Commonwealth v. CawthronCommonwealth v. Cawthron
The Commonwealth filed a timely notice of appeal. A single justice of this court allowed the Commonwealth‘s application for leave to pursue an interlocutory appeal and reported the matter to the Appeals Court. The Appeals Court issued an opinion reversing the judgment of the Superior Court. See Commonwealth v. Cawthron, 90 Mass. App. Ct. 828 (2017). We allowed the defendants’ petitions for further appellate review.
Applying the factors set out in Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. 201, 211–212 (2001), we conclude that the defendants were not subject to custodial interrogation. Therefore, the Superior Court judge‘s decision allowing the motions to suppress must be reversed.
1. Background. We summarize the facts as found by the motion judge following an evidentiary hearing. We indicate explicitly those few facts the judge found that are not supported by the record.
On April 12, 2013, Detective Michael Donovan of the Tewksbury police department stopped at a convenience store on
Cawthron traveled a short distance on Route 133, and then turned into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. After briefly losing sight of the defendant‘s vehicle, Donovan located it in a nearby steakhouse parking lot; Cawthron was standing outside his vehicle, speaking on his cellular telephone. Donovan parked his vehicle fifteen or twenty yards from Cawthron‘s.
Donovan contacted Detective Lieutenant Ryan Columbus of the Tewksbury police department and informed him of the investigation. Columbus arrived, alsо in an unmarked vehicle, and established surveillance from a nearby parking lot.
Approximately five minutes later, a black vehicle entered the steakhouse parking lot and parked next to Cawthron‘s
Donovan got out of his unmarked vehicle, walked quickly to where the two men were standing, and identified himself as a police officer. He ordered the men not to move. At that point, Flodstrom said, “[T]his is how I feed my family.” Columbus arrived at the scene shortly after Donovan had reached the defendants. He and Donovan decided to separate the two men and question them individually, before they had an opportunity to construct a shared response.3 Donovan directed Flodstrom to the far side of Flodstrom‘s vehicle; Cawthron was directed to go with Cоlumbus on the far side of Cawthron‘s vehicle. Each man moved approximately five yards from where he stood before the detectives arrived.
While this interaction was taking place, Columbus spoke with Cawthron in front of Cawthron‘s vehicle. Columbus identified himself as a police officer and asked Cawthron what he had purchased. Cawthron said that he had purchased pills for two dollars each. Columbus asked where the pills were, and Cawthron told him the pills were under the seat in his vehicle. Columbus looked under the driver‘s seat and found a full pill bottle. After retrieving the bottle, Columbus handcuffed Cawthron, placed him under arrest, and read him his Miranda rights. In response to the detective‘s further questions, Cawthron said that he was acting as the middlе man for a friend.
Cawthron and Flodstrom were indicted by a Middlesex County grand jury on charges of trafficking in over eighteen grams of Oxycodone,
Cawthron and Flodstrom filed motions to suppress their statements and the evidence seized. After an evidentiary hearing, the judge found that the detectives had reasonable suspicion to stop the defendants and to conduct a threshold inquiry; that the defendants were subjected to custodial interrogation; and that the Commonwealth failed to prove that either Flodstrom or Cawthron received adequate Miranda warnings. Accordingly, the judge suppressed all of Cawthron‘s statements and the pill bottle found in his vehicle, and ordered Flodstrom‘s statements suppressed apart from his initial remark upon the first detective‘s arrival that “this is how I feed my family.”6
The Commonwealth argues that the judge committed legal error when he determined that the defendants were subjected to custodial interrogation that necessitated Miranda warnings. For the reasons that follow, we agree.
2. Discussion. “In reviewing a ruling on a motion to suppress, we accept the judge‘s subsidiary findings of fact absent clear error ‘but conduct an independent review of his ultimate findings and conclusions of law.‘” Commonwealth v. Scott, 440 Mass. 642, 646 (2004), quoting Commonwealth v. Jimenez, 438 Mass. 213, 218 (2002).
The еncounter between the officers and the defendants began as a valid Terry-type stop, with an initial, brief inquiry into the suspicious transactions that a police officer believed he
At some point, however, the nature of the interaction may change, as officers begin to focus on a particular suspect. Mirandа warnings seek to protect an individual‘s “fundamental” right under the
Even where a suspect is temporarily seized, “[n]ot every Terry-type investigative stop results in a custodial interrogation.” Commonwealth v. DePeiza, 449 Mass. 367, 375 (2007), citing Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440 (1984). See Miranda, 384 U.S. at 477 (“General on-the-scene questioning as to faсts surrounding a crime or other general questioning of citizens in the fact-finding process is not affected by our holding“); Commonwealth v. Kirwan, 448 Mass. 304, 312 (2007) (defendant was not in custody, despite not being free to leave, where “[the] interrogation was brief and in the nature of a preliminary investigation, and the defendant‘s detention was minimal“). “the fact that the defendant was not free to leave (at least until the performance of the field sobriety tests) did not render the interrogation custodial.” Commonwealth v. Ayre, 31 Mass. App. Ct. 17, 20 (1991). “A person is in custody whenever [the person] is deprived of his [or her] freedom of action in any significant way” (quotation and citation omitted). Groome, 435 Mass. at 211. See Commonwealth v. Morse, 427 Mass. 117, 123 (1998), quoting United States v. Ventura, 85 F.3d 708, 712 (1st Cir. 1996) (custody is “a formal arrest or restraint on
To determine if a defendant was subjected to custodial interrogation, “the court considers several factors: (1) the place of the interrogation; (2) whether the officers have conveyed to the person being questioned any belief or opinion that that person is a suspect; (3) the nature of the interrogation, including whether the interview was aggressive or, instead, informal and influenced in its contours by the person being interviewed; and (4) whether, at the time the incriminating statement was made, the person was free to end the interview by leaving the locus of the interrogation or by asking the interrogator to leave, as evidenced by whether the interview terminated with an arrest.” Commonwealth v. Groome, 435 Mass. at 211–212. “Rarely is any single factor conclusive.” Commonwealth v. Bryant, 390 Mass. 729, 737 (1984).
Applying the Groome factors to the circumstances here, we conclude that the defendants have not met their burden of showing that they were in custody when they made the incriminating statements. See Larkin, 429 Mass. at 432.
a. Location of interviews. To determine if the location of an interrogation contributed to a coercive environment, we consider the circumstances “from the point of view of the
In this case, the detectives instructed the defendants to move approximately five yards from where they had been conversing in the restaurant parking lot, so that each detective would be able to speak with one of the defendants individually.7
Other courts likewise have concluded that moving individuals a short distance, so as to interview them separately, does not constitute custodial interrogation. In United States v. Campbell, 741 F.3d 251, 267 (1st Cir. 2013), for example, three individuals were traveling in a vehicle that was stopped by police. Approximately five police officers “split up and questioned the defendants separately, such that each defendant was questioned by at most two officers.” Id. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that the officers’ decision to separate the defendants, even where some were interrogated by multiple police officers, did not create an “overwhelming” environment that was custodial and
b. Whether the detectives conveyed a belief that the defendants were suspects. If the detectives had conveyed to the defendants that they were suspects, that might support a determination that the defendants were in custody before they made the incriminating statements. See Commonwealth v. Simon, 456 Mass. 280, 287-288, cert. denied, 562 U.S. 874 (2010). When they approached the defendants, one of the detectives asked one of the defendants what he had just purchased, a question the defendants maintain indicates that the detectives believed the defendants had been involved in a public drug transaction. We do not agree. The interview occurred as part of the detectives’ “brief, preliminary effort to confirm or dispel a suspicion” that the defendants had purchased and sold drugs. See Kirwan, 448 Mass. at 311.
We conclude that, in their initial questioning, the detectives did not convey a suggestion that the defendants were suspects; the question could have referred to many types of innocent activities. At most, it was a vague and unformed suspicion of some illicit activity. In Commonwealth v. Callahan, 401 Mass. 627, 630 (1988), officers also asked a defendant “what happened,” after they discovered him near a dead
Although Columbus apparently suspected that Cawthron had purchased drugs, based on the conversation that Donovan overheard in the convenience store parking lot, this “unarticulated suspicion[] contribute[d] nothing to the objective circumstances of the encounter.” See Groome, 435 Mass. at 212 n.13; Commonwealth v. Gendraw, 55 Mass. App. Ct. 677, 683 (2002) (“although the officers may have believed that the defendant was a suspect . . . the detectives did not convey any such belief to the defendant“). Columbus‘s question to Cawthron, “What did you just buy?” may suggest the topic of his
The judge found that a reasonable person in Flodstrom‘s situation would have believed that police suspected him of a crime, in part, because Columbus brought over the bottle of pills to show Donovan, in Flodstrom‘s line of sight, before, or during, Donovan‘s questioning of Flodstrom. This factual finding is unsupported by the evidence introduced at the hearing, and, therefore, we decline to defer to it.9
In concluding that Flodstrom was in custody, the judge also relied in part on Donovan‘s decision to provide Flodstrom with some form of Miranda warning. “[T]he reading of the Miranda rights does not automatically demonstrate seizure.” Commonwealth v. Martinez, 458 Mass. 684, 695 (2011). This court has encouraged police officers to give Miranda warnings before “the exact moment when the warnings are constitutionally required.” See Commonwealth v. Raymond, 424 Mass. 382, 393 n.9 (1997), S.C., 450 Mass. 729 (2008). We reiterate that a decision to give the warnings does not indicate that a defendant is, in fact, in custody.
In concluding that the defendants were in custody, the judge relied in part on the fact that “the officers asked questions, making clear that they expected to receive prompt answers, and the [d]efendants responded to each inquiry. Neither defendant was ever told that they were free to walk away, that they could terminate their interrogation whenever they wished . . . or anything else to offset the inherently coercive nature of the situation.”
Having concluded that the location of the interrogations was not coercive, we do not view the other facts identified by the judge, that the detectives wore “police badge[s],” and “were armed,” as creating an inherently coercive environment. The detectives did not display their weapons. In the absence of evidence beyond the detectives’ subjective suspicions that the
d. Whether the defendants were free to leave. We turn to the final Groome factor, whether the defendants were free to end the interview by asking to terminate the interview or, simply, by leaving. The detectives testified that the defendants were not free to leave, and that they would have prevented the defendants from leaving if they had tried. Further, the defendants were arrested at the end of the interrogations, after each provided statements and physical evidence of a drug transaction.
While this factor weighs in favor of a conclusion that the defendants were in custody, that conclusion does not necessarily follow. An “arrest after an incriminating statement has been obtained, by itself, [does not] label[] as custodial the interrogation that precedes the incriminating statement”
In reaching a contrary conclusion, the judge relied on Simon, 456 Mass. at 287, and our previous statement that “[t]he critical question in determining whether an individual is in custody is whether a reasonable person in the individual‘s position would feel free to leave.” Id., citing Commonwealth v. Damiano, 422 Mass. 10, 13 (1996). While this mаy be a critical factor, today we clarify that it cannot be the determinative factor. Custody is “a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest,” see Morse, 427 Mass. at 123; inability to leave may support a finding of custody, but a Terry-type stop, without more, is not custodial. See Howes, 565 U.S. at 509. See also Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 436.
This case is unlike Simon, 456 Mass. at 287. There, officers began their conversation with the defendant by telling him that he had been identified as the person who shot the victim. Id. at 283. Although the conversation took place at the defendant‘s attorney‘s office, the defendant was aware that six or seven police officers had arrived and were waiting outside for him. Id. at 287. In those circumstances, the defendant‘s freedom of movement was curtailed to a degree associated with formal arrest, because he was not free to leave a building that he knew to be surrounded by police officers, and because he was informed that he was a suspect. See id. at 283, 287. Those factors are absent from this case. Here, the defendants were not told that they were suspected of a crime, and the discussions were held one-on-one, in an open, public space, rathеr than inside a building surrounded by other officers.
Because we conclude that the environment was noncoercive, as in Kirwan, the fact that the defendants were not free to leave does not transform the stops into custodial interrogations, where the other Groome factors weigh against custody. See Vanhouton, 424 Mass. at 332 (defendant suspected of drunk driving and subjected to field sobriety tests not in custody, despite not being free to leave); Callahan, 401 Mass. at 630 (defendant was not in custody, despite officers аsking him “what happened” and him not being free to leave after officers discovered dead body); Bryant, 390 Mass. at 738–740
In DePeiza, 449 Mass. at 375 & n.5, this court found that a Terry-type stop was noncustodial, even though the officers had seized the defendant for a frisk and the officers then asked him, “Do you have a gun or do you have a firearm?” In holding that the environment was not police-dominated, the court concluded that the officers’ question did not convey that they suspected the defendant of a crime, the tone of the interview was conversational, and at no point did the encounter become aggressive. Id. at 376. Here, too, the interviews were conversational, the interaction was not aggressive, and Columbus‘s question, “What did you just buy?” did not convey to Cawthron that he was suspected of a crime. We conclude that, absent additional factors, the defendants were not in custody when they made their statements to police.
3. Conclusion. The order allowing the defendants’ motions to suppress is reversed. The matter is remanded to the Superior Court for further proceedings.
So ordered.