Rios v. State
| Decision Date | 09 August 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 5D18-1737 |
| Citation | 277 So.3d 1102 |
| Parties | Victoria Elizabeth RIOS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
James S. Purdy, Public Defender, and Edward J. Weiss, Assistant Public Defender, Daytona Beach, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Pamela J. Koller, Assistant Attorney General, Daytona Beach, for Appellee.
Appellant, Victoria Elizabeth Rios, appeals her convictions for first-degree murder and armed burglary of a dwelling. Appellant asserts that law enforcement's delayed administration of the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), rendered her subsequent waiver and incriminating statements made to law enforcement involuntary. We agree, reverse Appellant's convictions, and remand for a new trial.
Appellant, David Damus, Konrad Schafer, and Juan Muriel were charged with the murder of Eric Roopnarine (the victim) and armed burglary with a firearm of the victim's home. Appellant, a seventeen-year-old runaway, was living with Damus and Muriel after she left her father's home. In need of rent money, Appellant approached the victim through a cellphone messaging application and offered sex for money. Appellant, Damus, Schafer, and Muriel drove to the victim's home. After the victim let Appellant into his home, she opened the door for Damus and Schafer. Damus shot the victim, Schafer stabbed him, and the trio searched the victim's home for anything of value while Muriel waited in the vehicle. They stole, among other things, a television, a PlayStation3, and an Xbox.
While investigating another homicide, law enforcement found Appellant hiding in a closet at Schafer's home. Following the search of Schafer's home, law enforcement asked the occupants of the home, including Damus, Muriel, and Appellant, to come to the police station in Kissimmee for questioning. Appellant was transported without handcuffs in an unmarked police car. At the station, law enforcement isolated Appellant in an interview room on the secured second floor. Appellant remained in that location for over eleven hours, during which time law enforcement officers interviewed her intermittently three times.
The first interview began around 3:00 p.m. and lasted approximately twenty minutes. During that time, Detective Georgie Torres questioned Appellant about a weapon that law enforcement recovered at the Schafer residence. Afterward Detective Torres left Appellant confined and isolated in the room for approximately two hours. During the wait, Appellant expressed her desire to leave. In response, an officer told her to relax and that she could not always get what she wanted.
Mr. Rios, Appellant's father, arrived at the station at 5:00 p.m. Law enforcement instructed him that his wait "was going to be a while," that he should leave the station and get something to eat, and that they would contact him again when they finished questioning Appellant. Believing that law enforcement would not allow him to see his daughter, Mr. Rios left the police station.
The second interview began at 5:23 p.m. with Detectives Kristi McElroy and Alex Bejerano. During the first forty minutes of this interview, Detective McElroy developed a rapport with Appellant by delving into her status as a runaway and asking her whether she was a victim of human trafficking. The focus subsequently turned to Appellant's relationship with the victim and his death. Then, the detectives left Appellant alone for another forty minutes.
At 6:40 p.m. Detective McElroy returned and continued to inquire about Appellant's life, which included discussions on her romantic relationship with Muriel, the activities of Muriel, Damus, and Schafer, and their use of guns. Upon Detective Bejerano's return to the interview room at 7:38 p.m., the second interview turned noticeably adversarial. In particular, Detectives Bejerano and McElroy engaged Appellant in specific questioning concerning her knowledge of the victim's murder and the validity of her previous statements. After Appellant expressed her fears about being in trouble, Detective McElroy asked, Appellant responded, "No." Detective McElroy followed up with, Appellant responded, "[Damus] did." Appellant thereafter revealed the plan to rob the victim; however, she maintained that she and Muriel did not accompany Damus and Schafer to the victim's residence, claiming she did not know of the victim's death until the pair returned.
During this interview, Appellant asked about her father. Detective Bejerano told her law enforcement had called him and that he knew that she was there. The detectives left the room at 8:38 p.m. and did not return until 9:25 p.m. At that time, Appellant continued to inquire about her father, to which Detective McElroy replied that other officers would be reaching out to him. Finally, at 9:54 p.m., the detectives left Appellant alone for another two hours. Around 11:30 p.m., law enforcement contacted Mr. Rios again, instructing him to come to the station right away without providing any explanation.
At 12:25 a.m., the detectives brought Mr. Rios into the room and immediately told Appellant, Detective McElroy then provided Miranda warnings. Appellant indicated that she understood, and she waived her rights. Thereafter, Detective McElroy summarized what Appellant had already told law enforcement and confronted her with evidence of her guilt. It was only at this point that Appellant confessed to her presence at the crime scene and participation in the murder and burglary.
Appellant moved to suppress her statements to law enforcement, arguing that they failed to provide Miranda warnings while she was under custodial interrogation during the second interview and that her subsequent waiver in the third interview was involuntary because she did not understand the significance of her rights. The State contended that law enforcement did not subject Appellant to custodial interrogation in the second interview and that Appellant voluntarily waived her rights in the third interview. The trial court denied the motion, agreeing with the State. Ultimately, the jury found Appellant guilty of both counts, and the trial court sentenced her to thirty years in prison followed by lifetime probation. On appeal, Appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress.
"Both the United States and Florida Constitutions provide that persons shall not be ‘compelled’ to be witnesses against themselves in any criminal matter." Ramirez v. State, 739 So. 2d 568, 572 (Fla. 1999) . Moreover, "the right against self-incrimination provided in the Florida Constitution offers more protection than the right provided in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution." Myers v. State, 211 So. 3d 962, 971 (Fla. 2017) (citation and quotation marks omitted). "In Miranda, the United States Supreme Court enunciated a bright-line rule to guard against compulsion and the coercive nature and atmosphere of custodial interrogation" by requiring law enforcement to provide warnings to those subject to custodial interrogation. Ramirez, 739 So. 2d at 573. "Evidence obtained from custodial interrogations may not be used against a defendant at trial if these warnings were not provided to the defendant before the interrogation." State v. Maloney, 191 So. 3d 969, 973 (Fla. 5th DCA 2016).
In evaluating Appellant's claim, the first question is whether Appellant was subjected to custodial interrogation, requiring Miranda warnings in the second interview. "[T]he initial step [in a custodial interrogation analysis] is to ascertain whether, in light of the objective circumstances of the interrogation, a reasonable person [would] have felt he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave." Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. 499, 509, 132 S.Ct. 1181, 182 L.Ed.2d 17 (2012) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). "The proper inquiry is not the unarticulated plan of the police, but rather how a reasonable person in the suspect's position would have perceived the situation." Ramirez, 739 So. 2d at 573 (quoting Davis v. State, 698 So. 2d 1182, 1188 (Fla. 1997) ).
The Florida Supreme Court has provided the following nonexclusive factors when determining whether a defendant is in custody: "(1) the manner in which police summon the suspect for questioning; (2) the purpose, place, and manner of the interrogation; (3) the extent to which the suspect is confronted with evidence of his or her guilt; [and] (4) whether the suspect is informed that he or she is free to leave the place of questioning." Id. at 574. "This is a conjunctive test, so no factor is solely determinative of whether [Appellant] was in custody for Miranda purposes." Myers, 211 So. 3d at 974. "Courts are to consider the totality of the circumstances in determining whether a reasonable person would believe that his or her freedom of action has been curtailed to a degree associated with actual arrest." State v. McAdams, 193 So. 3d 824, 833 (Fla. 2016) (citing Caldwell v. State, 41 So. 3d 188, 197 (Fla. 2010) ).
After considering the entire context of the encounter, we find that the second interview was custodial in nature because a reasonable person would not have felt that she was free to terminate the interview and leave. Here, Appellant only consented to going to the police station after the search of the...
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...interrogators did not secure a written waiver of the Miranda rights at the outset. Id. at 576. Thus, for example, in Rios v. State, 277 So. 3d 1102, 1109 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019), the appellate court found that Rios's young age, her diminished intelligence, her limited experience with the crimin......
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