Ciriago v. State

• Decision Date: 09 February 1984
• Docket Number: No. 579,579
• Citation: 471 A.2d 320,57 Md.App. 563
• Parties: Joseph Francis CIRIAGO aka Joseph Francis Cireago aka Rickie Norman McNair v. STATE of Maryland. Sept. Term 1983.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 563

57 Md.App. 563

471 A.2d 320

Joseph Francis CIRIAGO aka Joseph Francis Cireago aka Rickie Norman McNair v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 579 Sept. Term 1983.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 9, 1984.

Jeffrey Lee Greenspan, Washington, D.C., with whom were Gary Steven Mandel and Greenspan & Mandel, P.C., Washington, D.C. on brief, for appellants.

Bernard A. Penner, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, Sandra A. O'Connor, State's Atty., for Baltimore County and Anthony Gallagher, Asst. State's Atty., for Baltimore County on brief, for appellee.

Argued before MOYLAN, WILNER and WEANT, JJ.

MOYLAN, Judge.

This constitutionally uncomplicated but factually interesting case presents us with truly textbook examples of two investigative phenomena which are today very topical in the world of criminal procedure. We are given the very model of the bona fide inventory of personal property. We are given the very model of the spontaneous blurt. We caution at the outset that our description of each model does not remotely suggest a minimum standard or sine qua non. In the world of inventory searches, there will be many that are bona fide and constitutional but few that will even approach the perfection herein described. In the world of spontaneous blurts, there will be many that are constitutionally sound but few that will even approach the perfection herein described. Nonetheless, it will facilitate later analyses to have a picture of the models.

The appellant, Joseph Francis Ciriago, was a major courier in the East Coast narcotic traffic but one on whom no local suspicion had focused prior to Wednesday, September 8, 1982 at approximately 6:30 p.m. At that time, the appellant literally drove an automobile off a Baltimore County byway and figuratively crashed his way into the Maryland Penitentiary for the next eleven years. On an agreed statement of facts, he was convicted by Judge J. William Hinkel, sitting without a jury, in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, of 1) the unlawful possession of contraband cocaine with intent to distribute and 2) the unlawful possession of a handgun. Upon this appeal, he raises three contentions:

1. That the evidence found in his automobile should have been suppressed under the Fourth Amendment;

2. That a comment he made, from his hospital bed, to two Baltimore County policemen should have been suppressed under the Fifth Amendment; and

3. That another comment he made while standing with a group of fellow prisoners, while waiting to enter the Baltimore County Jail, should have been suppressed under the Fifth Amendment.

The Good Faith of the Inventory

It is now hornbook law that as part of their community caretaking function, the police are frequently well-advised to inventory the personal property found in a seized or impounded automobile, South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976), and also the personal property found in luggage or other containers that come within their lawful custody, Illinois v. Lafayette, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 2605, 77 L.Ed.2d 65 (1983). Whenever such an inventory yields evidence of crime, the key issue becomes that of whether the police initially undertook the inventorying in good faith or used it as a mere subterfuge in a deliberate effort to obtain evidence of crime. This Court has historically been as skeptical as any in the land as to the abuse of the inventory rationale, Dixon v. State, 23 Md.App. 19, 327 A.2d 516 (1974); Waine v. State, 37 Md.App. 222, 377 A.2d 509 (1977); Manalansan v. State, 45 Md.App. 667, 415 A.2d 308 (1980), but has recognized that when honestly employed, it is constitutionally unassailable.

The Supreme Court has been far more latitudinarian than we, South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, Illinois v. Lafayette, supra, and Illinois v. Bean, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 3530, 77 L.Ed.2d 1383 (1983), but has recognized that the use of the inventory as a subterfuge will not be countenanced.

The Court of Appeals has placed its express imprimatur upon the inventorying of the contents of an automobile being impounded or towed from an accident scene. In Duncan and Smith v. State, 281 Md. 247, 256-257, 378 A.2d 1108 (1977), Judge Orth, for the Court, discussed the legitimacy of and the reasons for this particular police procedure:

"Activities concerning automobiles carried out by local police officers in the interests of public safety and as 'community caretaking functions' frequently result in the automobile being taken in custody. 'Vehicle accidents present one such occasion to permit the uninterrupted flow of traffic and in some circumstances to preserve evidence, disabled or damaged vehicles will often be removed from the highways or streets at the behest of police engaged solely in caretaking and traffic-control activities.... It is the legal impoundment of an automobile which permits the inventory search of the vehicle. 'When vehicles are impounded, local police departments generally follow a routine practice of securing and inventorying the automobiles' contents.' Id. [428 U.S.] at 369 . These procedures developed in response to three distinct needs: (i) protection of the police from danger; (ii) protection of the police against claims and disputes over lost or stolen property; and (iii) protection of the owner's property while it remains in police custody."

In the service of precisely the same social interests, the Supreme Court did not hesitate to extend the inventory search rationale to the contents of purses, shoulder bags, suitcases and other containers also legitimately in police custody. In Illinois v. Lafayette, supra, it reasoned, at 103 S.Ct. 2610, at 77 L.Ed.2d 71-72:

"[T]he search was reasonable because it served legitimate governmental interests that outweighed the individual's privacy interests in the contents of his car. Those measures protected the owner's property while it was in the custody of the police and protected police against possible false claims of theft. We found no need to consider the existence of less intrusive means of protecting the police and the property in their custody--such as locking the car and impounding it in safe storage under guard. Similarly, standardized inventory procedures are appropriate to serve legitimate governmental interests at stake here."

In the course of the Illinois v. Lafayette analysis, the Supreme Court disdained any notion that the police are constitutionally required to seek out the least intrusive means of accomplishing these social purposes. The Illinois Appellate Court had deemed the inventorying of the contents of a shoulder bag unconstitutional because of its opinion that the community caretaking function "could have been achieved in a less intrusive manner." 99 Ill.App.3d 830, 835, 55 Ill.Dec. 210, 213, 425 N.E.2d 1383, 1386 (3d Dist.1981). In reversing the Illinois Appellate Court, the United States Supreme Court responded:

"Perhaps so, but the real question is not what 'could have been achieved,' but whether the Fourth Amendment requires such steps; it is not our function to write a manual on administering routine, neutral procedures of the stationhouse. Our role is to assure against violations of the Constitution.

The reasonableness of any particular governmental activity does not necessarily or invariably turn on the existence of alternative 'less intrusive' means." 103 S.Ct. at 2610, 77 L.Ed.2d at 72. (Emphasis in original).

In dealing with a similar contention in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 447, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 2530, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973), the Supreme Court had concluded, "The fact that the protection of the public might, in the abstract, have been accomplished by 'less intrusive' means does not, by itself, render the search unreasonable." In Illinois v. Lafayette, supra, the Supreme Court concluded, at 103 S.Ct. 2610, at 77 L.Ed.2d 72:

"Even if less intrusive means existed of protecting some particular types of property, it would be unreasonable to expect police officers in the everyday course of business to make fine and subtle distinctions in deciding which containers or items may be searched and which must be sealed as a unit."

With these guidelines in mind, we turn our attention to the case at hand.

A suppression hearing judge will naturally be interested, when the police respond to the scene of an accident or a traffic offense, in whether the police had any preexisting knowledge that the motorist was involved in criminal behavior. In the instant case, the police not only did not suspect a crime but had never even heard of the appellant before they found him in the middle of the southbound lane of Park Heights Avenue Extended, severely injured, pinned in the wreckage of a Florida-registered 1979 Datsun.

A suppression hearing judge will naturally be interested in whether the officer at such a scene is a traffic officer carrying out his customary mission, or a narcotics officer strangely involved in a traffic case for the first time in his professional career. The key officer in this case was T.K. Williams of the Baltimore County Police Traffic Division.

The suppression hearing judge will naturally be interested in whether entry into the automobile seems reasonably necessary. In this case, Salena Silver and Edward Stephens were operating their respective vehicles in the area of Park Heights Avenue Extended and Caves Road when they noticed the appellant's Datsun cross the center line of the roadway as it was traveling northbound. The Datsun went all the way across the southbound lane and off the road entirely. It struck a tree, spun in a counter-clockwise direction down the shoulder of the road and struck a second tree. The Datsun came to rest facing west and squarely athwart the southbound lane of the road. The vehicle was massively damaged and the appellant was severely injured. In response to a call from the two civilians, rescue personnel were soon...