U.S. v. Capers

• Decision Date: 01 December 2010
• Docket Number: Docket No. 07-1830-cr
• Citation: 627 F.3d 470
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. William CAPERS, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

627 F.3d 470

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant,

v.William CAPERS, Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 07-1830-cr.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: July 11, 2008.

Decided: Dec. 1, 2010.

Anna E. Arreola, Assistant United States Attorney (Katherine Polk Failla, Assistant United States Attorney, of counsel), for Preet Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, New York, for Appellant.

Jerrold L. Steigman (Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., on the brief), Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer, P.C., New York, New York, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: POOLER and HALL, Circuit Judges, TRAGER, District Judge. ^*

Judge TRAGER dissents in a separate opinion.

HALL, Circuit Judge:

The government appeals from an order entered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (McKenna, J.) to suppress inculpatory statements made by defendant-appellee while in custody. We AFFIRM the order of the district court on the ground that the initial interrogation conducted by an investigator aware of the obvious need for a Miranda warning, followed 90 minutes later by a second, post- Miranda interrogation by the same investigator, on the same subject matter, under similar circumstances and with no explicit curative language amounted to a deliberate, two-step interrogation technique designed to undermine the defendant's Miranda rights.

BACKGROUND

In March 2005, the United States Postal Service suspected defendant-appellee William Capers, employed as a mail handler, of stealing money orders from Express Mail envelopes. Postal Inspectors decided to conduct a sting operation targeting Capers. In December 2005, Inspectors planted two Express Mail envelopes in the mail-sorting facility where Capers worked. One envelope contained $30 cash, and the other contained two $80 money orders and was equipped with an alarm device. The alarm was set to trigger automatically in the event the envelope with the money orders was opened and its contents removed.

Having planted the envelopes in a mail container, Postal Inspectors Hoti, Del Giudice, Moon, and Chow conducted surveillance of Capers throughout the day. At approximately 5 p.m., Capers noticed the envelopes for the first time. Approximately two hours later, Capers and Juan Lopez, a fellow employee, entered a trailer holding mail containers and briefly disappeared from the inspectors' view. Less than one minute later, the alarm in the envelope sounded, and the postal inspectors rushed into the trailer to apprehend both Capers and Lopez. The inspectors handcuffed both suspects. Inspector Hoti instructed Capers to follow him into a supervisor's office. Inspectors Del Giudice and Moon also entered the office. They instructed Capers to sit in a chair, still handcuffed, while the three inspectors stood around him. None of the inspectors gave Capers a Miranda warning.

According to the testimony of Del Giudice, Hoti said to Capers:

something like, look, you know, talk to me or don't talk to me, I don't care but I'm telling you right now or I'll tell you that I'm going to do my best to make you go away, and I just want you to know. And I've been watching you all day. I know everything that you did tonight.

(Hr'g Tr. 95, Sept. 5, 2006.) Hoti then asked Capers where the contents of the Express Mail envelope were located. Capers gestured toward his right side pants pocket, and Hoti asked Capers what was in his pocket. Capers replied the money orders. (Hr'g Tr. 34.) Hoti asked for Capers' permission to "grab" them, and when Capers said "yes," Hoti removed the money orders from Capers' pocket. (Hr'g Tr. 34.) Hoti asked Capers if the money orders belonged to him, and Capers said no. (Hr'g Tr. 34.) Capers told Hoti that he got the money orders from the Express Mail envelope. (Hr'g Tr. 64.) Hoti also questioned Capers about the $30 cash that had been planted in the other Express Mail envelope, but Capers stated that he did not know anything about it. The entire questioning took less than five minutes. Regarding the lack of a Miranda warning, Hoti testified that he did not read Capers his rights because he was in a hurry to track down the missing money orders so that they did not get lost in the large mail-sorting facility and because he needed to question Lopez, who was held handcuffed outside the supervisor's office, to determine his level of involvement in the crime.

Del Giudice and Moon then escorted Capers to a van to transport him to another Postal Service facility (the "Bronx Domicile") for further questioning. They waited in the van for approximately 15 to 20 minutes while the other inspectors located the alarm device from the opened envelope. In the van, Del Giudice engaged Capers in conversation primarily about Capers' automobile. Capers remained handcuffed throughout this time, which included 15 to 20 minutes of waiting and 20 minutes of driving to the Bronx Domicile.

When they arrived at the Bronx Domicile, the inspectors placed Capers in an interview room and handcuffed him to the chair in which he sat. Del Giudice and Moon remained with him, engaging him in further conversation, and gathering relevant personal information from Capers for their paperwork. At one point, Capers asked Del Giudice about the possibility of being fired, and Del Giudice told him that "it's in your best interest to tell the truth when Inspector Hoti comes down. Be honest. It's always better if you're honest." (Hr'g Tr. 117.)

Capers and the two postal inspectors waited for approximately 30 to 40 minutes until Hoti entered the room. Hoti then advised Capers of his Miranda rights. Hoti made no reference, however, to the statements Capers had already made during the initial interrogation. Hoti explained in his testimony, "I don't remember the specific question and its sequence, and I don't see a need to say what did you do with the contents of this Express Mail when I already have the answer to that. So I would not have asked that same question." (Hr'g Tr. 72.) Capers signed a Postal Service Warning and Waiver of Rights form, and Hoti proceeded to question Capers about the events of the evening, specifically asking about what he did with the Express Mail envelopes earlier that night. Capers verbally confessed to taking the money orders. When Hoti asked him to provide a written statement, Capers replied by asking, "What's in it for me?" (Hr'g Tr. 51.) Hoti told Capers "there's nothing I can promise you," and then ended the questioning. (Hr'g Tr. 51.)

Capers was indicted in March 2006, charged with one count of theft of mail matter by a postal employee, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1709. He moved to suppress the inculpatory statements he made both before and after receiving the Miranda warning, and on March 30, 2007, the district court entered an order suppressing the statements. The district court foundthat "[t]he government has not shown that ... defendant relinquished his right to remain silent voluntarily with a full awareness of the rights being waived and the consequences of doing so." United States v. Capers, No. 06 Cr. 266, 2007 WL 959300, at * 15 (S.D.N.Y. Mar.29, 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the district court found that the postal inspectors did not have the "specific intent" to circumvent Capers' Miranda rights, id., it did find their interrogation tactics deprived Capers of a "genuine right to remain silent," id. at * 14. The United States filed a timely notice of appeal.

DISCUSSION

I. Standard of Review

"We review a district court's determination regarding the constitutionality of a Miranda waiver de novo." United States v. Carter, 489 F.3d 528, 534 (2d Cir.2007). In doing so, we review "a district court's underlying factual findings for clear error." Id.

II. Miranda and the Two-Step Interrogation Technique

The issue before us is whether Hoti and the other postal inspectors deliberately deprived Capers of the rights to which he is entitled under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The government argues that the defendant was given an effective Miranda warning prior to making voluntary inculpatory statements, and therefore the statements he made following the warning should not have been suppressed by the district court. Capers argues that the rule that the Supreme Court announced in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 124 S.Ct. 2601, 159 L.Ed.2d 643 (2004), and that this Court further clarified in Carter, requires us to conclude that the postal inspectors' two-step interrogation in this case constituted a deliberate violation of Capers' Miranda rights.

"The purpose of the Miranda warning is to ensure that the person in custody has sufficient knowledge of his or her constitutional rights relating to the interrogation and that any waiver of such rights is knowing, intelligent, and voluntary." Carter, 489 F.3d at 534. The Supreme Court, in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985), and Seibert, 542 U.S. 600, 124 S.Ct. 2601, has twice addressed situations like this one in which a suspect in custody confessed without having received a Miranda warning, subsequently received a Miranda warning, and then confessed again.

Elstad involved a situation in which a suspect made a self-incriminating statement while two police officers were at his home investigating a robbery. At the time he had not received a Miranda warning. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 300-01, 105 S.Ct. 1285. The officers transported the suspect to a police station where they gave him a Miranda warning prior to obtaining both an oral and written confession. Id. at 301, 105 S.Ct. 1285. At trial, the defendant moved to suppress the postwarning confessions on the ground that the statements made at the police station only came about as a result of the first inadmissable statement made at his house. Id. at 302, 105 S.Ct. 1285. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the "fruit of the poisonous tree" argument, see Wong...