Evans v. State

• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Padovano
• Citation: Evans v. State, 911 So.2d 796 (Fla. 2005)
• Decision Date: 31 March 2005
• Docket Number: No. 1D03-5088.,1D03-5088.
• Parties: Gregory Dean EVANS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

911 So.2d 796

Gregory Dean EVANS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 1D03-5088.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

February 22, 2005.

Rehearing Denied March 31, 2005.

Curtis S. Fallgatter of Fallgatter & Farmand, P.A., Jacksonville, for Appellant.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Edward C. Hill, Jr., Special Counsel, and Alan R. Dakan, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

PADOVANO, J.

The defendant, Gregory Evans, seeks reversal of his conviction and sentence for possession of child pornography. He contends that the trial judge erred in denying his motion to suppress a confession and other evidence for two reasons: (1) the officers violated his constitutional rights by failing to answer a question about the need for counsel, and (2) the officers tricked him into making the statement by promising not to arrest him. We conclude that the officers had no duty to answer questions about the need for counsel because the defendant was not in custody at the time of the interview, and that the statement was not prompted by any improper action by the police. For these reasons, we affirm.

The defendant became a suspect in a child pornography ring when he was identified as a member of an internet chat group known as "Boyzilla." Agent Douglas Turton of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement was able to trace a computer screen name used by one of the Boyzilla group members to a telephone number in Jacksonville. The number was then traced to a house previously occupied by the defendant.

With this information, Agent Turton decided to go to the defendant's current residence to speak with him. He described the procedure the officers would use in their encounter with the defendant as a "knock and talk." In this kind of operation, the objective is to obtain a consensual interview. The officers have a contingent plan to make an arrest if that becomes necessary, but they do not start out with the intention of arresting the suspect.

Agent Turton went to the defendant's apartment on April 3, 2002, along with another Customs agent and two detectives from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. All of the officers were in plain clothes. They did not have a search warrant or an arrest warrant, and they were not displaying their weapons. Turton knocked on the door and identified himself. He told the defendant that he was investigating a crime committed at the defendant's prior residence. He asked the defendant if he would speak with the officers, and the defendant replied, "Sure." He then asked the defendant if they could talk inside the apartment and, again, the defendant said, "Sure."

At the beginning of the interview, Agent Turton told the defendant that the officers were conducting a child pornography investigation. He explained that they had reason to believe the telephone line at the defendant's previous residence had been used to send or receive images of child pornography. He told the defendant that the Customs officers were not there to arrest him, and he urged the defendant to be truthful. Initially, the defendant denied that he had ever used the computer at his former residence to transmit pornography.

Later in the course of the interview, the officers asked the defendant if he had ever used the screen name "Gforce1080." When he acknowledged that he had used that name, the officers confronted him with a copy of an e-mail and a digital photo sent along with the e-mail as an attachment. The defendant examined these items and then admitted that he had transmitted child pornography over the internet on the computer in his former residence.

Following a Miranda warning, the defendant initialed the copy of the e-mail and photograph and gave the officers consent to examine his computer. He took the officers upstairs, where his computer was located, and showed them other images of child pornography. At that point, the detectives with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office arrested the defendant and seized his computer.

The state charged the defendant with possession of child pornography, and the defendant moved to suppress all of the evidence obtained during his interview with the police. He claimed that he had asked the officers at the beginning of the interview whether he needed a lawyer and that their failure to give a good-faith answer to the question tainted all of the evidence they obtained from him. Additionally, he argued that his confession was involuntary because the officers deceived him with a false statement that he would not be arrested.

The trial court denied the defendant's motion. As for the first argument, the court found that the defendant was not in custody at the time of the interview. Because the defendant was not in custody, the trial court reasoned that the officers were not required to answer a question about the need for counsel. On the second point, the trial court found that there was no connection between the alleged misrepresentation and the defendant's subsequent confession. Based on this finding, the trial court concluded that the statement was not made as a result of any police deception.

Following the denial of the motion to suppress, the defendant entered a guilty plea to one count of possession of child pornography, reserving his right to appeal. The trial judge accepted the plea and placed the defendant on sexual offender probation for five years with a condition that he serve one year in the Duval County Jail. The defendant then filed a timely appeal to this court to challenge the denial of his motion to suppress.

We begin with the applicable standard of review. An order denying a motion to suppress a confession is reviewed on appeal by a two-part standard. The findings of fact in the order are presumed to be correct and may not be rejected if they are supported by competent substantial evidence, but the legal conclusions the trial court has drawn from the facts are reviewed by the de novo standard. See Connor v. State, 803 So.2d 598 (Fla.2001); Loredo v. State, 836 So.2d 1103 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003).

There is no controversy about the facts relating to the defendant's claim that the officers failed to answer his question about the need for counsel. Although it is not clear whether the trial court accepted the defendant's testimony that he had, in fact, asked the officers whether he needed a lawyer, we assume that is the case. None of the officers could recall the question, but the order denying the motion does not turn on a factual dispute. The trial court assumed for the purpose of argument that the question had been asked, but held that it was not necessary, in any event, for the officers to give an answer.

This conclusion is supported by the supreme court's decision in Almeida v. State, 737 So.2d 520 (Fla.1999). There, the court held that if a suspect asks a question about his constitutional rights in the course of an interrogation, the police officers have a duty to give the suspect a good-faith answer to the question. However, the court qualified this requirement by stating that it applies only to custodial interrogations. As with the Miranda warning itself, the duty to answer a specific question arises only if the suspect is in custody or his freedom has otherwise been significantly restrained. Id.; see, e.g., State v. Seaton, 776 So.2d 997, 999 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001).

In determining whether a suspect is in custody, the court must consider all of the circumstances of the interrogation. Then the court must determine whether a reasonable person in the same circumstances would "have felt he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave." Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112, 116 S.Ct. 457, 133 L.Ed.2d 383 (1995). As the Supreme Court explained, "Once the scene is set and the players' lines and actions are reconstructed, the court must apply an objective test to resolve `the ultimate inquiry': `[was] there a "formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement" of the degree associated with a formal arrest.'" Id. (brackets in original); see also Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004).

By this standard, the trial court was correct in determining that the defendant was not in custody. The officers were in plain clothes and they were not displaying their weapons. They approached the defendant and asked him if he would speak with them. The defendant was not equivocal in his answer. He said, "Sure." When the defendant indicated that he would speak with the officers, they asked if they could enter his apartment. Again he answered unequivocally by saying, "Sure." During the course of the interview, the officers said nothing to lead the defendant to believe he was being detained or that his freedom of movement was restricted.

Although it is not dispositive, the location of the interview is a factor that strongly supports the trial court's conclusion that the defendant was not in custody. An interview with a suspect in his own home is not ordinarily regarded as a custodial interrogation. See Duddles v. State, 845 So.2d 939 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003). A suspect who is questioned in his own home is not likely to have a sense that he is being detained, as might be the case if the suspect had been stopped on a highway or taken to an interrogation room at the police station.

The defendant also contends that his admission was induced by deception on the part of the officers. He claims that he spoke with them only because they told him he would not be arrested. We think there is much less to this argument than meets the eye. The record shows that the statement was not made with an intent to deceive the defendant, that it was not made to induce a confession, and, in any event, that it was not the cause of the defendant's eventual confession.

Agent Turton acknowledges that he told the defendant the Customs agents were not there to arrest him. That was true. As Agent Turton explained,...