Hill v. State

GARRITY, Judge. We shall be concerned with whether police may conduct a custodial interrogation of a suspect as to the location of a weapon without first administering Miranda warnings. The matter arises as the result of the conviction of appellant, Keith Andre Hill, of robbery with a deadly weapon and related offenses. Facts On April 11, 1990, shortly after midnight, Sean Kennedy was robbed by three armed men.

During the ensuing struggle Mr. Kennedy managed to escape and report the incident to the police. Officer Kevin Matthews of the Prince George’s County police testified that immediately following a broadcast description of the three armed suspects, he observed three men run in front of his vehicle and then scale a ten-foot fence of the Smithsonian complex. 1 Corporal Montgomery and Corporal Graham, responding to a report of the robbery by three armed men, also entered the Smithsonian complex. The suspects were located and ordered to halt. Officer Montgomery recognized that one of the men possessed a weapon in his hand, prompting Montgomery to discharge his gun toward them.

All three suspects retreated farther into the complex. Appellant Hill and an accomplice were located and apprehended. Officer Montgomery testified ⁴³¹ that because he did not know the whereabouts of the third armed assailant, he was concerned about the immediate safety of all parties. He then asked appellant where the third suspect was; appellant replied, “He went that direction.” As a result, the third person was taken into custody.

Corporal Robert Brown of the Prince George’s County police also assisted in the appellant’s arrest. While he was walking the handcuffed appellant to his police vehicle, knowing that only one of three weapons had been recovered, 2 he asked him where the guns were. In response, appellant stated that the other suspects had them and he did not know where they were. It is undisputed that Officers Brown and Montgomery had not given the appellant or his accomplice their Miranda warnings before asking about the location of the third suspect or the location of the other weapons.

DISCUSSION OF LAW Appellant argues that the trial judge’s determination to admit the two statements made to the police was error. Specifically, he asserts that the admission of the statements violated his constitutional right against self-incrimination, as Hill was not read his Miranda warning prior to speaking to Officers Montgomery and Brown. The initial determination in any Miranda violation case is whether the questioned party was in custody. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 , 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

If the suspect answers questions while not in custody, such statements may be admitted. Evidence obtained from a criminal suspect stemming from custodial interrogation prior to being advised of his Miranda rights is generally inadmissible. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 , 86 S.Ct. 1602 , 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). ⁴³² Despite the undisputed facts that appellant’s statements were compelled by the police while he was in custody, the Supreme Court has recognized a “public safety” exception to the Miranda warning. New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 , 104 S.Ct. 2626 , 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984).

In Quarles , the police cornered an armed rape suspect in a a supermarket. When the police stopped, frisked and handcuffed the suspect, they discovered an empty shoulder holster. Concerned for their own physical safety and before reading him-his Miranda rights, they asked him where the gun was. Quarles nodded toward some empty cartons and said that “[t]he gun is over there.” Id.

In applying the “public safety” exception, the Court noted: [T]here is a “public safety” exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect’s answers may be admitted into evidence, and that the availability of that exception does not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers involved. In the kaleidoscopic situation such as the one confronting these officers, where spontaneity rather than the adherence to a police manual is necessarily the order of the day, the application of the exception which we recognize today should not be made to depend on post hoc findings at a suppression hearing concerning the subjective motivation of the arresting officer. Undoubtedly most police officers, ... would act out of a host of different, instinctive, and largely unverifiable motives — their own safety, the safety of others, and perhaps as well the desire to obtain incriminating evidence from the suspect. Whatever the motivation of individual officers in such a situation, we do not