United States District Court, W.D. Arkansas, Fort Smith Division
OPINION AND ORDER
P.K.
HOLMES, III U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE
Defendant
Rebecca Irene Brenes filed a motion to suppress and brief in
support (Doc. 34). The Government filed a response (Doc. 38).
Defendant Jose Sabino Jimenez-Cruz also filed a motion to
suppress (Doc. 37) which adopts Brenes's motion in its
entirety.[1] Jimenz-Cruz's attorney makes no
separate arguments on his client's behalf, and the motion
depends entirely on Brenes's motion, so the Government
has not filed a separate response. Counsel for Brenes
requested a hearing on the motion, while counsel for the
Government believes the briefs sufficiently communicate the
necessary facts and law. No. hearing will be held, but
neither Brenes nor Jimenez-Cruz will be prejudiced because
the Court will grant the motions to suppress.
I.
Background
On
January 30, 2019, Brenes was driving a rented Jeep Compass in
which Jimenez-Cruz was riding. Brenes failed to yield at an
intersection in the City of Van Buren in Crawford County,
Arkansas, and struck another vehicle. No. one was injured.
Corporal Erik Jensen, a field training officer with the Van
Buren Police Department, and Officer Micheel Stephenson, his
trainee, arrived at the scene. Brenes was asked to fill out
an accident report. At the scene, Brenes told Corporal Jensen
she and Jimenez-Cruz were traveling from California to
Georgia to attend a wedding. Corporal Jensen took note of
their luggage, which he described as “very little
luggage for a cross-country trip.” (Doc. 38, p. 2).
Corporal Jensen also noticed “several side
conversations between Brenes and Jimenez-Cruz fully in
Spanish.” Id. Corporal Jensen conducted a
records check on Brenes and dispatch reported that her
California drivers license had been suspended. Officer
Stephenson arrested Brenes for driving on a suspended
license, and she was handcuffed and placed in the back of the
patrol car.[2] Brenes asked to speak to Jimenez-Cruz,
then yelled something to him in Spanish. Brenes was not given
Miranda warnings.
By this
time, Sergeant Donald Eversole (another Van Buren police
officer) had arrived at the scene. After Brenes was
restrained and put into the back of the patrol car, Corporal
Jensen told Sergeant Eversole “something wasn't
right with the story he got” and he was going to ask
whether anything illegal was in the vehicle. (Docs. 34, pp. 2
-3). Corporal Jensen returned to the patrol car and began to
question Brenes. He directly asked her whether there was
anything illegal in the vehicle and told her the vehicle
would be searched before it was towed. Brenes did not
respond. Not accepting her silence, Corporal Jensen again
asked if anything illegal was in the vehicle, and asked
Brenes to be honest. Brenes stated that Jimenz-Cruz was
carrying a small amount of marijuana on him. Corporal Jensen
did not believe Brenes so he questioned her again, asking
whether there was anything else in the vehicle. Brenes's
eyes teared up, and Corporal Jensen asked if there were any
weapons in the vehicle. Brenes indicated with a head-shake
that the answer was “no.” Corporal Jensen then
asked if there were any drugs in the vehicle, and Brenes
nodded her head “yes” and said “a
lot.”
At some
point (whether because the officers determined the Jeep was
inoperable after arriving at the scene of the collision or
because the driver, Brenes, was placed under arrest), the
officers determined that the Jeep would be towed from the
scene. The incomplete portions of the Van Buren Police
Department policy provided by the Government require that an
inoperable vehicle be towed either by a wrecker identified by
the vehicle owner or by the next available wrecker on a list
apparently maintained by the Van Buren Police Department.
“The Van Buren Police Department Towing Policy also
states that an Auto Storage Report is to be completed and on
that report, there is an inventory section to be filled
out.” (Doc. 38, p. 10). The excerpts and description of
the policy provided by the Government do not detail the
extent of any inventory search required, whether officers are
permitted or required to inventory the contents of containers
within the vehicle, or the extent to which a vehicle's
occupants may recover property from the vehicle before it is
towed.
While
Brenes was being questioned, because the Jeep was to be
towed, and because Jimenz-Cruz was not under arrest for
driving on a suspended license, he was offered a ride to a
hotel. He asked to remove belongings from the Jeep, and was
allowed to. After removing items from the cabin of the
vehicle, Jimenez-Cruz opened the rear hatch and began to
remove a suitcase. By this time, Brenes had informed Corporal
Jensen that there were drugs in the Jeep. Corporal Jensen
exited the patrol car, he or another officer said
“drugs, ” and Corporal Jensen approached
Jimenez-Cruz and asked him whether there were drugs in the
car. Jimenez-Cruz responded “no, ” but Jensen
moved him away from the luggage and arrested him. Sergeant
Eversole then removed the suitcase from the vehicle, took it
to the sidewalk, opened it, and discovered 45 bags of
methamphetamine weighing 71 pounds and three bags of
oxycodone pills weighing 205 grams. Brenes, Jimenez-Cruz, and
the Jeep were taken to the Van Buren Police Department. The
record does not show whether any inventory of the
vehicle's contents was actually conducted.
Defendants
now move to suppress Brenes's statements to Corporal
Jensen and physical evidence seized from the vehicle as a
result of these statements.
II.
Law
For
over fifty years it has been settled law that statements
intentionally elicited during custodial interrogation of a
defendant may not be used in the case-in-chief against the
defendant unless the prosecution demonstrates that effective
procedural safeguards were used to protect the
defendant's Fifth Amendment privilege against
self-incrimination. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S.
436, 444 (1966). It has also been the case “that an
out-of-court declaration made after arrest may not be used at
trial against one of the declarant's partners in
crime.” Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S.
471, 490 (1963). For even longer, albeit with regularly
growing exceptions to excuse police misconduct and limit
suppression of evidence to those instances where it will
deter that misconduct, it has been the law that:
The Government cannot violate the Fourth Amendment-in the
only way in which the Government can do anything, namely
through its agents-and use the fruits of such unlawful
conduct to secure a conviction. Nor can the Government make
indirect use of such evidence for its case, or support a
conviction on evidence obtained through leads from the
unlawfully obtained evidence. All these methods are outlawed,
and convictions obtained by means of them are invalidated,
because they encourage the kind of society that is obnoxious
to free men.
Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62, 64-65 (1954)
(citations omitted).
The
Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable
searches and seizures demands that an arrest or a search be
supported by probable cause and, with few exceptions,
conducted pursuant to a warrant. One long-recognized
exception to the requirement that an arrest warrant issue
prior to seizure exists where “facts and circumstances
within the law enforcement officer's knowledge are
sufficient to warrant a prudent person, or one of reasonable
caution, in believing, in the circumstances shown, that the
suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to commit
an offense.” United States v. Morales, 923
F.2d 621, 623 (8th Cir. 1991) (quoting United States v.
Caves, 890 F.2d 87, 93 (8th Cir. 1989)). Where facts and
circumstances include information the officer receives from
another person, rather than from what the officer has
directly observed, the information must be reliable to
support probable cause. An officer “may rely upon
information received through an informant, rather than upon
his direct observations, so long as the informant's
statement is reasonably corroborated by other matters within
the officer's knowledge.” Illinois v.
Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 242 (1983) (quoting Jones v.
United States, 362 U.S. 257, 269 (1960)).
With
respect to searches, “[i]n the absence of a warrant, a
search is reasonable only if it falls within a
specific exception to the warrant requirement.”
Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 382 (2014)
(emphasis added). Among those instances where a warrant might
not be required are a search incident to lawful arrest,
id., search of an automobile and containers therein
pursuant to probable cause, Wyoming v. Houghton, 526
U.S. ...