission of the defendant's incriminating response because the "[officer's] question stemmed from an objectively reasonable need to protect himself from immediate danger."(Emphasis supplied).

In People v. Cressy, 47 Cal.App.4th 981, 55 Cal.Rptr.2d 237(1996), the Quarles exception was likewise applied to justify the admission of responses to questions asked to protect the safety of a police officer.The California appellate court reasoned that there was "no logical explanation why the safety of an officer should be given less deference than the safety of the general public, particularly when the threat to an officer is often of a more immediate nature."Id. at 240.

In United States v. Mobley, 40 F.3d 688(4th Cir.1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1129, 115 S.Ct. 2005, 131 L.Ed.2d 1005(1995), the fourth circuit, in considering Quarles, refused to permit the admission of the defendant's statements, solicited in violation of Miranda, where the government could not show that the police had an "immediate need" for information for their protection.Id. at 693.The fourth circuit held that "[a]bsent an objectively reasonable concern for immediate danger to police or public, we must follow the rule, not the [Quarles] exception."Id.(emphasis supplied).

An analogous exception to the Miranda rule pertinent to the facts of this case is the rescue doctrine.Enunciated prior to Quarles, the rescue doctrine has never been squarely addressed by the Supreme Court.In People v. Riddle, 83 Cal.App.3d 563, 148 Cal.Rptr. 170, 177(1978), the California appellate court held that three factors must be present for the state to successfully claim the rescue doctrine exception: (1) urgency of need in that no other course of action promises relief; (2) the possibility of saving human life by rescuing a person whose life is in danger; and (3) rescue as the primary purpose and motive of the interrogators.

In State v. Kunkel, 137 Wis.2d 172, 404 N.W.2d 69, 76(App.1987), the Wisconsin appellate court referred to the "rescue doctrine" as a "private safety" exception, which it deemed a necessary companion to the "public safety" exception of Quarles.See alsoState v. Provost, 490 N.W.2d 93(Minn.1992).

In State v. Stevenson, 51 Cal.App.4th 1234, 59 Cal.Rptr.2d 878(1996), the California appeals court extended the rescue doctrine to facts analogous to our case--a situation where the suspect's life may have been in jeopardy.In Stevenson, a deputy observed the defendant place something in his mouth and also saw a rock of cocaine drop to the ground.After arresting the defendant, the deputy observed a white residue in the defendant's mouth.It appeared to the deputy that the defendant had chewed up rock cocaine.

Concerned with a possible overdose, the deputy immediately transported the defendant to a local hospital.The emergency room doctor stated that the defendant was at risk of acute myocardial infarction and hemorrhagic stroke.In response to questioning by the officer, the defendant initially denied ingesting any narcotics.However, when...