People v. Attebury

• Decision Date: 24 April 2001
• Docket Number: Docket No. 115225, Calendar No. 5.
• Citation: 463 Mich. 662,624 N.W.2d 912
• Parties: PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Frederick G. ATTEBURY, Jr., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

624 N.W.2d 912

463 Mich. 662

PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Frederick G. ATTEBURY, Jr., Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 115225, Calendar No. 5.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued November 15, 2000.

Decided April 24, 2001.

Jennifer M. Granholm, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, Peter R. George, Prosecuting Attorney, and Timothy K. Morris, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Port Huron, MI, for the people.

Michael J. Sharpe, Detroit, MI, for the defendant-appellee.

Opinion

CORRIGAN, C.J.

We granted the prosecutor's application for leave to appeal to consider the propriety of the trial court's application of the "public safety" exception to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Because we conclude that the circumstances of this case fall within the rule of New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984), we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the trial court.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On January 19, 1996, defendant approached his estranged wife in a shopping center parking lot in Marysville and threatened to shoot her. After explaining that he had a gun, defendant ordered his wife into the driver's seat of her car. He then displayed a handgun he had tucked into his pants and forced his way into the backseat of her car before his wife could drive away. Fearing for her life, defendant's wife fled on foot to a nearby video store and promptly called the police. When the police arrived minutes later, defendant had left the area.

Defendant's wife filed a complaint and the police obtained a warrant for defendant's arrest on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon, M.C.L. § 750.82; MSA 28.277. Two days after the incident in the parking lot, three police officers went to defendant's apartment to execute the warrant for his arrest. In addition to information in the arrest warrant regarding the nature of the alleged offense, the officers knew that defendant had recently been treated for mental problems at a local hospital. Officer Larry West testified as follows at defendant's suppression hearing:

We knew that prior to this incident taking place on or about the 18th, which would have been the night before the alleged assault, there was a broadcast put on the police radio with Mr. Attebury's name attached to it, that the psychiatrist had alerted the police he was homicidal at that point or had homicidal thoughts.

Using a key provided by the landlord, the officers entered defendant's apartment without knocking. Once inside the apartment, they discovered that defendant was taking a shower. Officer West described the officers' initial interaction with defendant:

Q. Tell the Judge briefly what transpired in or around the bathroom area of the shower.

A. After we entered the home, it was to our left. I knocked on the door, advised him who we were, why we were there. He was given permission to continue his shower.

After he finished he went to get dressed. We showed him the warrant. While he was getting dressed, because he was going in and out of a dresser and what not, we asked him whether there were weapons in the home. He said that there wasn't.

Q. Did he tell you—what are the things that he told you with regard to questions you asked him about the weapon? Tell the Judge what the questions were and what his answers were?

A. Whether there were weapons in the home, he said not at this time. And we asked him because there was a weapon indicated in the warrant if he had that weapon there or where it was at. He indicated to me at that time he had taken it to his brother's house.

Q. And did you later locate a weapon at the brother's house?

A. Yes, we did.

Q. Were it not for his statement to you as to the location of that weapon, do you think you would have tracked it down, it being at the brother's house by other means?

A. That would have been doubtful.

Q. Okay. Did you know before asking the question about the weapon whether he had the weapon in the home or what he had done with the weapon?

A. No. We had no idea where the weapon was at that time.

Q. What was your concerns [sic] with regard to that weapon? What concerns?

A. The fact of not knowing Mr. Attebury. Not knowing him. There were three police officers in his room. We are certain that he allegedly threatened to kill one person and he would have access to a weapon. We didn't know where one was, if he had thrown it in the ditch or river, if he had it stashed somewhere in his home, if he had a person who was hiding when he heard us come in, any of those scenarios that have come up.

It is undisputed that the police did not advise defendant of his Miranda rights before asking about the gun. When the officers later informed defendant of his rights, defendant again explained that he had given the gun to his brother.

Faced with the charge of assault with a dangerous weapon, M.C.L. § 750.82; MSA 28.277, defendant moved to suppress his initial statement to the police and the gun on the ground that his federal constitutional rights had been violated. Defendant argued that his statement regarding the whereabouts of the gun was unlawfully obtained in violation of the Miranda rule, and that the gun itself was the "fruit of the poisonous tree," see Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied defendant's motion on the ground that the facts fell within the public safety exception set forth in Quarles. At trial, Officer West testified specifically about defendant's statement in the apartment regarding the location of the gun described in the arrest warrant. A jury convicted defendant as charged and the trial court sentenced him to a two-year term of probation.

The Court of Appeals, over a dissent, reversed defendant's conviction and remanded for a new trial.¹ The majority concluded that the facts of this case were "markedly and significantly different" from the situation in Quarles, because the police were "not confronted with an immediate threat to the public." Given the "unthreatening" circumstances under which the police first encountered defendant and the fact that the police had no "indication that the gun was located in a place where it was endangering the public," the majority reasoned that "the police were not confronted with a situation where they had to make a split second decision between giving Miranda warnings and neutralizing a volatile danger to public safety." Rather, "the questioning of defendant was clearly investigatory and did not relate in any way to an objectively reasonable concern for public safety." Accordingly, the majority concluded that the "type of exigent circumstances that justify application of the narrowly tailored public safety exception to the Miranda rule were not present in the case at hand." The majority ruled that the defendant's statement should have been suppressed because it was obtained in violation of the Miranda rule, and that the gun should have been suppressed "given that its discovery was the illegal fruit of the Miranda violation."

In the dissenting judge's view, the circumstances of the case, including the nature of the alleged offense and defendant's homicidal tendencies, gave the arresting officer "an objectively reasonable justification to question defendant regarding the whereabouts of the gun before instructing defendant regarding his Miranda rights." In particular, he opined that "while one might question the wisdom of the officer's decision to grant defendant the liberty to dress himself without restraint, the exigency justifying the officer's question, e.g., the safety of the arresting officers, was nonetheless present when the officer questioned defendant regarding the location of the gun that was used to commit the crime named in the warrant." The dissent concluded that "under the circumstances of this case, the questions posed to defendant by the arresting officer were reasonably prompted by a concern for the safety of the officers, and therefore, the questions come within the exception to the Miranda rule recognized in Quarles. "The dissenting judge would have affirmed.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a trial court's factual findings in a ruling on a motion to suppress for clear error. To the extent that a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress involves an interpretation of the law or the application of a constitutional standard to uncontested facts, our review is de novo. See People v. Daoud, 462 Mich. 621, 629-630, 614 N.W.2d 152 (2000); People v. Stevens (After Remand), 460 Mich. 626, 631, 597 N.W.2d 53 (1999).

III. THE MIRANDA RULE AND THE QUARLES PUBLIC SAFETY EXCEPTION

In its landmark Miranda decision, the United States Supreme Court announced the general rule that the prosecution in a criminal case may not use a statement "stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination." Id. at 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602. As a basis for the rule, the Miranda Court explained that in order to effectively combat the "inherently compelling pressures" of custodial interrogation, an accused must be "adequately and effectively apprised" of rights associated with the interrogation. Id. at 467, 86 S.Ct. 1602. In the years since Miranda, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly described the required advice of rights as being a "prophylactic" measure designed to protect the exercise of an accused's Fifth Amendment rights. See Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 438, n. 2, 120 S.Ct. 2326, 2333, n. 2, 147 L.Ed.2d 405 (2000) (citing cases). Although some of these decisions, including Quarles, might have been read to suggest that Miranda warnings are not constitutionally required,² the Court has recently confirmed that the Miranda decision "announced a...