Phillips v. People, 2019 CO 72

Background

Leo Phillips was stopped for driving with a suspended license; he was placed in the back of a patrol car, questioned without Miranda warnings, and later transported to the station where he received Miranda warnings and made additional statements.
A search of Phillips’s car (after an alleged consent given while he was in the patrol car) produced a handgun under the driver’s seat.
Pretrial, Phillips moved to suppress (1) statements made in the police car, (2) statements made at the police station, and (3) the handgun. The court suppressed the police-car statements but admitted the station statements and the gun.
On appeal Phillips pressed new legal theories for suppression he had not advanced below: that the station statements were tainted fruit of the illegal police-car interrogation (a Seibert/Elstad two-step challenge), and that consent to search the car was tainted by the Miranda violation.
The court of appeals held Phillips waived these unpreserved arguments; the Colorado Supreme Court agreed they were unpreserved but held they were forfeited (not waived) under People v. Rediger and therefore reviewable only for plain error.
Applying plain-error review, the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed: admission of the station statements was not error under the two-step/Elstad framework, and the record was too undeveloped to show plain error as to voluntariness of consent for the gun search.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Phillips preserved appellate challenges to admission of station statements and the gun	Phillips argued the station statements were tainted fruit of the police-car Miranda violation and consent to search was tainted by that violation	Trial-court motions argued narrower grounds; appellate arguments were new and unraised below	Phillips failed to preserve both claims; they were forfeited (not waived) and reviewed for plain error
Whether unpreserved suppression claims were waived or forfeited	Forfeiture: failure to raise claims was neglect, entitling appellate plain-error review	Waiver: intentional relinquishment should bar review	Court followed Rediger: no record evidence of intentional relinquishment, so forfeiture rather than waiver
Whether station statements should have been suppressed as product of a deliberate two-step interrogation	Two-step (Seibert) argument: initial unwarned questioning tainted later Miranda-waived statements	Prosecution: no deliberate two-step; Elstad governs and post-warning waiver and voluntariness suffice	No plain error: court concluded police did not deliberately employ two-step tactics and Elstad requirements were met
Whether admission of the gun was plain error because consent was tainted by unlawful custodial interrogation	Consent was involuntary because given during unwarned custodial interrogation	Record insufficiently developed to show voluntariness was overborne; factual disputes exist	Not plain error on the record presented; factual development needed to show taint

Key Cases Cited

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (U.S. 1966) (establishes Miranda-warning requirements for custodial interrogation)
Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (U.S. 2004) (two-step interrogation analysis; Kennedy concurrence adopted by Colorado)
Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 (U.S. 1985) (post-warning statements admissible if subsequent waiver is knowing and voluntary)
People v. Rediger, 416 P.3d 893 (Colo. 2018) (distinguishes waiver from forfeiture; mere failure to object is forfeiture absent record of intentional relinquishment)
United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (U.S. 1993) (articulates legal distinction between waiver and forfeiture)
People v. Verigan, 420 P.3d 247 (Colo. 2018) (applies Seibert/Elstad framework for two-step interrogation in Colorado)
Hinojos-Mendoza v. People, 169 P.3d 662 (Colo. 2007) (prior Colorado case discussing waiver by counsel’s procedural default)