People v. Brown

NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except

in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).

2023 IL App (3d) 220190-U

Order filed August 23, 2023

____________________________________________________________________________

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS

THIRD DISTRICT

2023

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ) Appeal from the Circuit Court

ILLINOIS, ) of the 18th Judicial Circuit,

) Du Page County, Illinois,

Plaintiff-Appellee, )

) Appeal No. 3-22-0190

v. ) Circuit No. 21-CM-128

)

KELVIN R. BROWN, ) Honorable

) Robert A. Miller,

Defendant-Appellant. ) Judge, Presiding.

____________________________________________________________________________

JUSTICE ALBRECHT delivered the judgment of the court.

Justices Brennan and Hettel concurred in the judgment.

____________________________________________________________________________

ORDER

¶1 Held: The circuit court properly denied defendant’s motion to suppress evidence.

¶2 Defendant, Kelvin R. Brown, appeals his conviction for driving while license revoked

arguing that the Du Page County circuit court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence.

We affirm.

¶3 I. BACKGROUND

¶4 Defendant was charged by superseding information with resisting or obstructing a peace

officer (720 ILCS 5/31-1(a) (West 2020)) and driving while license revoked (625 ILCS 5/6-303(a)

(West 2020)). Defendant filed a pretrial motion to suppress, alleging that he should have been

given warnings as required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), before being questioned

by officers. The State opposed the motion, arguing that it was not necessary for police to provide

Miranda warnings because defendant was not in custody, and the questions asked of defendant

were permissible as part of a detention pursuant to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

¶5 At a hearing on the motion, Officer James O’Connor testified. The squad car video of

O’Connor’s interactions was also introduced and played during O’Connor’s testimony. O’Connor

testified that he had been called to a gas station to investigate a possible violation of an order of

protection on January 25, 2021. When O’Connor arrived, he was advised that the suspect was

leaving the area in a gray sedan. O’Connor exited his vehicle and began walking toward the gas

pumps. O’Connor observed a gray Toyota Camry exiting the gas station and flagged the car down

by waving his arms.

¶6 The vehicle stopped, and O’Connor began speaking with the driver through the open

passenger’s side window. The driver was later identified as defendant. O’Connor informed

defendant he was investigating a possible violation of an order of protection. O’Connor asked

defendant to back his car up toward the pumps and exit his vehicle, which defendant did. O’Connor

requested defendant’s identification and obtained defendant’s background information from

dispatch. Dispatch advised that defendant’s license was revoked, to which O’Connor responded

“10-4.”

¶7 O’Connor continued his investigation by entering the store to speak with the caller,

Raymond Washington, and a clerk. As O’Connor entered the store, dispatch informed him there

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was no active order of protection against defendant. Washington advised O’Connor he had not had

any contact with defendant that day, but defendant had been bothering him recently, including

threatening him the previous evening. Washington became concerned when defendant showed up

at the gas station where he worked. Washington also informed O’Connor, unprompted, that

defendant’s driver’s license was revoked.

¶8 O’Connor returned to defendant’s car and told defendant there was no active order of

protection but informed him his license was revoked. O’Connor asked defendant whether he had

driven to the gas station, and defendant admitted to driving. O’Connor’s squad car video recorded

the following exchange: O’Connor told defendant, “The other problem is you’re not supposed to

be driving, right?” Defendant replied, “Yeah.” Shortly afterward, O’Connor asked, “How’d you

get here, you drove right?” Defendant responded, “Yeah, I did.” Following this exchange,

O’Connor placed defendant under arrest for driving while his license was revoked.

¶9 The circuit court denied defendant’s motion to suppress his admission, stating that

defendant had been initially detained pursuant to Terry when O’Connor flagged down his vehicle.

The court observed that a Terry stop allows for temporary detention and questioning when the

officer reasonably infers from the circumstances that the person is committing or is about to

commit an offense. The court explained that O’Connor had reasonable suspicion to detain

defendant initially to investigate the violation of an order of protection, but he obtained information

in the course of that investigation suggesting defendant had committed the offense of driving while

his license was revoked. O’Connor was therefore permitted to investigate whether his suspicion

was justified.

¶ 10 After defendant’s motion was denied, he proceeded to a jury trial and was convicted of

driving while license revoked and resisting or obstructing a peace officer. He was sentenced to 180

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days in the county jail. Defendant filed a motion for a new trial, which was denied, and this appeal

followed.

¶ 11 II. ANALYSIS

¶ 12 On appeal, defendant argues the circuit court erred in denying his motion to suppress. We

review a circuit court’s suppression ruling under a two-part standard. People v. Oliver, 236 Ill. 2d

448, 454 (2010). The court’s factual findings will only be reversed if they are against the manifest

weight of the evidence. Id. We review the court’s legal determination of whether suppression is

warranted de novo. Id.

¶ 13 The fifth amendment to the United States Constitution, which applies to the states under

the fourteenth amendment, provides that “ ‘[n]o person *** shall be compelled in any criminal

case to be a witness against himself.’ ” People v. Hunt, 2012 IL 111089, ¶ 23 (quoting U.S. Const.,

amend. V). Accordingly, “the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or

inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use

of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination.” Miranda,

384 U.S. at 444. Those procedural safeguards include the right to be warned that he has the right

to remain silent, that any statement he does make can be used as evidence against him, and that he

has the right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed. Id. at 479.

¶ 14 Custodial interrogation includes “questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a

person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant

way.” Id. at 444. We have held that “custodial interrogation” consists of two elements: (1) whether

an individual was subject to interrogation, and (2) whether the interrogation occurred in a custodial

situation. People v. Tayborn, 2016 IL App (3d) 130594, ¶¶ 18-19.

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¶ 15 An officer who lacks probable cause but whose observations lead him to suspect that a

particular person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime, may detain that

person briefly in order to “investigate the circumstances that provoke suspicion.” United States v.

Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 881 (1975). Such stops and inquiries must be “reasonably related

in scope to the justification for their initiation.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 29. Pursuant to such

investigations, during a Terry detention an officer “may ask the detainee a moderate number of

questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain information confirming or dispelling the

officer’s suspicions. Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439 (1984).

¶ 16 We observe at the outset that defendant was confronted with an interrogatory question.

O’Connor’s questions about whether defendant’s license was revoked and whether defendant had

driven called for an incriminating response. At the time O’Connor asked defendant these questions,

O’Connor was aware from his communications with dispatch that defendant’s driver’s license was

revoked. An interrogation is “any practice that police should know is reasonably likely to evoke

an incriminating response from a suspect.” Tayborn, 2016 IL App (3d) 130594, ¶ 18.

¶ 17 We must next determine whether defendant was “in custody” for the purposes of Miranda.

Detention pursuant to a Terry stop is not dispositive of whether a defendant is in custody for the

purposes of Miranda, although, absent additional indicia of a custodial interrogation, a traffic stop

does not ordinarily trigger Miranda’s warning requirements. See, e.g., Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 438-

42 (a traffic stop does not sufficiently impair the driver’s exercise of the privilege against self-

incrimination so as to require that the driver be warned of his Miranda rights); People v. Jeffers,

365 Ill. App. 3d 422, 429 (2006) (defendant found not to be subjected to a custodial interrogation

when questioned by an officer at the scene of a traffic accident); People v. Briseno, 343 Ill. App.

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3d 953, 958 (2003) (defendant found not to be in custody for purposes of Miranda when he was

stopped on a major thoroughfare and only two officers were in his immediate presence).

¶ 18 The determination of whether a defendant is in custody for the purposes of Miranda

includes two inquiries: “(1) what were the circumstances surrounding the interrogation? and

(2) given those circumstances, would a reasonable person have felt that he was not at liberty to

terminate the interrogation and leave?” People v. Garza, 2018 IL App (3d) 170525, ¶ 16.

“The following factors are determinative of whether a suspect was in a custodial

setting: the location, time, length, mood, and mode of interrogation; the number of

police officers present; the presence or absence of the family and friends of the

accused; any indication of formal arrest; and the age, intelligence and mental

makeup of the accused.” Id.

¶ 19 We agree with the circuit court’s assessment in its ruling on the motion to suppress.

Defendant was detained pursuant to Terry, but his detention never became custodial for the

purposes of Miranda. Here, defendant was questioned in a public place by a single officer based

on information the officer obtained in the course of his investigation. O’Connor’s investigation

began with a valid Terry stop, evolved to include additional suspicious information obtained

during the stop, but never became “custodial” for the purposes of Miranda. See Berkemer, 468

U.S. at 421 (holding that the roadside questioning of a motorist detained pursuant to a routine stop

did not constitute custodial interrogation because of the brevity of the encounter, the fact that it

was conducted in public, and the fact that the atmosphere was less “police dominated” than the

kinds of interrogations at issue in Miranda). The questioning took place on the scene and not in a

coercive environment such as a police station. The questioning of defendant was brief and

narrowly limited to the reasonable suspicion of criminal activity O’Connor had personally

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observed. See People v. Slater, 228 Ill. 2d 137, 150 (2008). Defendant was not searched or told he

was under arrest. Neither was defendant handcuffed, placed into a police vehicle, or transported to

a police station for questioning, which are the most obvious indicia of a “formal arrest.” Id.

¶ 20 Defendant urges that Berkemer is distinguishable because officers in that case observed

additional indicia that defendant had committed a crime, which justified additional questioning.

However, in this case, officers also obtained additional evidence that defendant had committed a

crime after arriving on scene. At the time O’Connor asked defendant whether he had driven to the

gas station, he was aware from both Washington’s statements and from dispatch that defendant’s

driving privileges had been revoked. O’Connor obtained this information within a few minutes of

detaining defendant. O’Connor had also personally observed defendant operating a motor vehicle

and driving toward a public roadway. There were no passengers in defendant’s vehicle. At that

point in time, O’Connor reasonably suspected defendant had committed the offense of driving on

a revoked license by traveling to the gas station and was in fact beginning to drive out of the gas

station parking lot when O’Connor arrived. O’Connor was therefore permitted within the strictures

of Terry to ask questions to confirm or dispel his suspicions. Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 439 (an officer

“may ask the detainee a moderate number of questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain

information confirming or dispelling the officer’s suspicions”).

¶ 21 In coming to this conclusion, we note that defendant further argues that the extension of an

investigation, alone, is enough to transform a valid Terry stop into a custodial situation for Miranda

purposes. We need not consider this question as we do not find defendant’s detention was

impermissibly extended. O’Connor ran defendant’s name through dispatch within minutes of

speaking to him and obtained the information that his license was revoked before he spoke with

Washington and the clerk. O’Connor was therefore investigating two possible offenses, just as the

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officers in Berkemer were when they pulled over a motorist for a traffic violation and then inquired

about the driver’s apparent intoxication. See id. at 423.

¶ 22 Because defendant was not subjected to a custodial interrogation, O’Connor was not

required to advise defendant of his rights under Miranda, and the circuit court properly denied

defendant’s motion to suppress.

¶ 23 III. CONCLUSION

¶ 24 The judgment of the circuit court of Du Page County is affirmed.

¶ 25 Affirmed.

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