Martin v. United States

• Decision Date: 18 December 1989
• Docket Number: No. 85-603.,85-603.
• Citation: 567 A.2d 896
• Parties: Troy MARTIN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

567 A.2d 896

Troy MARTIN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.

No. 85-603.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued July 1, 1987.

Decided December 18, 1989.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Jeanne Asherman, appointed by this court, for appellant.

Ann K.H. Simon, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty. at the time the brief was filed, Michael W. Farrell, Asst. U.S. Atty. at the time the brief was filed, and Mary Ellen Abrecht and Barry M. Tapp, Asst. U.S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellee. Bruce A. Peterson, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., also entered an appearance for appellee.

Before BELSON, TERRY, and STEADMAN, Associate Judges.

TERRY, Associate Judge:

Appellant Martin was convicted of first-degree felony murder while armed¹ and first-degree burglary while armed.² On appeal Martin argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress his confession. Martin contends that his arrest was not based on probable cause and that the police lacked consent to enter his grandparents' home to make the arrest. Consequently, he maintains, the confession which he gave later at the police station was the fruit of an illegal arrest and should have been suppressed.

We hold, first of all, that appellant has standing to assert his Fourth Amendment claim. Because the trial court's finding of probable cause did not resolve some crucial factual issues, we remand the case for further findings. In addition, the court did not rule on the voluntariness of the consent given to the police by Martin's grandparents to enter the house and arrest their grandson. We therefore direct the court on remand to determine whether a valid consent was given before the police entered the house. In the alternative, if the trial court finds that consent was given after the police entry, it must then decide whether such consent retroactively validated the entry. If the court concludes either that there was no probable cause or that no valid consent was given, and if the government fails to show that the confession was riot a fruit of the arrest (which so far it has not been called upon to do), then the confession, although voluntarily made, must be suppressed and a new trial ordered; otherwise, however, the judgment of conviction shall stand undisturbed.

I

In January 1983 Charles Randolph lived with his girl friend, Gwen Matthews, and her son in a house at 1511 Marion Street, Northwest. Matthews knew that Randolph earned his living by selling heroin and that on the evening of January 24 he had several $100 bills in his possession.

On January 25 Matthews went to work as usual at 6:15 a.m. At about 10:30 she spoke by telephone to Randolph, who was waiting at home for a visitor to arrive. Around 12:30 p.m., when Matthews returned home for lunch, she found the front door unlocked, clothing scattered all over the floor, and the basement and back doors open. Alarmed, she ran around the corner to her aunt's house. After calling the police to report an apparent burglary, Matthews returned to her own house with her aunt and two other relatives. They all went inside together and found the dead body of Charles Randolph in an upstairs bedroom. He was lying across the bed on his stomach with his hands crossed behind him, and blood on the top of his head. He had been shot in the right side of the head with a .38 caliber revolver. It was later determined that the killer had fired the gun through a pillow which was pressed against Randolph's head. The dresser drawer where Randolph normally kept his money was open, but there was no money in it. When the police came a few minutes later, they found his empty wallet lying on top of a pile of clothes. The police found no heroin in the house, nor did they find any physical evidence that might lead to a suspect.

A few hours later, at about 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon, the police received an anonymous telephone call from a man who said he knew something about the shooting in the 1500 block of Marion Street. The caller, who did not initially give his name, was later identified as Edward Moseley.³ Detective Alphonso Terrell of the Homicide Division took the call, and two days later, on January 27, he interviewed Moseley in person at the homicide office.⁴ Moseley told Terrell that on the day of the shooting he had walked from his mother's home on Marion Street to his girl friend's house. On the way he saw someone he knew as "Skeeter" on the steps in front of 1511 Marion Street and another person named "Troy" standing near the alley, apparently acting as a lookout. Moseley recognized Troy and waved to him; they were not close friends, however, but merely acquaintances, having met casually a year or two earlier. When a police car came into view, both men fled. A few hours later, on his way home from the visit to his girl friend, Moseley saw police cars in front of 1511 Marion Street and heard a woman say that someone had been shot.

Shortly thereafter Moseley went out to a neighborhood liquor store. As he was entering the store, he overheard Skeeter describing to a third person how someone had put a pillow over another man's head and shot him. Skeeter also mentioned something about three or four hundred dollars. After he returned home, Moseley called the police anonymously and gave them the names of "Troy" and "Skeeter" as the men he had seen standing outside 1511 Marion Street.

Detective George Steel was in the homicide office when Moseley's call came in. Either then or sometime later (the exact time is not clear from the record) Steel learned that two persons named "Troy" and "Skeeter" were suspects in the recent Marion Street murder.⁵ Steel knew two men with those names who hung out together in the area of Marion Street. He carried pictures of them around with him because the two had earlier robbed his wife at gunpoint. Detective Steel supplied Terrell with their pictures,⁶ full names, and addresses. He also told Terrell that Skeeter (Elliot Johnson) was in prison at the time of Randolph's murder, but that Skeeter had a brother named Benjamin who looked like him. Detective Terrell then prepared an array of photographs, which included pictures of Skeeter Johnson, Benjamin Johnson, and Troy Martin, and invited Moseley to his office to look at the array. When Moseley saw the pictures, he identified Benjamin Johnson and Troy Martin as the two men he had seen on Marion Street.⁷

Some time after Detective Steel had given him the pictures, Detective Terrell asked Sergeant Joseph Thomas to bring Troy Martin to police headquarters for questioning. Thomas, however, misunderstood Terrell's request and thought that Terrell wanted Martin arrested. On February 3 Thomas went to the home of Martin's mother and told her that her son was involved in a recent shooting. Martin was not there, but his mother told Sergeant Thomas that he could be picked up at her parents' home on New Jersey Avenue. Before Thomas left, Martin's mother called her mother and made sure that Martin would be there when Thomas arrived.

Sergeant Thomas, along with four uniformed officers, then went to the grandparents' home. It was early in the afternoon. The officers were met at the door by appellant's uncle, who became loud and disorderly and tried to impede the officers. When Thomas told the uncle that he was looking for Troy Martin, the uncle replied that Troy was "not at home." Just at that moment, however, Troy Martin came down the stairs from the second floor. When he saw the police, he suddenly stopped and "appeared to be nervous." Sergeant Thomas recognized Martin as the person he was looking for⁸ and told Martin "that we wanted him." At about the same time, Martin's grandfather came forward and, in an attempt to silence the uncle, hit him and knocked him to the floor. After a brief conversation with the grandparents, who said that their daughter had called and advised that the police were "coming to pick up Troy," the police placed Martin under arrest. Thomas testified that other family members were also present and that, with the exception of the uncle, they all "cooperated with me very well."

Martin was advised of his Miranda⁹ rights in the police cruiser and again several times at police headquarters, where he signed a waiver. He had been placed in handcuffs when he left his grandparents' house, and when he arrived at the station, he was handcuffed by one wrist to a desk in an interview room. However, Lieutenant William Ritchie, who knew there were no plans to charge Martin at that time, told Detective Joseph McCann that Martin should not have been placed under arrest. Martin was then informed that he was not under arrest and was released from his handcuffs.

McCann tried for about fifteen minutes to question Martin, but without success. Then Lieutenant Ritchie began to interview Martin. After telling him that he was not under arrest and that he would be taken home after the interview,¹⁰ Ritchie asked Martin about the murder of Charles Randolph. At first Martin denied any involvement in the crime. Then he acknowledged that he had been on the scene with two others, Benjamin Johnson and Maurice Riley, but he insisted that he had remained outside in the alley while the others went into the house. Finally he admitted that he and the others had planned to rob Charles Randolph and had gone to his house to carry out their plans. When Randolph answered the door, Riley pushed him back so that he fell down. The trio entered the house, and Riley, who was armed with a pistol, demanded Randolph's money. Randolph led them upstairs into his bedroom. There they robbed him of $500, and Riley shot him once in the back of the head, firing his gun through a pillow. Ritchie's entire conversation with Martin lasted about forty-five minutes.

After Martin confessed orally to Lieutenant Ritchie, Detective Terrell arrived and took a written statement, preceded by a re-advising of his Miranda rights. After Martin signed...