People v. Magallanes-Aragon, MAGALLANES-ARAGO

• Decision Date: 17 November 1997
• Docket Number: MAGALLANES-ARAGO,D,No. 97SA161,97SA161
• Citation: 948 P.2d 528
• Parties: 97 CJ C.A.R. 2773 The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Cristobalefendant-Appellee.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 528

948 P.2d 528

97 CJ C.A.R. 2773

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Cristobal MAGALLANES-ARAGON, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 97SA161.

Supreme Court of Colorado,

En Banc.

Nov. 17, 1997.

A. William Ritter, Jr., District Attorney, Second Judicial District, Nathan B. Coates, Chief Appellate Deputy District Attorney, Everett Engstrom, Deputy District Attorney, Denver, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Kenneth R. Daniels, Denver, for Defendant-Appellee.

Justice MARTINEZ delivered the Opinion of the Court.

In this interlocutory appeal brought pursuant to C.A.R. 4.1, the prosecution seeks review of an order by the District Court of the City and County of Denver suppressing drug evidence found in the automobile of the defendant, Cristobal Magallanes-Aragon. The trial court determined that Magallanes-Aragon did not knowingly and intelligently consent to a search of the vehicle and ordered the suppression of the evidence. We hold that a trial court must consider the relationship between police conduct and a defendant in deciding whether a consent to search is voluntary. We conclude that the trial court relied exclusively upon the defendant's state of mind and did not determine whether the police conduct was intrusive, overbearing, or coercive. Thus, the trial court applied an erroneous legal standard in evaluating the voluntariness of the consent. We reverse and remand the case to the trial court with directions that it make additional findings of fact and reconsider the voluntariness issue under the appropriate legal standard.

I.

At approximately 10:00 p.m. on February 11, 1997, two officers of the Denver Police Department, Detective Snow and Detective Keckter, began a surveillance of the Motel 6 at 3050 West 49th Avenue. The officers routinely observed the motel for possible criminal activity because they had discovered from past experiences that narcotics traffickers frequently stayed there.

A short time later, two men, later identified as Magallanes-Aragon and a codefendant, Agustin Prieto-Bailon, pulled up to the motel office in an older model Buick with Iowa license plates, registered for a room, and parked in a courtyard area nearby. Prieto-Bailon retrieved a bag from inside the trunk, closed the trunk, then lifted up on it several times to insure that it was locked. Before the two men reached their third-floor room, Prieto-Bailon looked down at the Buick "as if he was checking the car."

At the motel office, Detective Keckter learned that the men paid for the room with cash, and that the person registering the room, under the name Prieto, displayed identification from Chihuahua, Mexico. A computer check of the license plates of the Buick revealed that the car was registered to a person named Magallanes, who resided in Des Moines, Iowa.

Based upon this information, Detectives Snow and Keckter decided to contact the two men, and requested that a Spanish-speaking officer, Detective Rael, respond to the location. The three officers, dressed in plain clothes and wearing badges, knocked on the motel room door and identified themselves as police officers.

Detectives Rael and Snow testified that Magallanes-Aragon and Prieto-Bailon invited the officers into the motel room, and subsequently consented to a search of the motel room and the Buick. ¹ After the search of the Buick proceeded to its trunk, Detective Snow noticed that the spare tire appeared to be unusually large compared to the tires on the car, and that it was inordinately heavy. Detective Snow also testified that he heard objects rattling inside the tire, and that, when he pushed on the valve stem, he smelled the odor of marijuana. Upon cutting open the tire, the officers found approximately 43 pounds of marijuana.

Magallanes-Aragon was charged by information with one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, ² and one count of possession of more than eight ounces of marijuana. ³ At the suppression hearing, the trial court found that, when the officers knocked on the door of the motel room, they had "suspicion," but not probable cause. ⁴ The court also found that Magallanes-Aragon did not "knowingly and intelligently waive his right to refuse the search" of the Buick, "even though he was advised otherwise." The court therefore suppressed the evidence found in the trunk of the Buick. The prosecution appeals the suppression order, claiming that the trial court applied an erroneous legal standard in evaluating the voluntariness of Magallanes-Aragon's consent.

II.

We begin by reviewing the appropriate legal standard for deciding whether a consent to search is voluntary. A warrantless search is constitutionally justified when it is conducted pursuant to voluntary consent. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 222, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2045, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973); People v. Drake, 785 P.2d 1257, 1265 (Colo.1990). Consent to search is voluntary if it is "the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker," and not the result of circumstances which overbear the consenting party's will and critically impair his or her capacity for self-determination. Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 225, 93 S.Ct. at 2046-47; accord, e.g., People v. Licea, 918 P.2d 1109, 1112 (Colo.1996). The prosecution bears the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence ⁵ that a consent to search was voluntarily given. See Licea, 918 P.2d at 1112.

A consensual search is involuntary if it is " 'the result of duress or coercion, express or implied, or any other form of undue influence exercised against the defendant.' " People v. Cleburn, 782 P.2d 784, 787 (Colo.1989) (quoting People v. Thiret, 685 P.2d 193, 201 (Colo.1984)). Other forms of undue influence exercised against a defendant include promises, threats, or intrusive police conduct. See People v. Johnson, 865 P.2d 836, 845 (Colo.1994). Thus, before a court may conclude that consent was voluntarily given, it must find no objective evidence of coercion, duress, deception, promises, threats, intrusive conduct or other undue influence by the police, which critically impaired the defendant's judgment. See Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 228-29, 93 S.Ct. at 2048-49 (the voluntariness requirement of the Fourth Amendment is intended to insure that consent searches are "free from any aspect of official coercion"); Capps v. People, 162 Colo. 323, 327, 426 P.2d 189, 191 (1967) (consent is voluntary "if the [trial] court finds no evidence showing coercion or duress"). ⁶ After considering the evidence of police coercion and the defendant's particular subjective characteristics, the court must apply an objective test and determine whether the police conduct could reasonably have appeared to the defendant to be coercive. See United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 558-59, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1879-80, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). It is the relationship between the police conduct and a person in the defendant's circumstances, and with the defendant's particular characteristics, which is critical to this determination. See People v. Diaz, 793 P.2d 1181, 1186 (Colo.1990) (affirming trial court finding that consent was involuntary because the request to search, which was in the form of a question, would have been believed to be an order by one in the defendant's position of having been confronted by three police officers and asked to join them in a different part of a bar).

The characteristics of a defendant, such as age, education, and knowledge are pertinent considerations, as are the circumstances of the search, such as its location and duration, the environment in which the defendant gives consent and the defendant's perceptions. See People v. Milton, 826 P.2d 1282, 1286 (Colo.1992); Cleburn, 782 P.2d at 787. However, when a court focuses exclusively on a defendant's characteristics and perceptions, and fails to determine whether police conduct was objectively coercive in relation to the defendant's subjective state, it applies an erroneous legal standard. See Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 188, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 2801, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990); United States v. Crowder, 62 F.3d 782, 787 (6th Cir.1995) (the defendant must show more than a subjective belief of coercion), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1057, 116 S.Ct. 731, 133 L.Ed.2d 682 (1996); Capps, 162 Colo. at 327, 426 P.2d at 191 ("[A]ll the evidence, including the various circumstances of the giving of consent, must be objectively viewed with diligent care by the trial court ...."); see also Johnson, 865 P.2d at 845 (consent voluntary because police officers did not act threateningly or intrusively, and made no promises or threats when requesting consent to search); People v. Bowman, 669 P.2d 1369, 1378 (Colo.1983) (consent voluntary because there was no evidence that the police coerced or deceived the defendant).

III.

We next compare the findings and conclusions of the trial court to the appropriate legal standard discussed. We conclude that the trial court made insufficient findings to permit us to decide whether the consent was voluntary in this appellate review.

A.

In concluding that Magallanes-Aragon did not knowingly and intelligently waive his right to refuse to consent to the search, the trial court relied upon the fact that Magallanes-Aragon was educated in Mexico and did not believe that he had a right to refuse to consent to the search. The court found that:

This Defendant is a 29-year-old man from Mexico who works on ranches and farms. He's uneducated, educated in Mexico, not educated in the United States, and under the impression that he has no right to refuse the search.

I believe the officers did everything in their mind that was absolutely proper, but looking at the totality of the circumstances ... I do not feel that this Defendant ever gave a knowing and intelligent waiver of his right to refuse the search. He was under the impression that he had to allow the search, even though he was advised otherwise by the officers,...