Wednesday we looked at Texas v. Nguyen where a Texas statute requires confessions to be taped. In Massachusetts the state Supreme Court, using its supervisory powers over the courts mandated, that upon the request of a defendant a court must give a cautionary instruction to warn the jury of the danger of using an unrecorded confession. However that does not apply in Federal Courts.

Today we will look at United States v. Meadows, a case which was decided by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, Wednesday. It involves a charge of possession of a gun by a convicted felon. Timothy J. Meadows was arrested in Brockton, Massachusetts for possession of a gun by a convicted felon and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Timothy Meadows and John DePina were passengers in a car driven by Timothy’s brother, Shawn. Brockton Police Officer, Richard Gaucher stopped the vehicle at the entrance to the Battles Farm housing complex for minor traffic violations. As soon as the car stopped, Timothy got out of the vehicle and began to run. Gaucher called for back-up officers. They questioned Shawn who told them that their sister, Tia, lived in the complex and that Meadows was the person who got out of the car and ran. Gaucher radioed in the information and he learned that a domestic incident had been reported earlier in the day at the residence. Gaucher noted that Meadows ran in a direction that would take him away from Tia’s residence. They searched Shawn and DePina. They found two bullets on DePina but they did not find a gun in the car. At this point the officers radioed that Meadow might have a gun. They went to Tia’s residence. She told them that Meadows was upstairs. They called upstairs and asked Timothy to come downstairs. They handcuffed him and took him outside to search him.

A mother and her daughter who lived in the complex told the officers that they saw Meadows get out of the car, run towards a particular area and fall. The officers went to the place where Meadows fell and found the gun.

At trial and on appeal Meadows challenged the admission of statements he made at the time of the arrest. He claimed that he was effectively under arrest at the time he was handcuffed. The handcuffing occurred prior to the finding of the gun and therefore at the time he was handcuffed probable cause did not exist to arrest him. If this is true, statements he made to the police, after his arrest but before he was read his Miranda rights should be excluded at trial as the fruit of an illegal arrest.

The court admitted that handcuffing is evidence, though not conclusive evidence that an individual is arrested. The government argued, and the court found, that an arrest did not occur. A limited Terry stop may be made for investigative purposes when the police have a reasonable suspicion that a crime occurred and that the detainee committed the crime. Such a stop is only valid as long as the police actions are within the scope of the reasons that led to the stop. However, it may be reasonable to restrain an individual during a Terry stop for officer safety reasons if the officers have specific reasons for believing that they may be endangered. In this case bullets were found and there had been a domestic incident at the house earlier in the day. The court found that the officers had a reasonable suspicion that a gun might be nearby and therefore handcuffing was reasonable. Furthermore the fact that Meadow ran when the car was pulled over was evidence that he might try to escape and therefore it was justified to restrain him.

Meadows also claimed that the statement should have been taped. But the court found that it is not bound by Massachusetts state law and that as an intermediary appellate court it does not have the authority to make such supervisory orders without directions from the Supreme Court or Congress.

Meadow objected to the jury being told that he is a convicted felon. Of course he was charged with possessing a gun by a convicted felon. He wanted the jury to be told that he was of a class of people that cannot possess a gun. However based upon precedent the court found that the District Court made the right decision in telling the jury that he was a convicted felon but not telling them the nature of the prior conviction.