United States v. Santiago

Opinions of the United
2006 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
5-10-2006
USA v. Santiago
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 05-1515
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NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 05-1515
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
ALFREDO SANTIAGO
a/k/a PRIMO,
Alfredo Santiago,
Appellant
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Criminal Action No. 03-cr-00157-3)
District Judge: Honorable Timothy J. Savage
Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
April 27, 2006
Before: AMBRO and FUENTES, Circuit Judges,
and IRENAS,* District Judge
(Opinion filed: May 10, 2006)
OPINION
AMBRO, Circuit Judge
*
Honorable Joseph E. Irenas, Senior District Judge for the District of New Jersey,
sitting by designation.
Alfredo Santiago, while in jail awaiting trial for drug offenses, was questioned in
connection with an unrelated armed-robbery investigation. During that questioning, he
waived his Miranda rights and signed a confession to the armed robbery. Santiago claims
that his confession should be excluded because it was obtained in violation of his Sixth
Amendment right to counsel. We disagree and therefore affirm.
I. Factual Background and Procedural History
The facts are quite familiar to the parties, so we provide only the most relevant.
On May 19, 2002, Santiago was arrested for drug offenses by the Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, police. He was held without bail on the drug charges in the Lancaster
County Prison.
On May 20, a detective in the East Lampeter, Pennsylvania, police force learned
that Santiago had been arrested in Lancaster. That detective was investigating a May 5
armed robbery of a Days Inn in Berks County, Pennsylvania—a hotel clerk had identified
Santiago, from a photograph, as one of the armed robbers. On May 14, a criminal
complaint against Santiago requesting an arrest warrant for the armed robbery had been
issued in Berks County.
On May 22, Santiago’s application for court-appointed counsel for the drug
offenses was approved. On May 23, the detective met Santiago in the Lancaster County
Prison to discuss the armed robbery. There Santiago waived his Miranda rights and
signed a confession to the armed robbery.
On June 19, 2002, Santiago was formally arrested for the armed robbery, and he
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was indicted on three counts relating to it in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in April
2004. After a jury convicted him on all three counts, Santiago was sentenced to ten
years’ imprisonment, five years’ supervised release, and a fine. He appeals the District
Court’s denial of his motion to suppress his confession to the armed robbery.
II. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review
The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231. We have appellate
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
We review “the District Court’s denial of a motion to suppress for clear error as to
the underlying factual findings and exercise[] plenary review of the District Court’s
application of the law to those facts.” United States v. Perez, 280 F.3d 318, 336 (3d Cir.
2002).
III. Discussion
Santiago’s principal contention is that his Sixth Amendment right to counsel had
attached by the time that the detective questioned him in the Lancaster prison.1 But the
District Court correctly denied his suppression motion under the rule of Texas v. Cobb,
532 U.S. 162 (2001).
First, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is offense specific. Id. at 172–73;
McNeil v. Wisconsin, 501 U.S. 171, 175 (1991). So the fact that Santiago had been
granted court-appointed counsel for his drug offenses does not bear at all on whether he
1
He does not, however, raise any Fifth Amendment issue as to the adequacy of the
waiver of his right against self-incrimination.
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had counsel for his unrelated armed-robbery offenses.
Second, Santiago was questioned before his formal arrest for the armed robbery
and well before his indictment. The Supreme Court has held many times that the “right to
counsel does not attach until the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings.” United
States v. Gouveia, 467 U.S. 180, 188 (1984) (citing four cases). That is, the right attaches
only when “the government has committed itself to prosecute, and . . . [when] the adverse
positions of government and defendant have solidified.” Id. at 189 (internal quotation
marks omitted). The Supreme Court has, therefore, “never held that the right to counsel
attaches at the time of arrest,” but only later. Id. at 190. Our Court has held that “it is
clear from the Supreme Court’s statements that the Sixth Amendment right to
counsel . . . does not extend to the pre-indictment period.” United States v. Ammar, 714
F.2d 238, 261 (3d Cir. 1983).
Santiago argues that the filing of a criminal complaint (which simply is the preface
to an arrest warrant) suffices to trigger the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in
Pennsylvania. But even Pennsylvania requires a formal arrest before the Sixth
Amendment right attaches. Commonwealth v. Karash, 518 A.2d 537, 541 (Pa. 1986)
(“[W]e have in this jurisdiction treated the arrest as the triggering event which causes the
Sixth Amendment right to attach.”); see also United States v. Moore, 122 F.3d 1154,
1156 (8th Cir. 1997) (holding that the filing of a federal criminal complaint was
insufficient to trigger the right to counsel because, “[i]f an arrest does not trigger the Sixth
Amendment right to counsel, we are unable to see how the issuance of a complaint that
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serves as the basis for a probable cause determination authorizing a later arrest would
trigger that right”). As mentioned above, Santiago was not arrested in connection with
the armed robbery until June 19, 2002, almost one month after he was questioned. And
the federal grand jury did not hand down a formal indictment until April 2004, nearly two
years later.
*****
For the above reasons, we affirm the District Court’s judgment.
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