People v. Garcia

• Citation: 11 P.3d 449
• Decision Date: 23 October 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99SA428.,99SA428.
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth Thomas GARCIA, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Supreme Court of Colorado

11 P.3d 449

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth Thomas GARCIA, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 99SA428.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

October 23, 2000.

Jeanne M. Smith, District Attorney, Fourth Judicial District, Ann Joyce, Deputy District Attorney, Gordon R. Denison, Deputy District Attorney, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Attorneys for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Alternative Defense Counsel, Kathleen A. Carlson, Denver, Colorado, Attorney for Defendant-Appellee.

Justice HOBBS delivered the Opinion of the Court.

In this interlocutory appeal, we review the trial court's conclusion of law that detention of the defendant in the locked back compartment of a police car for fifteen minutes constituted an illegal arrest and, in the alternative, that failure to deliver a Miranda advisory prior to the obtaining defendant's consent to search his residence vitiated the defendant's consent to search.¹

We hold that (1) defendant's fifteen-minute detention in the police car occurred for officer safety purposes in the course of an investigatory stop, as officers investigated four individuals about a nighttime domestic disturbance involving drugs, and under the circumstances did not constitute an arrest; and (2) the absence of a Miranda warning prior to requesting a consensual search did not invalidate the defendant's voluntary consent to search.

I.

On June 29, 1999, at about 10:00 p.m., three Colorado Springs police officers responded to a disturbance at a mobile home park in the 3600 block of North Cascade. A neighbor had reported that men and women were "yelling and screaming" at that address. When they arrived at the scene, officers found a man heavily intoxicated, yelling and knocking on the door of the residence where the disturbance was reported. They placed the intoxicated man in one of the police cars. The officers then knocked on the residence door of the defendant, Kenneth Garcia (Garcia), to inquire about the reported disturbance. Garcia stepped approximately ten feet outside the residence to speak with the officers and left the door open behind him. The officers questioned Garcia. He denied there was any disturbance.

As the officers spoke with Garcia, they saw a small pipe on the ground next to him of a type used for smoking methamphetamine or crack cocaine. They also noticed a picture of a marijuana plant on the wall inside the residence.

The officers placed Garcia in the back seat of a different police car from where the intoxicated man was sitting. Officers testified at the suppression hearing that they had placed the intoxicated individual and Garcia in two separate police cars because they "didn't know what was happening inside, if there are or were other individuals that were yelling — officer safety purposes." Officer testimony about Garcia's detention also included the following:

Q. And is there any reason that you could tell the Court why you decided to put him in the car versus having him stand outside?

A. Officer safety issues, that's the only reason he was in the patrol car.

The officers did not handcuff Garcia when they placed him in the police car, but he could not open the car doors from the inside. A cage separated Garcia from an officer who was sitting in the front seat of the police car. This officer told Garcia that he would be held in the police car during the investigation, and he asked Garcia whether there was anyone in the residence. Garcia replied that two women were inside.

While Garcia sat in the police car, the two women exited the residence. One of the women told the officers that Garcia offered her a "blast" from his crack pipe. Based on the pipe, the picture of the marijuana plant inside Garcia's residence, and the statement that Garcia had offered the woman crack to smoke, the officers decided to ask Garcia for consent to search his residence.

The officer who was sitting in the front of the police car with Garcia filled out the top portion of a search waiver form and handed it to him. Garcia read the search waiver aloud to the officer, then signed the bottom portion. The officers searched Garcia's residence and found several items of drug paraphernalia and crack cocaine. They then told Garcia that he was under arrest.

The prosecution charged Garcia with one count of possession of a schedule II controlled substance² and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia.³ Garcia filed a motion to suppress evidence based on an illegal arrest. The trial court held two hearings and issued orders concluding that there were two grounds for suppressing evidence in the case: (1) an illegal arrest by virtue of placing and keeping Garcia in the police car without probable cause and (2) failure to deliver Garcia a Miranda⁴ warning prior to obtaining his consent to search his residence.

In regard to Garcia's detention in the police car, the trial court's written suppression order recites, in pertinent part:

In this case the Court must first determine the nature of the contact between the officers and the Defendant. The Court finds that the initial contact with the Defendant at the front step of his residence was an investigatory stop and the officers were therefore justified in their initial actions. However, when the officer took the Defendant into his custody and placed him in the back of a police car, that stop blossomed into an arrest.

In regard to Garcia's consent to search his residence, the written order states, in part:

While the Court finds from the evidence that the consent was voluntary, the Court finds the consent was not sufficiently the act of the Defendant's free will to purge the illegality. The arrest and the consent were close in time (approximately fifteen minutes apart); and there were no intervening circumstances between the arrest and consent (such as allowing the Defendant out of the police car or permitting him to talk to anyone else). While the Court does not find the police conduct particularly flagrant, that factor is only one factor to consider and is not determinative. Therefore, the Court finds that the Defendant's consent was not sufficiently an act of his free will to purge the primary taint of the illegal arrest.

In the alternative, the trial court concluded in one of its transcribed oral rulings that failure to deliver a Miranda advisory prior to obtaining Garcia's consent to search his residence vitiated that consent:

Further, the Court will find that since he was not advised of his Miranda rights pursuant to the Reddersen case that any consent given while in custody following custodial arrest, would also be a separate and independent ground for suppression of the search. Therefore, the Motion to reconsider is denied.

II.

We hold that (1) defendant's fifteen-minute detention in the police car occurred for officer safety purposes in the course of an investigatory stop, as officers investigated four individuals about a nighttime domestic disturbance involving drugs, and under the circumstances did not constitute an arrest; and (2) the absence of a Miranda warning prior to requesting a consensual search did not invalidate the defendant's voluntary consent to search.

A. Investigatory Stop

The prosecution does not contend that the officers had probable cause to arrest Garcia at the time they placed him in the police car, or that his detention was a consensual encounter. Therefore, the prosecution's challenge to the trial court's suppression order hinges on whether or not Garcia was properly detained pursuant to an investigatory stop. The trial court concluded that the act of placing and keeping Garcia in the back of the patrol car at the scene while the officers conducted their investigation constituted an arrest. Consequently, it decided that Garcia's consent to search his residence was the product of an illegal arrest. We disagree. In considering Garcia's detention and the trial court's suppression order, we must first determine whether it was an investigatory stop or an illegal arrest, and then whether it was constitutionally permissible.

1. Standard of Review

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that the people shall be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. See People v. Paynter, 955 P.2d 68, 71 (Colo.1998). Investigatory stops and arrests are seizures that implicate the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 72. An investigatory stop is an "intermediate" level of police response or limited seizure, and it may be proper in "narrowly defined circumstances upon less than probable cause." People v. Archuleta, 980 P.2d 509, 512 (Colo. 1999). An arrest must be supported by probable cause. Id. "Whether an encounter is an arrest or an investigatory stop is a mixed question of law and fact." People v. Smith, 13 P.3d 300, 304 (Colo.2000).

When we consider the trial court's suppression order, we defer to its findings of fact, but review its conclusions of law de novo. Id. We review the totality of the circumstances in determining whether the intrusion was a proper investigatory stop or an illegal arrest that lacked probable cause. See People v. D.F., 933 P.2d 9, 14 (Colo.1997) (holding that a proper investigatory stop occurred when police detained three juveniles on reasonable suspicion they might possess a firearm).

An investigatory stop implicates a limited seizure based on less than probable cause; "it must be brief in duration, limited in scope, and narrow in purpose." People v. Tottenhoff, 691 P.2d 340, 343 (Colo.1984). Officers must have an articulable and specific basis in fact to believe that an individual is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime. See People v. Padgett, 932 P.2d 810, 814 (Colo.1997). The trial court must take into account the totality of the circumstances known to the police officers at the time of the investigatory stop, combined with any rational inferences made therefrom. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1883, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 909 (1968);...