People v. Manning
People v. Manning
Opinion of the Court
The prosecution in this case appeals by leave granted from a trial court order granting defendant Tiya Manning’s motion to suppress an inculpatory statement that she gave to police officers while she was confined and awaiting arraignment. The trial court entered a stay of the proceedings pending the outcome of this interlocutory appeal. In this appeal, we must explore the “fit” between the Michigan Supreme Court’s standards for the suppression of a confession following an arrest without a warrant in People v Cipriano,
1. BASIC FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The trial court set forth the pertinent facts of this case in its opinion and order granting defendant’s motion to suppress:
In the early morning of June 15, 1999, Inkster Police responded to a drive by shooting on Florence Street. At*618 approximately 1:08 A.M., defendant was arrested by Inkster Police in regard to a possible role in the homicide that resulted from the shooting. The defendant spent the night in a cell in the Inkster police headquarters and at about 5:30 am. on the morning of the fifteenth, defendant was read her rights by Sgt. Hill and gave a statement. On the morning of June 18, 1999, at about 10:20 a.m., defendant gave Detective Williams a note stating that she wished to talk to him without an attorney present. Defendant then gave another statement allegedly implicating herself in the homicide. Defendant wishes to have the second statement (June 18, 1999, 10:30 a.m.) suppressed.
The procedural aspect of the police investigation is somewhat involved. The Inkster Police Department is a comparatively small police department consisting of approximately 35-40 police officers of whom six are detectives. Of those six detectives, only one detective (Detective Hines) is specially designated for homicide cases. In 1999, twelve homicides occurred within the City of Inkster. The first officer in charge was Detective Abdallah, who was the on call officer on the night of June 14-15, 1999. Detective Abdallah went on vacation on the sixteenth and that morning Detective Williams was assigned to the case. Detective Hines was assigned to assist Detective Williams as it was his first homicide investigation. Detective Williams spent the morning of the sixteenth reviewing the case and that afternoon proceeded to have a warrant application typed to arraign the defendant. The application was completed on the morning of the seventeenth and both Detective Williams and Detective Hines went downtown to the prosecutor’s office to have the warrant prepared. As this was Detective Williams’ first trip to the homicide unit, Detective Hines went along.
The warrant application was processed and the two officers left. Later that afternoon, Detective Williams went back downtown to pick up the completed warrant. Upon his return to Inkster, Detective Williams went to the 22d District Court at or about 3:30-4:30 p.m. on June 17, 1999, to have defendant arraigned. Unfortunately, the warrant was incomplete with key documentation missing. Detective*619 Hines verified that paperwork was missing and that the warrant would have to be redone. The next morning, June 18, 1999, Detective Hines was assigning cases, filling in for another vacationing officer. Detective Williams advised him that defendant wanted to speak with him and Detective Hines advised Detective Williams to get the request in writing. Detective Williams took defendant’s second statement. Subsequently, Detective Williams proceeded downtown and received the new warrant and defendant was arraigned that afternoon.
Approximately 81 hours passed between the time defendant was arrested and the time of the second statement.
The prosecution charged Manning with first-degree murder
In its analysis, the trial court made the following finding:
[T]here is nothing in this record which indicates that the detectives of the Inkster Police Department were motivated by a desire to gain additional information to justify Ms.*620 Manning’s arrest and nothing in this record indicates that Inkster detectives intentionally delayed in arraigning Ms. Manning in the hopes of eliciting an incriminating statement. Other than delay, there is nothing in this record which indicates that the factors cited in Cipriano, supra, regarding the voluntariness of defendant’s second statement taken on June 18, 1999, at 10:20 a.m. exists in this case.
Nevertheless, the trial court emphasized the length of the delay and concluded that Riverside Co required it to suppress the statement regardless of its voluntary nature.
H. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We must determine whether the trial court erred in finding that Manning’s confession was involuntary solely on the basis of the length of delay between the time of her arrest and her arraignment. A trial court must view the totality of the circumstances in deciding whether a defendant’s statement was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary.
A. OVERVIEW
A proper understanding of the rather intricate issue of the intersection between the Fifth and Fourth Amendment requirements requires a threshold knowledge of Michigan pretrial criminal practice and procedure. Below, we briefly outline that process.
B. ARRESTS
Before making an arrest, a peace officer generally obtains an arrest warrant from a magistrate upon a showing of probable cause. There are two predicates to the issuance of such an arrest warrant: (1) the presentation of a proper complaint alleging the commission of an offense and (2) a finding of “reasonable cause” to believe that the individual accused in the complaint committed that offense.
C. DISTRICT COURT ARRAIGNMENTS
After a person is arrested without a warrant, the arresting officer must bring that person before a magistrate for arraignment “without unnecessary delay.”
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment,
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches*623 and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
According to the United States Supreme Court, a delay of more than forty-eight hours after arrest is presumptively unreasonable, absent extraordinary circumstances.
D. PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS AND BINDOVERS
The next step in the process is the preliminary examination, which must be conducted within fourteen days of the arraignment.
E. TRIAL COURT ARRAIGNMENT
An arraignment in trial court must be based on an information or an indictment.
F. WALKER HEARINGS
In People v Walker,
“[T]his court has recognized that coercion can be mental as well as physical, and that the blood of the accused is not the only hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition. A number of cases have demonstrated, if demonstration were needed, that the efficiency of the rack and thumbscrew can be matched, given the proper subject, by more sophisticated modes of ‘persuasion.’ ”[30 ]
A motion to suppress evidence must be made in advance of trial,
IV. STATEMENT OF THE ISSUE
The issue here is not simply whether Manning’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the delay. The delay here was clearly more than forty-eight hours and the burden would be on the government to prove that extraordinary circumstances necessitated this delay.
V. SEIZURE AND CONFESSION: CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITS
A. PURPOSES OF THE FOURTH AND FIFTH AMENDMENTS
As noted above, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution are applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
B. UNREASONABLE SEIZURES: RIVERSIDE CO
In Gerstein v Pugh,
Riverside Co involved a federal class action by Donald McLaughlin seeking injunctive and declaratory relief on behalf of himself and “ ‘all others similarly situated.’ ”
Riverside County, in a procedure similar to Michigan’s, combined probable cause determinations with arraignment procedures and required arraignments to be “conducted without unnecessary delay and, in any event, within two days of arrest.”
Therefore, the United States Supreme Court in Riverside Co had to decide at what point a delay in arraignment following an arrest without a warrant became an “unreasonable delay” under the Fourth Amendment.
[W]e believe that a jurisdiction that provides judicial determinations of probable cause within 48 hours of arrest will, as a general matter, comply with the promptness requirements of Gerstein. For this reason, such jurisdictions will be immune from systemic challenges.
This is not to say that the probable cause determination in a particular case passes constitutional muster simply because it is provided within 48 hours. Such a hearing may nonetheless violate Gerstein if the arrested individual can prove that his or her probable cause determination was delayed unreasonably. Examples of unreasonable delay are delays for the purpose of gathering additional evidence to justify the arrest, a delay motivated by ill will against the arrested individual, or delay for delay’s sake. In evaluating whether a delay in a particular case is unreasonable, however, courts must allow a substantial degree of flexibility. Courts cannot ignore the often unavoidable delays in transporting arrested persons from one facility to another, handling late-night bookings where no magistrate is readily available, obtaining the presence of an arresting officer who may be busy processing other suspects or securing the premises of an arrest, and other practical realities.
Where an arrested individual does not receive a probable cause determination within 48 hours, the calculus changes.
In such a case, the arrested individual does not bear the burden of proving an unreasonable delay. Rather, the burden shifts to the government to demonstrate the existence of a bona fide emergency or other extraordinary circumstances. The fact that in a particular case it may take longer than 48 hours to consolidate pretrial proceedings does not qualify as an extraordinary circumstance. Nor, for that matter, do intervening weekends. A jurisdiction that chooses to offer combined proceedings must do so as soon as is reasonably feasible, but in no event later than 48 hours after arrest.[55 ]
[A]bsent extraordinary circumstances, it is an “unreasonable seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment for the police, having arrested a suspect without a warrant, to delay a determination of probable cause for the arrest either (1) for reasons unrelated to arrangement of the probable-cause determination or completion of the steps incident to arrest, or (2) beyond 24 hours after the arrest.59
Despite Justice Scalia’s more restrictive view, the majority holding in Riverside Co is clear. A delay of more than forty-eight hours between an arrest without a warrant and a probable cause arraignment shifts the burden to the government to show the existence of a bona fide emergency or other extraordinary circumstances.
C. VOLUNTARY CONFESSIONS: CIPRIANO
When Riverside Co was decided, the Michigan Supreme Court had already established a test to determine whether a confession made during a delay between arrest and arraignment must be suppressed.
Cipriano involved three defendants, all of whom were apparently arrested without a warrant
The Court prefaced its decision in Cipriano with a comprehensive analysis of the evidentiary consequences of illegal prearraignment detention.
The Court noted further that Michigan prearraignment delay statutes have never included a directive that failure to comply will make a voluntary confession inadmissible.
the age of the accused; his lack of education or his intelligence level; the extent of his previous experience with the police; the repeated and prolonged nature of the questioning; the length of the detention of the accused before he gave the statement in question; the lack of any advice to the accused of his constitutional rights; whether there was an unnecessary delay in bringing him before the magistrate before he gave the confession; whether the accused was injured, intoxicated or drugged, or in ill health when he gave the statement; whether the accused was deprived of food, sleep, or medical attention; whether the accused was physically abused; and whether the suspect was threatened with abuse.[85 ]
On the basis of these factors, the majority upheld the convictions of all three defendants.
D. SUPPRESSION OF CONFESSIONS AFTER RIVERSIDE CO
The tests of Riverside Co and Cipriano are quite clear. However, the effect of Riverside Co on Cipriano is not so clear. The state courts that have addressed Riverside Co’s effect on their own suppression tests are split.
The exclusionary rule generally prohibits the prosecutor from introducing evidence obtained during a
[A] Fourth Amendment violation is “fully accomplished” by the illegal search or seizure, and no exclusion of evidence from a judicial or administrative proceeding can “ ‘cure the invasion of the defendant’s rights which he has already suffered.’ ” The exclusionary rule is instead a judicially created means of deterring illegal searches and seizures. As such, the rule does not “proscribe the introduction of illegally seized evidence in all proceedings . . . ,” but applies only in contexts “where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served.” . . . Moreover, because the rule is prudential rather than constitutionally mandated,*638 we have held it be applicable only where its deterrence benefits outweigh its “substantial social costs. ”[96 ]
To our eye, this looks remarkably like an invitation to use precisely the sort of balancing test that the Michigan Supreme Court used in Cipriano. The harm caused by excluding a voluntary confession solely on the basis of the delay would outweigh the benefit of this exclusion in deterring unreasonable delays. Other remedies, such as the civil suit in Riverside Co, are available to persons held beyond the requirements of Riverside Co. Moreover, the delay will be a factor in the Cipriano analysis, increasing the possibility that the confession will be found involuntary. A sufficiently long delay in itself will be enough to make a confession involuntary under Cipriano. Thus, Riverside Co need not, and does not, supplant Cipriano. The question then becomes whether this Court, directly or indirectly, has departed from the balancing approach in its post-Riverside Co decisions.
E. MICHIGAN’S POST-RIVERSIDE CO DECISIONS
Michigan’s courts have not explicitly addressed the effect of Riverside Co on Cipriano. Few decisions concerning the suppression of confessions have been published since Riverside Co. The two recent cases decided by this Court, McCray and Whitehead, did not expressly apply Cipriano, nor did they state that Cipriano did not apply.
McCray involved a defendant whom the police had arrested without a warrant and held for three days before an arraignment.
The second Court of Appeals case, Whitehead, also involved an arrest without a warrant.
A harmless error analysis, of course, is not appropriate here because this is an interlocutory appeal and it would be impossible to determine at this stage whether any error is harmless. Therefore, we must decide the delay’s effect on the confession. This is precisely what this Court did not do in Whitehead. Admittedly, however, this Court used very strong language in Whitehead in its dicta regarding the delay. We stated:
Persons arrested without a warrant are “presumptively innocent.” Id.[105 ] at 58. A prompt judicial determination of probable cause for an arrest is “one of the most important” protections afforded citizens under the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable seizures. Id. at 60-61 (Scalia, J., dissenting). To assure that protection, the forty-eight-hour rule established by Riverside must be carefully observed by police authorities. Those who ignore that rule will do so at their own peril, running the risk that confessions obtained will be deemed inadmissible and that convictions based on those confessions will be reversed on appeal.[106 ]
F. THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE
We would be remiss if we did not also comment on the purposes of the exclusionary rule. The United States Supreme Court has noted that the Fourth Amendment has never been interpreted to mandate the suppression of illegally seized evidence in all pro
G. THE TRIAL COURT’S LOGIC
Here, the trial court, relying on Riverside Co and referring to McCray and Whitehead, suppressed Manning’s statement solely because she gave it more than forty-eight hours after her arrest without a warrant. In so doing, the trial court disregarded the balancing process the Michigan Supreme Court set forth in Cipriano. While Manning argues that the trial court never held that the holding of Riverside Co overruled the
This automatic exclusion is not required by the Fifth Amendment or the Fourth Amendment. The proper analysis is voluntariness under the Cipriano factors. The delay of more than eighty hours presumptively violated the Fourth Amendment, but an unnecessary delay does not require automatic suppression of the confession. It is not automatic that evidence obtained during a Fourth Amendment violation must be excluded. When a confession was obtained during an unreasonable delay before arraignment, in Michigan the Cipriano factors still must be applied. The unreasonable delay is but one factor in that analysis. The longer the delay, the greater the probability that the confession will be held involuntary. At some point, a delay will become so long that it alone is enough to make a confession involuntary.
In engaging in the balancing process that Cipriano outlines, a trial court is free to give greater or lesser weight to any of the Cipriano factors, including delay in arraignment. A trial court cannot, however, give preemptive weight to that one factor, as the trial court did here. To do so is to adopt a rule of automatic suppression of a confession obtained during the period of delay, a result that is directly contrary to Cipriano and that neither Riverside Co, McCray’s, nor Whitehead requires.
Here, the police held Manning without arraignment for at least eighty-one hours after her arrest without a warrant. The trial court determined that the delay was the result of inexperience, shifts in personnel, and an incomplete warrant package from the prosecutor’s office. The sole basis of the trial court’s decision to suppress Manning’s inculpatory statement was the length of the pre-arraignment delay.
We conclude that the trial court erred in suppressing Manning’s inculpatory statement solely on the basis of the delay. The trial court should have instead considered whether the statement was voluntary on the basis of the totality of the circumstances.
On appeal, Manning notes that she gave the statement so that the police would cease their questioning and because she believed that only by doing so would the police permit her to leave. Manning argues that this testimony militates against a finding that the
Here, the trial court focused solely on the length of the delay and concluded that Riverside Co required it to apply the exclusionary rule to suppress Manning’s inculpatory statement. In our view, as we have outlined above, the trial court was not so constrained. Therefore, we reverse and remand to the trial court to make appropriate findings under the factors established in Cipriano.
We note, again, that the rationale behind the exclusionary rule is to deter official misconduct.
Reversed and remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion. We do not retain jurisdiction.
People v Cipriano, 431 Mich 315; 429 NW2d 781 (1988).
Riverside Co v McLaughlin, 500 US 44; 111 S Ct 1661; 114 L Ed 2d 49 (1991).
People v McCray, 210 Mich App 9; 533 NW2d 359 (1995).
People v Whitehead, 238 Mich App 1; 604 NW2d 737 (1999).
MCL 750.316(l)(a); MSA 28.548(l)(a).
MCL 750.83; MSA 28.278.
See People v Walker (On Rehearing), 374 Mich 331; 132 NW2d 87 (1965).
People v Snider, 239 Mich App 393, 416; 608 NW2d 502 (2000).
People v Givans, 227 Mich App 113, 119; 575 NW2d 84 (1997).
People v Webb, 458 Mich 265, 274; 580 NW2d 884 (1998).
MCL 764.1a; MSA 28.860(1).
Id.
MCL 764.15(1); MSA 28.874(1).
MCL 764.26; MSA 28.885; MCR 6.104.
Riverside Co, supra at 71.
Sodal v Cook Co, 506 US 56, 61; 113 S Ct 538; 121 L Ed 2d 450 (1992).
Riverside Co, supra at 56-57.
See Const 1963, art 1, §§ 11 and 17.
See also MCL 766.1; MSA 28.919, which entitles the state and the accused to a “prompt” examination.
MCR 6.110(A).
MCR 6.110(C); see also MCL 766.12; MSA 28.930.
MCR 6.110(E); see also MCL 766.13; MSA 28.931.
MCR 6.112(B).
Id.
MCR 6.112(C).
MCR 6.113(C).
Walker, supra at 338.
Jackson v Denno, 378 US 368, 389; 84 S Ct 1774; 12 L Ed 2d 908 (1964).
Id. at 389-390, quoting Blackburn v Alabama, 361 US 199, 206; 80 S Ct 274; 4 L Ed 2d 242 (1960).
People v Gray, 45 Mich App 643, 644; 207 NW2d 161 (1973), aff’d 393 Mich 1; 222 NW2d 515 (1974).
People v Leonard, 81 Mich App 86, 89; 264 NW2d 130 (1978).
Riverside Co, supra at 57.
Cipriano, supra at 319.
Albright v Oliver, 510 US 266, 272-273; 114 S Ct 807; 127 L Ed 2d 114 (1994); Sodal, supra.
See Const 1963, art 1, §§ 11 and 17.
See US Const, Am IV.
See US Const, Am V.
Dickerson v United States, 530 US 428; 120 S Ct 2326; 147 L Ed 2d 405 (2000).
Gerstein v Pugh, 420 US 103, 114, 125; 95 S Ct 854; 43 L Ed 2d 54 (1975); see also Riverside Co, supra at 53.
Riverside Co, supra at 56-57.
Id. at 57.
Id. at 56.
Id. at 47.
Powell v Nevada, 511 US 79, 84; 114 S Ct 1280; 128 L Ed 2d 1 (1994).
Riverside Co, supra at 47-48.
Id. at 48.
Id. at 49.
Id.
Id. at 50, quoting Gerstein, supra at 125.
Riverside Co, supra at 47.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id. at 56-57.
Id. at 60.
Id. at 63, quoting Gerstein, supra at 114.
Riverside Co, supra at 67.
Id. at 70.
Id. at 57.
Id.
Powell, supra at 84.
See Cipriano, supra.
Cipriano, supra at 319.
Id. at 334.
The majority opinion in Cipriano does not, however, explicitly state that defendant Harrison and defendant Cipriano were arrested without a warrant.
Id. at 336-337, 339-341, 346.
Id. at 337, 341; see Walker, supra.
Cipriano, supra at 337, 341.
Id. at 347.
Id.
Id. at 319, 335, 339, 345.
Id. at 320-330.
Briefly, the McNabb-Mallory rule derives from two United States Supreme Court cases, McNabb v United States, 318 US 332; 63 S Ct 608; 87 L Ed 819 (1943), and Mallory v United States, 354 US 449; 77 S Ct 1356; 1 L Ed 2d 1479 (1957). In these cases the United States Supreme Court determined that “the right of a suspect to prompt arraignment should be enforced by automatically excluding from evidence any incriminating statement obtained during a period of ‘unnecessary delay,’ even though the confession was not the result of physical or psychological coercion.’’ Cipriano, supra at 320.
Subsection b of 18 USC 3501 provides:
The trial judge in determining the issue of voluntariness shall take into consideration all of the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession, including (1) the time elapsing between arrest and arraignment of the defendant making the confession, if it was made after arrest and before arraignment, (2) whether such defendant knew the nature of the offense with which he was charged or of which he was suspected at the time of making the confession, (3) whether or not such defendant was advised or knew that he was not required to make any statement and that any such statement would be used against him, (4) whether or not such defendant had been advised prior to questioning of his right to the assistance of counsel[,] and (5) whether or not such defendant was without the assistance of counsel when questioned and when giving such confession.
Cipriano, supra at 325-329.
Id. at 323, 325.
See Culombe v Connecticut, 367 US 568, 600-601; 81 S Ct 1860; 6 L Ed 2d 1037 (1961).
People v Hamilton, 359 Mich 410; 102 NW2d 738 (1960).
People v Ubbes, 374 Mich 571; 132 NW2d 669 (1965).
Cipriano, supra at 330, quoting Shape v State, 41 Md App 161, 171; 396 A2d 282 (1979).
Cipriano, supra at 333.
Id.
Id. at 333-334, quoting Culombe, supra at 602.
Cipriano, supra at 334.
Id. at 349.
Id. at 367.
Cipriano, supra at 360.
See New Jersey v Tucker, 137 NJ 259; 645 A2d 111 (1994); State v Huddleston, 924 SW2d 666 (Term, 1996).
Powell, supra at 85.
Id. at 89.
Arizona v Evans, 514 US 1, 10; 115 S Ct 1185; 131 L Ed 2d 34 (1995).
Id., quoting Illinois v Gates, 462 US 213, 223; 103 S Ct 2317; 76 L Ed 2d 527 (1983).
Pennsylvania Bd of Probation & Parole v Scott, 524 US 357; 118 S Ct 2014; 141 L Ed 2d 344 (1998).
Id. at 362.
Id. at 362-363 (citations omitted).
Whitehead, supra at 3-4.
Id. at 5.
Id.
Id. at 6.
Id. at 12.
Riverside Co, supra.
Whitehead, supra at 13-14.
Id. at 14.
Id. at 4 (emphasis supplied).
Id. at 3.
United States v Leon, 468 US 897, 906; 104 S Ct 3405; 82 L Ed 2d 677 (1984), citing Stone v Powell, 428 US 465, 486; 96 S Ct 3037; 49 L Ed 2d 1067 (1976).
Pennsylvania Bd of Probation, supra at 362.
People v Howard, 233 Mich App 52, 53, 57; 595 NW2d 497 (1998).
MCL 780.656; MSA 28.1259(6).
Cipriano, supra at 333-334.
Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966).
United States v Janis, 428 US 433, 446, 458-459; 96 S Ct 3021; 49 L Ed 2d 1046 (1976); Cipriano, supra at 332.
Whitehead, supra at 13-14.
Concurring Opinion
(concurring in result). I agree with the majority that the trial court erred in suppressing
Reference
- Cited By
- 45 cases
- Status
- Published