Tenth Circuit US v. Mikolon 12-2139

Decision here.

   Mikolon was a felon who was wanted for failure to appear on a sex crime in West Virginia.  He was believed to be armed and dangerous.  The US Marshals tracked him down near Truth or Consequences, NM.  Having lived and worked there, I will say that he must have been desperate to got there.

   Anyway, they caught up with him in a camp ground.  When he was taken into custody, he was in possession of various firearms.  One of the officers asked him (without Mirandizing him) if he had other weapons, and he admitted to having more guns and told the officers where they were.

   Eventually, he was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.  He moved to suppress his statements which were made outside of Miranda, and the prosecution agreed not to use those statements at trial.  The trial court ruled that they were admissible under the Quarles public safety exception, anyway, and Mikolon pled guilty (while reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress).

   He did appeal.  The Tenth Circuit reviewed the reasoning of Quarles, and of other cases that have further refined it (particularly US v. Lackey and US v. DeJear).  In Lackey, the Tenth ruled that when an officer searching a suspect asked "do you have any guns or sharp objects on you," the suspect's answers are admissible because the question addresses a substantial risk to officers that they will be injured while searching a suspect.  In DeJear, the Tenth ruled that for an officer to reasonably believe that he is in danger, the facts have to show that the defendant might have (or have recently had) a weapon AND that someone other than the police might gain access to that weapon.

   The Court strongly hinted that these exceptions did not apply here, since the scene was already under control when Mikolon admitted to having more guns.  But then the court decided not to decide one way or another whether the Quarles exception applied here, because since the prosecution had already agreed not to use those statements in trial it didn't matter.  Mikolon's conviction was upheld.