U.S. v. Clarke, 96-2583

• Decision Date: 08 April 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-2583,96-2583
• Citation: 110 F.3d 612
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Maude C. CLARKE, also known as Tina Clarke, also known as Angela, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 612

110 F.3d 612

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Maude C. CLARKE, also known as Tina Clarke, also known as Angela, Appellee.

No. 96-2583.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Jan. 13, 1997.

Decided April 8, 1997.

Patrick McInerney, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Kansas City, MO, argued (Paul Becker, Assistant U.S. Attorney, on the brief), for appellant.

Ronald A. Partee, Kansas City, MO, argued, for appellee.

Before LOKEN, BRIGHT, and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judges.

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

The United States appeals the suppression of a confession by a defendant charged with running an interstate prostitution ring. We reverse.

I.

Late in 1994, a team of federal and state officers in Kansas City, Missouri, began a seven-month investigation of Maude C. Clarke, whom they suspected of running an interstate prostitution ring. By monitoring incoming and outgoing calls on Ms. Clarke's five telephone lines, watching her apartment and her car, collecting and examining her trash, following the women who worked for her, talking to clients, and examining checks and credit card records secured pursuant to federal grand jury subpoenas, the team developed an extensive picture of Ms. Clarke's operations. Based on this knowledge, in June, 1995, a Kansas City Police Department ("KCPD") detective issued "pick-up orders" for Ms. Clarke and her employees. "Pick-up orders" are entered in the KCPD computer when officers believe that probable cause exists to arrest an individual for a particular crime; the orders relevant to Ms. Clarke indicated that probable cause existed to believe that she was promoting prostitution in violation of both state and federal law and that she should be arrested if encountered.

The morning that the orders were issued, the KCPD arrested Ms. Clarke and took her downtown to the detention unit. After approximately twelve hours, a case agent from the United States Secret Service and a KCPD vice officer jointly questioned her for one and a half to two hours. After obtaining some personal information from Ms. Clarke, the officers read her Miranda rights to her. Ms. Clarke stated that she understood her rights and that she had nothing to hide. During the questioning, Ms. Clarke admitted that she had operated the prostitution ring for several years and that she laundered the ring's proceeds through a sham remodeling company. Ms. Clarke also named all of the women who worked for her. When the officers asked her to give a written statement, however, she refused, saying that she would not sign anything without an attorney. The interrogation then concluded and Ms. Clarke was returned to the detention unit and later released. Officers executed a search warrant for Ms. Clarke's residence shortly after she was picked up, and they found records that suggested the existence of a long-running, financially successful interstate prostitution ring.

Approximately three months later, Ms. Clarke was indicted and charged with a range of federal offenses relating to the conduct of a prostitution ring, including conspiracy, Travel Act violations, money laundering, and wire fraud. She was arraigned the next day and later moved to suppress the statement obtained from her when she was picked up in June. Ms. Clarke initially alleged only that her Miranda rights had been violated, but later argued as well that her arrest by local officers had been a pretext to allow federal officers to question her about a federal investigation. The district court, adopting the report and recommendation of a magistrate judge, suppressed the statement on the grounds that Ms. Clarke's arrest was pretextual and that the officers had intentionally circumvented Fed.R.Crim.P. 5(a) by not presenting her before a magistrate judge. The United States appeals the statement's suppression.

II.

The United States first argues that the district court's finding that Ms. Clarke's arrest was pretextual is immaterial under Whren v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). In that case, police officers who were patrolling a neighborhood known for drug trafficking stopped a truck after it turned without signaling and then sped away. The officers approached the truck, spotted two large bags of crack cocaine in the passenger's hands, arrested both of the truck's occupants, and retrieved several kinds of illegal drugs from the truck.

The petitioners in that case challenged the legality of the stop, arguing that although probable cause existed to believe that they had committed a traffic violation, no reasonable officer would have stopped them solely on that basis and that the officers' decision to stop them was merely a pretext to investigate possible drug activity, for which no probable cause existed before the stop. The Supreme Court flatly rejected that argument, stating that "[s]ubjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis" and holding that such motives cannot invalidate police conduct that is justified by probable cause. Id. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 1774. Although Whren specifically concerned a traffic stop, we believe that its principle is applicable to all police activities for which probable cause is required. See, e.g., United States v. Hathcock 103 F.3d 715, 719 (8th Cir.1997) (drug trafficking arrest at airport).

In analyzing Ms. Clarke's arrest under the fourth amendment, we therefore ignore the officers' subjective intentions and focus solely on the objective question of whether probable cause existed. Whren, --- U.S. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 1774; Hathcock, 103 F.3d at 719. The district court found that the information gathered by the officers during the investigation of Ms. Clarke and her activities established probable cause that she was promoting prostitution in violation of both state and federal law, and that finding is neither clearly erroneous nor incorrect as a matter of law. Indeed, Ms. Clarke does not even contend that it is. We therefore agree with the United States that the suppression of Ms. Clarke's confession was erroneous under Whren.

The district court recognized that we have held numerous times that the validity of an arrest is to be determined not by reference to the motive for effecting it but rather by making an objective inquiry into what the fourth amendment would allow in the circumstances that the particular case presents. See, e.g., United States v. Cummins, 920 F.2d 498, 501 (8th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 962, 112 S.Ct. 428, 116 L.Ed.2d 448 (1991). The district court also recognized that federal agents may make arrests without warrants if there is probable cause to do so, but it believed that because the officers making the arrest in this case did so "pursuant to" Mo.Rev.Stat. § 544.170, the arrest, from a federal point of view, was illegal from the beginning. That is because, the district court found, the federal officers were taking advantage of the cover provided by the Missouri statute to circumvent Fed.R.Crim.P. 5(a), which requires that a person arrested be brought before a magistrate judge "without unnecessary delay." The Missouri statute requires the release of an arrested person unless he or she is charged with a crime within twenty hours of the arrest.

We believe that the district court has confused the question of whether an arrest was valid with the very different question of whether Fed.R.Crim.P. 5(a) was...