United States v. Quinn

• Citation: 633 F. Supp. 535
• Decision Date: 21 April 1986
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 84-00016 P.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Daniel J. QUINN.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

633 F. Supp. 535

UNITED STATES of America v. Daniel J. QUINN.

Crim. No. 84-00016 P.

United States District Court, D. Maine.

April 21, 1986.

Richard S. Cohen, U.S. Atty., Margaret D. McGaughey, Asst. U.S. Atty., Portland, Me., for plaintiff.

James M. Merberg, Boston, Mass., for defendant.

ORDER ON DEFENDANT QUINN'S MOTION TO SUPPRESS

GENE CARTER, District Judge.

This case is here on remand from the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for redetermination of Defendant Quinn's motion to suppress certain statements and physical evidence seized in connection with his arrest on the night of March 22, 1984, in Naples, Maine.¹ The events pertinent to the suppression motion have been set out both in this Court's earlier opinion, reported as United States v. Rule, 594 F.Supp. 1223 (D.Me.1984), and in the Court of Appeals' opinion, reported as United States v. Streifel, 781 F.2d 953 (1st Cir.1986). The facts found in the Court's prior opinion will be modified and supplemented in this opinion as required to conform to the mandate of the Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals held that the initial detention of Defendants Quinn and Streifel at the Cushner cottage was not custodial for purposes of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). As the Court of Appeals phrased it, "the question then becomes whether and when the lawful, investigatory Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) stop of Streifel and Quinn matured into custodial interrogation necessitating the administration of Miranda warnings." Streifel at 960. This Court accepts, as it must, the appellate Court's holding that at least the early stages of Quinn's detention were a legitimate Terry stop and passes to a determination of the duration of the aura of legitimacy thereby created.

In Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984), the Supreme Court, examining routine traffic stops, provided guidance for determining the point at which a police detention "exerts upon a detained person pressures that sufficiently impair his free exercise of his privilege against self-incrimination to require that he be warned of his constitutional rights." Id., at ___, 104 S.Ct. at 3149, 82 L.Ed.2d at 333. As the Court stated: "It is settled that the safeguards prescribed by Miranda became applicable as soon as a suspect's freedom of action is curtailed to a `degree associated with formal arrest.'" Id., at ___, 104 S.Ct. at 3151, 82 L.Ed.2d at 335 (quoting California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 3520, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275 (1983)).

The Court is satisfied that Quinn's freedom of action became so curtailed when Officers Steadman and Holmes returned to the Cushner cottage and parked their cruiser in such a manner that neither Defendant's car could be moved from the drive-way. The Court is aware that the blocking in of Defendants' cars by itself does not necessarily elevate the Terry stop to an arrest. Streifel, 781 F.2d at 961, n. 15. In this case, however, the Court is fully satisfied that this conduct, in the total factual context then existing, was a determining factor tipping the balance of the evidence in favor of a finding of the occurrence at that point in time of a custodial arrest of the Defendants Quinn and Streifel.

One of the hallmarks of a traffic stop rendering it more like a Terry stop than like a formal custodial arrest is the fact that it is presumptively temporary and brief. Berkemer, 468 U.S. at ___, 104 S.Ct. at 3149-50, 82 L.Ed.2d at 333. As the Court stated, a motorist's expectations when he is stopped are that he will answer a few questions and be on his way. That was not the most reasonable construction of the instant situation, however. Here, the Defendants might have expected a few questions from Officers Hutto and Gallagher and perhaps a few from the absent Steadman who, they had been told, would return soon. When Steadman and Holmes returned, however, having received a radio message from the officers at the scene, they affirmatively chose to block Defendants in. The situation thus became less like a brief and spontaneous traffic or Terry stop, see Berkemer, at ___, n. 27, 104 S.Ct. at 3150, n. 27, 82 L.Ed.2d 333, n. 27, and more like a station house interrogation "which frequently is prolonged, and in which the detainee often is aware that the questioning will continue until he provides his interrogators the answers they seek." Id., at ___, 104 S.Ct. at 3150, 82 L.Ed.2d at 333. This was the most reasonable explanation for the officers' display of force, for there was no indication that Defendants had been driving or acting erratically so that the blocking was necessary for the officers' safety. See United States v. Ceballos, 654 F.2d 177 (2d Cir.1981). Also, with three officers already at the scene, and the situation under control, there was little danger that Defendants might flee upon the approach of the other officers. See United States v. Jones, 759 F.2d 633, 638 (8th Cir.1985). Under these circumstances, the blocking turned a "presumptively temporary and brief" stop into one fraught with pressure for Defendants Quinn and Streifel.

The Supreme Court in Berkemer also distinguished the atmosphere surrounding traffic stops and Terry stops as being far less police-dominated than situations surrounding Miranda-type interrogations. Berkemer, 468 U.S. at ___, 104 S.Ct. at 3150, 82 L.Ed.2d at 334. The Court finds that the situation in which Defendants found themselves can most reasonably be described as police-dominated. As the Court of Appeals noted, when Officers Steadman and Holmes returned to the Cushner cottage there were five policemen at the scene as well as a large, trained police dog. The identification and automobile registration which Defendants had initially given to the officers were not returned to them. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 503-04, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1327-28, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983). Also, they were kept apart. From their separate and serial questioning by the officers, Defendants would reasonably have known that this was a police strategy to keep them from conferring with one another. See Berkemer, 468 U.S. at ___, 104 S.Ct. at 3149-50, 82 L.Ed.2d at 333; Streifel at 958, n. 8. They also might reasonably have concluded that the officers, who had had the opportunity briefly to confer, might with this strategy try to trick them into confessing. See Berkemer, 468 U.S. at ___, n. 27, 104 S.Ct. at 3150, n. 27, 82 L.Ed.2d at 833, n. 27. Finally, the interrogation of Quinn and Streifel, while not conducted at the station house, was not public in the way that most traffic stops are. As the Court stated in Berkemer:

Passersby, on foot or in other cars, witness the interaction of officer and motorist during a routine traffic stop. This exposure to public view both reduces the ability of an unscrupulous policeman to use illegitimate means to elicit self-incriminating statements and diminishes the motorist's fear that, if he does not cooperate, he will be subjected to abuse.

Berkemer, at ___, 104 S.Ct. at 3150, 82 L.Ed.2d at 334. Here, instead, Defendants were confronted by a large group of armed law enforcement officers, late at night at a remote cottage in the Maine woods.² Since the stop occurred in the darkened yard, well off any well-traveled public road, it was unlikely that anyone, except perhaps Cushner, would happen by. Having been blocked in at this remote spot, Defendants had reason to feel at the mercy of the police and to feel that they would be detained indefinitely until they satisfied the police.

The Court finds, therefore, that from the time Officers Steadman and Holmes arrived back at the cottage, the atmosphere was threatening enough and coercive enough to warrant the administration of Miranda warnings.³ Since the warnings were not administered until later in the evening, Defendant Quinn's statements made after the arrival of Officers Steadman and Holmes must be suppressed.

Since the Court has determined that the Terry stop of Defendants ended when Steadman and Holmes returned and blocked Defendants' cars in the Cushner driveway,⁴ it must now determine what other evidence should be suppressed.⁵ The Court still finds the discussion in Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983),⁶ helpful to its analysis, for it seems clear that the de facto arrest to which Defendants were subjected when the Terry stop ended has Fourth Amendment, as well as possible Fifth Amendment, implications. As Justice White stated in Royer:

Detention may be "investigative" yet violative of the Fourth Amendment absent probable cause to arrest. In the name of investigating a person who is no more than suspected of criminal activity, the police may not carry out a full search of the person or his automobile or other effects. Nor may police seek to verify their suspicions by means that approach the conditions of arrest.

460 U.S. at 499, 103 S.Ct. at 1325.

After consideration of the initial responses given to Officers Hutto and Gallagher during the Terry stop, as well as the circumstances surrounding Defendants' arrival at the cottage, the Court still believes that there was no probable cause to arrest Quinn at the time he was placed under de facto arrest by the blocking in of his car. See Rule, 594 F.Supp. at 1233. The officers merely had suspicions and they were not, as Royer points out, entitled to verify those suspicions by means approaching the conditions of arrest. Royer, 460 U.S. at 499, 103 S.Ct. at 1325. The use of Solomon to determine the presence of drugs in the cars would have been appropriate in a Terry stop situation. See United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983). Once that stop had ended and Defendants were under de facto arrest, however, the police, obviously dissatisfied with previous explanations, could not use this means to confirm their suspicions and so, perhaps, build...