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Home My WebLink About98-1881 criminalCOMMONWEALTH :IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF :CUMBERLAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA : V. : : CHAD E. QUIGLEY : 98-1881 CRIMINAL TERM IN RE: MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE OPINION AND ORDER OF COURT Bayley, J,, March 4, 1999:-- Defendant, Chad E. Quigley, is charged with counts of a false report to law enforcement authorities,1 driving under suspension, DUI related,2 and a sunscreen obstruction of a vehicle windshield.3 He filed a motion to suppress evidence upon which a hearing was conducted on February 19, 1999. We find the following facts. On August 24, 1998, Officer Jeffrey O'Donnell of the West Shore Regional Police Department picked defendant up on a warrant for the within charges. He then transported defendant to a District Justice for arraignment. Officer O'Donnell and defendant knew each other, and on the way to the arraignment defendant told O'Donnell that his girlfriend was pregnant. Defendant was arraigned and he made bail. During the arraignment he made an application for a public defender. The District Justice set a preliminary hearing for a day that hearings are conducted for defendants who are represented by a public defender. Following the arraignment, defendant asked Officer O'Donnell if he would drive him home. Officer O'Donnell 1. 18 Pa.C.S. § 4906(a). 2. 75 Pa.C.S. § 1543(b). 3. 75 Pa.C.S. § 4524(e)(1). 98-1881 CRIMINAL TERM agreed and defendant, who was not handcuffed, got into the police car. defendant's home took about ten minutes. defendant that he had "to straighten up.''4 The trip to On the way, Officer O'Donnell told Defendant said, "1 know I fucked up." Defendant then asked the officer that if he went to jail immediately on the driving under suspension, DUI charge, would he be out of jail by December. The officer said "Yes." Officer O'Donnell then asked defendant if he had seen "Quinsey Morton around." Quinsey Morton is the name of the person that the officer knew defendant had allegedly used in making the false report to a law enforcement officer. Defendant answered, '~'es sir." Defendant seeks to suppress all statements he made to Officer O'Donnell on the trip to his home after his arraignment before the District Justice. He maintains that Officer O'Donnell should have known that all of the statements he made to him as they drove to his home were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. In Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 89 L. Ed.2d 631 (1986), the Supreme Court of the United States held that: The arraignment signals 'the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings' and thus the attachment of the Sixth Amendment...; thereafter, [law enfomement] effort to elicit information from the accused, including interrogation, represents 'critical stages' at which the Sixth Amendment applies. In accord, Commonwealth v. Ramos, 367 Pa. Super. 84 (1987); Commonwealth v. 4. The officer testified that he made that statement because defendant had told him on the way to the arraignment that his girlfriend was pregnant. -2- 98-1881 CRIMINAL TERM Hackney, 353 Pa. Super. 552 (1986). In Commonwealth v. Hoffman, 403 Pa. Super. 530 (1991), the defendant was arrested for possession with intent to deliver cocaine and marijuana and transported to the Pennsylvania State Police barracks in Lancaster. At the barracks, a trooper advised defendant of his Miranda rights.5 This trooper did not question defendant. Detective Brown was seated at a desk in the barracks when defendant approached him and sat in a chair near his desk. Detective Brown and defendant were acquainted through prior drug investigations and defendant referred to Detective Brown by his nickname, "Brownie." The following conversation ensued: A .... At that point he says to me, hi Brownie, how are you. I says okay. He says, what's up. I says, you're in big trouble. A. Kenny [defendant] says, can't you cut me a break. And I says, why, Kenny, I said, you don't stop dealing. And he says, I'm not dealing. And I said, what's with the coke, weren't you bringing it to Henry. And he says, no, it's mine. And I said, well how much is there. He said, three and a half ounces. At this point I had seen what was seized and I saw there were some bags of marijuana. I said to Kenny, what about the grass. I said, where is that from. And he nodded to Trooper Evanco and he said, from his neighbor. The conversation ended and Detective Brown and defendant had no further contact. Defendant sought to suppress his statements to Detective Brown. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania concluded: Custodial interrogation has been defined as 'questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his [or her] freedom of action in any significant 5. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed.2d 694 (1966). -3- 98-1881 CRIMINAL TERM way.' Commonwealth v. Johnson, 373 Pa. Super. 312, 319, 541 A.2d 332, 336 (1988), alloc, denied in 520 Pa. 596, 552 A.2d 250, quoting Commonwealth v. Sites, 427 Pa. 486, 492, 235 A.2d 387, 390 (1967) (emphasis supplied). "Interrogation' is police conduct 'calculated to, expected to, or likely to, evoke admission." Johnson, supra 373 Pa. Super. at 320, 541 A.2d at 336, quoting Commonwealth v. Brantner, 486 Pa. 518, 527, 406 A.2d 1011, 1016 (1979) (quoting Commonwealth v. Simala, 434 Pa. 219, 226, 252 A.2d 575, 578 (1969)). An inculpatory statement which is not made in response to police interrogation, then, 'is classified as a volunteered statement, gratuitous and not subject to suppression for lack of warnings.' Johnson, supra 373 Pa. Super. at 320, 541 A.2d at 336, quoting Commonwealth v. Whitley, 500 Pa. 442, 445, 457 A.2d 507, 508 (1983) (citations omitted). In the instant case, appellant asked Detective Brown, whom he had known previously, 'What's up?' Detective Brown's response was not likely to, nor expected to, evoke admission. Detective Brown simply made a comment which was not of an inquisitive nature. Appellant's reply, 'Can't you cut me a break?', was a volunteered statement and not the result of police interrogation. The trial court found, and we agree, that the remainder of Detective Brown's question, 'why, Kenny, I said, you don't stop dealing' was suppressible since it was of an inquisitive nature and likely to evoke an admission from appellant. (Emphasis added.) The conversation between Officer O'Donnell and defendant is similar to the conversation between Detective Brown and the defendant in Hoffman. O'Donnell and defendant knew each other before August 24, 1998. When Officer O'Donnell told defendant that he had 'to straighten up," it was in response to his having learned from defendant that his girlfriend was pregnant. O'Donnell's statement was not "calculated to, expected to, or likely to, evoke admissions" by defendant. Defendant's response, "1 know I fucked up," was volunteered and gratuitous. As set forth in Commonwealth v. Hamilton, 445 Pa. 292 (1971), "voluntary statements are admissible because they are a product of choice or conscience rather than compulsion." Defendant's then -4- 98-1881 CRIMINAL TERM asking Officer O'Donnell when he would get out of jail if he went to jail immediately was a gratuitous utterance unsolicited by the officer, and therefore is admissible. It is similar to the gratuitous utterance by the defendant of '~Vhat are my options," in Commonwealth v. Abdul-Salaam, 544 Pa. 514 (1996). The question to defendant by Officer O'Donnell as to whether he had seen Quinsey Morton around is akin to the statement by the detective in Commonwealth v. Hoffman, supra, of '~,Vhy, Kenny, you don't stop dealing." Because Officer O'Donnell knew that Quinsey Morton was the name of the person that defendant had allegedly used in making a false report to a law enforcement officer, his question turned their neutral, innocuous conversation into one of an inquisitive nature that was likely to evoke an admission from defendant. Therefore, defendant's response to that question must be suppressed as a violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. For the foregoing reasons, the following order is entered. ORDER OF COURT AND NOW, this ~,,~, day of March, 1999, IT IS ORDERED: (1) The motion of defendant to suppress the answer he gave to Officer Jeffrey O'Donnell concerning the officer's question about Quinsey Morton, IS SUPPRESSED. (2) The motion of defendant to suppress other statements he made to Officer O'Donnell, IS DENIED. -5- 98-1881 CRIMINAL TERM Jonathan R. Birbeck, Esquire For the Commonwealth William Braught, Esquire For Defendant By the Court,,/,/' :saa -6-