U.S. v. Martinez
| Citation | 512 F.2d 830 |
| Decision Date | 12 May 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 74-2346,74-2346 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Hector de Leon MARTINEZ, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Guadalupe Salinas, Asst. Dist. Atty., Houston, Tex. (Court-appointed), for defendant-appellant.
William S. Sessions, U. S. Atty., John Pinckney, III, Joel D. Conant, Asst. U. S. Attys., San Antonio, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.
Before RIVES, GODBOLD and GEE, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a conviction of unlawful reentry by a deported alien, 8 U.S.C. § 1326. After evidentiary hearing the trial court denied appellant's pretrial motion to suppress his oral admissions and evidence allegedly gathered as the fruit of those admissions. The admissions were not introduced as probative of guilt, but the alleged fruits thereof were introduced.
In January 1974 appellant was in the Bexar County, Texas, jail on a state charge unrelated to this appeal. Pursuant to booking procedures at that jail, state officers made several inquiries of each prisoner for purposes of identification, including his name and place of birth. This information was entered on a "booking slip."
A United States Immigration and Naturalization Service officer was assigned to the jail and was furnished daily with a computer printout of information from the booking slips, including for each person the country stated to be the place of his birth. The officer's duties included reviewing the bookings in search of persons who might be aliens, with the ultimate purpose of inquiring into the possibility of their having violated federal criminal statutes relating to aliens. If his suspicions were triggered with respect to a prisoner, the officer interrogated him. A primary purpose was to identify the suspect, since many aliens in the area disguise their identities to avoid detection. In many instances it is necessary to obtain fingerprints to get an accurate identification.
Under the interrogation procedure employed, the suspects-often 20 to 40 per day-usually were assembled in small groups at the jail and the members of the group were asked to state the respective countries of which each was a citizen. If a suspect responded that he was a citizen of a country other than the United States, the officer asked him no further questions but took him to his office where he had a telephone. He attempted to locate an I.N.S. file on the suspect. He advised the suspect of his Miranda rights and, if the prisoner signed a waiver, continued the interrogation.
With respect to appellant, the I.N.S. officer's suspicions were aroused by several factors. The booking slip showed his place of birth as Mexico, the amount of his bond was high (implying fear of flight), and there was a notation on the slip, apparently made by the arresting officer, to "hold for immigration." The notation indicated to the I.N.S. officer that the arresting state officer considered that immigration officials "would be interested in this person."
At the request of the I.N.S. officer, and pursuant to the usual custom, appellant was brought to the location in the jail where persons suspected to be aliens were interviewed. Probably appellant was in a group of three or four persons who were questioned together. When the group were asked of what country each was a citizen Martinez responded "Mexico" and then nonresponsively added that he was an alien illegally in the United States. The officer then advised Martinez of his Miranda rights and presented to him a form which Martinez signed, indicating that he understood such rights and was waiving them.
Subsequently, around February 10 or 11, the custodian of I.N.S. records in San Antonio searched for and located the file on Hector de Leon Martinez, which is appellant's name. He testified that he had no reason to locate the file unless asked to do so, and that he searched for it upon request and as a result of the investigation at the jail. The file revealed that in January 1972 a person named Hector de Leon Martinez had been formally deported from the United States. Examination of the file revealed no application to reenter the United States. A signature in the file purporting to be that of the deported person was turned over to Bexar County officials for comparison with the signature of appellant.
Meanwhile on February 6 the state charges against appellant had been dismissed and he was retained in custody under the federal "hold." Around February 11 the United States initiated the criminal charge of reentry, based in part upon the contents of the file.
In the non-jury trial it was necessary for the government to establish that appellant was the same person as the Hector de Leon Martinez who had been deported in 1972. For that purpose the prosecution offered the testimony of an expert that the signature of appellant on a document executed pursuant to his state booking in January 1974 was the same as that on documents in the file dated 1972. Appellant's nonresponsive statement to the I.N.S. officer that he was illegally in the United States was not offered to show guilt.
Citizenship of a suspect is an initial threshold that must be traversed en route to possible deportability and to criminal charges of illegal entry. 1 The government in brief states that "probably (appellant) should have been warned" before being asked to state the country of which he was a citizen. It is not necessary, however, that we decide that issue, and we leave it for another day.
We need not hold that all evidence is "fruit of the poisonous tree" simply because it would not have come to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question in such a case is "whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that...
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...agency and in the same city." Id. at 832. Accordingly, that information could not be considered derived from a constitutional violation. Id.; cf. United States Singh, 261 F.3d 530, 535 (5th Cir.2001) ("Otherwise suppressible testimony or evidence should be admitted if it derives from an ind......
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...warning is required before immigration officials ask an individual in custody about his citizenship in the case of United States v. Martinez, 512 F.2d 830 (5th Cir.1975). However, after determining that the controversy could be resolved without addressing particular issue, the Court decided......
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U.S. v. Farias-Gonzalez, No. 08-10508.
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