United States v. Oquendo-Rivas

909 F. Supp. 2d 80, 2012 WL 6585258, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180435
CourtDistrict Court, D. Puerto Rico
DecidedDecember 18, 2012
DocketCriminal No. 09-427 (JAF)
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 909 F. Supp. 2d 80 (United States v. Oquendo-Rivas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Puerto Rico primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Oquendo-Rivas, 909 F. Supp. 2d 80, 2012 WL 6585258, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180435 (prd 2012).

Opinion

ORDER

JOSE ANTONIO FUSTE, District Judge.

Before the court is a “Motion to Suppress Defendant’s Statements” filed by Defendant David Oquendo-Rivas (“Oquendo-Rivas” or “Defendant”). (Docket No. 562.) In his motion, Defendant seeks to suppress statements he made to law enforcement authorities on October 20, 2009. (Docket No. 562.) The government opposes. (Docket No. 601.) On December 3, 2012, we held a hearing on the matter. (Docket No. 677.) At the hearing, Investigating Officer Carlos Rodríguez-Negrón (“Officer Rodriguez”) of the Puerto Rico Police Department and Special Agent Julio Enriquez-Torres (“Agent Torres”) of the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms both testified on direct and cross-examination. (Id.) A full transcript of our hearing is available at Docket No. 678. For the following reasons, Defendant’s motion will be denied.

In his briefing papers and at our hearing on the matter, Defendant seeks to suppress the statements he made to Officer Rodriguez and to Agent Torres. We deal with each set of statements separately-

First, Defendant argues for suppression of the statements he gave to Officer Rodriguez. He argues that a statement he gave regarding a gun license should be suppressed because of the officer’s alleged failure to advise him of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). (Docket No. 562 at 7.) Defendant next argues that each statement after that should be suppressed as the product of an illegal arrest. (Id.) Finally, Defendant argues that his post-Miranda statements to Officer Rodriguez should be suppressed, because Defendant did not make a “knowing and intelligent” waiver of his Miranda rights. For the reasons explained below, we reject each of these arguments.

With respect to his statements to Agent Torres, Defendant argues these statements should be suppressed because the government did not honor his expressed invocations of the right to remain silent and to speak with an attorney. For the reasons that follow, we reject each of these arguments as well.

I.

Facts

We have reconstructed the following factual account based largely on the uncontradieted testimony of Officer Rodriguez and Agent Torres. We begin by noting [84]*84our favorable credibility assessments of both agents. Throughout their testimony, both agents exhibited a calm, composed, and professional demeanor. Their accounts of the relevant events flowed naturally and appeared straightforward and honest. Both agents have several years of experience and professional training, which were on display in our courtroom.

Following an October 17 multi-victim shooting at La Tómbola Bar in Toa Baja, the Puerto Rico Police Department (“PRPD”) opened an investigation. They received information that three or four individuals involved in the La Tómbola shooting were hiding in a nearby neighborhood known as Sector 26.

Shortly after 2:00 P.M., the Puerto Rico Police Department dispatched members of their Bayamón Strike Team, a joint PRPD-Federal task force, to conduct interviews in the neighborhood and to perform a preliminary investigation. Six members of the strike team, including Officer Rodriguez, deployed to the area in two marked police vehicles.

Upon arriving in Sector 26, officers observed four or five individuals standing outside a residence along Road 867. Two of the individuals were Defendant and Christian Ortiz-Rivera (“Ortiz-Rivera”). As Officer Rodriguez exited his vehicle, he observed Defendant remove a firearm from underneath his shirt and brandish it to his side. Officer Rodriguez removed his own firearm, identified himself as a law enforcement officer, and ordered the entire group to stop moving.

Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera turned and fled up a flight of stairs to the second story of the residence. Officer Rodriguez pursued them. He found the pair in a small area separated into two rooms by a makeshift partition: Defendant was to the left of the partition and Ortiz-Rivera was to the right.

Officer Rodriguez witnessed Defendant throw a firearm through a gap between the residence’s zinc roof and a structural wall. He also witnessed Ortiz-Rivera attempt to conceal two loaded firearms and two magazines of ammunition in a clothes hamper.

Officer Rodriguez demanded that Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera drop their weapons and get on the ground. Defendant ignored the instructions and walked towards Officer Rodriguez. With his firearm in one hand, Officer Rodriguez subdued Defendant and placed 21 him on the ground. At this time, Officer Roberto Cruz (“Officer Cruz”) joined Officer Rodríguez and assisted him in subduing Defendant. Officer Rodriguez then turned to Ortiz-Rivera and laid him down on the ground. The officers handcuffed Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera and moved them to a small sofa at the rear of the room. This all happened in a matter of seconds. Officer Rodriguez asked both men if they possessed a license to carry the firearms. Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera said they did not. Officer Rodriguez then placed both men under arrest and advised them of their constitutional rights.

Upon finishing the recitation of the Miranda warnings, both Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera, without prompting, said they understood the warnings and they told officers the weapons belonged to them, but that neither they nor the weapons had anything to do with 10 the shooting at the La Tómbola bar. In the original Spanish, the declaration was, “Estamos claros, las armas son de nosotros pero no tenemos nada que ver con la Tómbola.”.

While waiting for technical services to complete a survey of the residence, Officer Rodriguez retrieved two firearms — one with an obliterated serial number — and two ammunition clips from the clothes [85]*85hamper upstairs in the residence. Officer Rodriguez also collected a firearm from a paved driveway alongside the residence— the same weapon Defendant had thrown between the zinc roof and a structural wall.

Approximately forty minutes after officers arrested Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera, attorney Jorge L. Armenteros-Chervoni (“Armenteros”) appeared at the residence. At that time neither Defendant nor Ortiz-Rivera had requested counsel. Because he was unable to identify the names of either of the two men he said he represented, the officers denied Armenteros entrance to the scene.

Officers informed Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera that an attorney had arrived at the residence and asked whether this attorney represented them. They both said that they had not contacted an attorney. While they were in the custody of PRPD at the residence, neither Defendant not Ortiz-Rivera asked to contact an attorney.1

ATF Special Agent Julio Enriquez-Torres (“Agent Torres”) arrived at the residence. Officer Rodriguez gave a general overview of what had occurred at the residence, including the names of Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera and descriptions of the firearms and ammunition that he had collected at the residence. Officer Rodriguez instructed Special Agent Torres to meet him at the Bayamón Headquarters.

Officer Rodriguez maintained custody of Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera, taking them to headquarters in Bayamón approximately two hours after their initial detention. Upon arriving at the headquarters, Officer Rodriguez gave both Defendant and Ortiz-Rivera written Miranda

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909 F. Supp. 2d 80, 2012 WL 6585258, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180435, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-oquendo-rivas-prd-2012.