Commonwealth v. Mitchell
Decision Date | 10 September 2013 |
Docket Number | Record No. 0741-13-3 |
Parties | COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA v. SHANNON SMITH MITCHELL |
Court | Virginia Court of Appeals |
UNPUBLISHED
Present: Judges Alston, McCullough and Senior Judge Clements
Argued by teleconference
MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FRANKLIN COUNTY
Alice T. Armstrong, Assistant Attorney General II (Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General, on briefs), for appellant.
Melissa P. Keen (Furrow & Keen, P.C., on brief), for appellee.
In this pretrial appeal, the Commonwealth challenges the trial court's order granting suppression of evidence seized from the defendant. We also ordered the parties to brief the question of whether the Commonwealth's appeal was timely filed. We conclude that the Commonwealth's appeal is properly before us. We further reverse the order of suppression and remand the case for further proceedings.
Kevin Glenn Bowling, a loss prevention associate at a Wal-Mart store in Roanoke County, observed the appellee, Shannon Smith Mitchell, place items of clothing in her cart. At a separate location in the store, Mitchell removed the hangers from the clothing and placed the clothing in her purse. Before leaving, Mitchell paid for a small item but did not pay for the clothing concealed in her purse. Bowling approached Mitchell in the parking lot and asked aboutthe merchandise, but she ignored him. She climbed into the passenger seat of a truck, and the vehicle drove away. Bowling obtained a description and a license plate number for the truck. He then called the police.
Corporal Terry Scott Dameron, with the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, observed a suspect vehicle matching a description he had received earlier from his dispatcher. He stopped the vehicle and asked Mitchell whether there was anything stolen in the vehicle. She handed him a bag containing some clothing. Mitchell stated that she had stolen the items from Wal-Mart, but that she would go back and pay for them. After she handed him the bag, he asked her if there was anything else illegal in the vehicle, such as guns or drugs. Mitchell stated that there was a "crack stem" in her purse. She retrieved it and handed it over to Corporal Dameron. Mitchell indicated that she used it to smoke crack cocaine. Corporal Dameron seized her purse and found additional incriminating evidence suggestive of drug use. He placed her under arrest for possession of cocaine.
Mitchell was charged in Franklin County with possession of cocaine. She moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the stop was not supported by reasonable suspicion and, further, that the statements she made were obtained in violation of her Fifth Amendment rights.
On February 20, 2013, the trial court held a hearing on the motion. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court ordered the parties to file briefs setting forth their respective positions. A transcript of the hearing was filed in the trial court on February 28, 2013. The record does not reveal who filed this transcript.
On March 28, 2013, the trial court issued a detailed memorandum opinion. The court first held that the stop was reasonable because it was based on reasonable articulable suspicion. Second, the court held that after Mitchell admitted to stealing the clothes and handed the clothing to the officer, she was in custody for Miranda purposes. Mitchell's subsequent statements abouta crack stem in her purse were made while she was in custody and without the benefit of Miranda warnings. The court ruled that "[a]ll statements made by Mitchell and evidence of other crimes found after she admitted the thefts from Wal-Mart should be excluded." The court declined to apply the doctrine of inevitable discovery. The court reasoned that had the defendant been arrested on some other charge, such as possession of stolen property, "inevitably the contents [of her purse] would have been found during the processing." However, the court found, she was not taken for processing on any charge except the possession of cocaine. The court then issued an order on April 9, 2013, granting Mitchell's motion to suppress.
On April 4, 2013, the Commonwealth filed a motion to reconsider. The court denied that motion on April 12, 2013. The Commonwealth filed its notice of appeal four days later, on April 16, 2013, and filed a notice of filing of transcript on the same date. The Commonwealth filed its petition for appeal on April 30, 2013.
As a preliminary matter, this Court directed the parties to brief the following question:
In a case where, as here, (i) the transcript was filed prior to the entry of the order being appealed, (ii) a notice of filing transcript was filed after the entry of the order being appealed, and (iii) the petition for appeal was filed within 14 days of filing the post-order notice but not within 14 days of filing the pre-order transcript, has the Commonwealth filed a timely petition for appeal?
Several considerations guide our reading of the applicable statutes. First, because the right to appeal by the Commonwealth is in derogation of the general prohibition against appeals by the Commonwealth, this right "must be strictly construed against the state and limited in application to cases falling clearly within the language of the statute." Commonwealth v. Hawkins, 10 Va. App. 41, 44, 390 S.E.2d 3, 5 (1990) (citations omitted). At the same time, we will not construe a statute in a manner that "leads to absurd results." Bowling v.Commonwealth, 51 Va. App. 102, 109, 654 S.E.2d 354, 358 (2007) (citation omitted). In addition, "[i]t is a cardinal rule of construction that statutes dealing with a specific subject must be construed together in order to arrive at the object sought to be accomplished." Prillaman v. Commonwealth, 199 Va. 401, 406, 100 S.E.2d 4, 8 (1957). The object of all of these canons of statutory construction "is to ascertain and give effect to legislative intent." Turner v. Commonwealth, 226 Va. 456, 459, 309 S.E.2d 337, 338 (1983).
Code § 19.2-402(B) provides that "[t]he petition for a pretrial appeal shall be filed with the clerk of the Court of Appeals not more than 14 days after the date that the transcript . . . is filed." Read in isolation, this provision would require us to dismiss this appeal: the transcript was filed on February 28, 2013, and the petition for appeal was filed in our Court on April 30, 2013, more than 14 days after the transcript was filed. The issue, however, is not so simple. At the time the transcript was filed, the court had not even ruled on the motion to suppress. The court did not rule on the suppression motion until April 9, 2013, more than 14 days after the transcript was filed. It is not clear how the Commonwealth can file a petition for appeal from a ruling that has not even occurred.
Code § 19.2-405 provides an important clue concerning the General Assembly's intent with regard to the filing of the transcript. Code § 19.2-405 provides that "[t]he transcript or written statement of facts shall be filed by the Commonwealth with the clerk of the circuit court from which the appeal is being taken, within 25 days following entry of the order of the circuit court." (Emphasis added). It is thus plain that the General Assembly contemplated, logically enough, that the transcript in a pretrial appeal filed by the Commonwealth would be filed after the entry of an order granting suppression. Here, the transcript was filed before the court ruled. The question is how to apply Code § 19.2-402(B) when the sequence of events contemplated by the General Assembly has not occurred. A strict, literal reading of the 14-day transcript filingrequirement of Code § 19.2-402(B) would lead to absurd results. It would serve no purpose to require the Commonwealth to go through the meaningless exercise of filing a second, identical transcript.1
In addition, we note the purpose behind the strict timelines governing pretrial appeals filed by the Commonwealth. A defendant who succeeds in suppressing evidence often is incarcerated. Even if he is not, the pending prosecution constitutes an omnipresent and disruptive concern. As for the victims of crime who need redress, a long delay ill serves their interests. The expedited deadlines governing pretrial appeals allow for the prompt determination of whether a prosecution can effectively move forward or whether a defendant should be released. The point of these statutory deadlines, however, is not formality for formality's sake.2
Finally, the General Assembly has chosen to provide those who represent the people of the Commonwealth with a limited right to appeal. We decline to read the Code in a way that pointlessly frustrates this policy objective.
We hold that a transcript is timely filed for purposes of Code § 19.2-405 when it is filed before the entry of the order appealed from. We further hold that when the transcript is filed early in pretrial appeals filed by the Commonwealth, the petition for appeal is timely filed if it is filed within 14 days of the filing of the notice of appeal. This conclusion accords with Rule 5A:8(b)(1), which provides as a default rule in ordinary appeals that when the transcript is filed before the order that is being appealed, the filing deadlines are triggered by the filing of the notice of appeal. The Commonwealth filed its petition for appeal within 14 days of the filing of the notice of appeal, and, therefore, the appeal is properly before us.3
The Commonwealth does not appeal the trial court's suppression of the defendant's statements. It does, however, contend that the trial court erred in refusing to apply the doctrine of inevitable discovery with regard to the physical evidence seized from the defendant.4 Although we will "defer to the trial court's factual findings unless plainly wrong...
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