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State v. Ortiz6/10/2003
Correa fell down. When he tried to get up, Ortiz struck him again with the nail board and then walked away. Ortiz then threw the board away to hide it from Correa because he did not want to get hit with it again. He believed Correa was still alive because, when he left him, he still heard him breathing. Although he did not see a lot of blood because it was very dark, he said that he heard and felt Correa's blood splattering on him. The next day Ortiz changed his bloody pants and went to sleep by a cemetery. Later, he purchased some beer and was sitting under a tree drinking it when the police approached him.
In due course, a grand jury indicted Ortiz on a charge of second-degree murder, as provided in G.L. 1956 § 11-23-1. After the trial justice denied defendant's motion to suppress the statements he had provided to the Pawtucket police, a trial jury found Ortiz guilty of this crime and rejected his self-defense theory. The trial justice later denied defendant's motion for new trial and then sentenced him to serve thirty years in jail. Below, we address his arguments on appeal.
I. Motion to Suppress
The defendant alleges that the trial justice erred in denying his motion to suppress his post-arrest statements to the police. He admits that the police had probable cause to believe that someone had committed a crime after they found Correa's bludgeoned body in the Family Market Place's loading-dock area. And he does not dispute that the police acted lawfully in approaching him when they found him sitting on a tree stump drinking beer and smoking, just 150 yards or so from the body. He also agrees that the police acted properly in temporarily detaining him because they were in the process of investigating the murder. But, defendant argues, both his oral and videotaped statements to the police should have been suppressed because the police obtained them as a result of arresting him without probable cause to do so. The statements, he suggests, were the direct fruit of his illegal arrest. Thus, he maintains, the trial justice erred in denying his motion to suppress his statements.
In reviewing a trial justice's denial of a motion to suppress, we defer to the trial justice's factual findings, to which we apply the "clearly erroneous" standard of review. State v. Apalakis, 797 A.2d 440, 443 (R.I. 2002). In reviewing a probable-cause-to-arrest determination, however, we engage in a de novo review of the ultimate conclusion because this type of ruling involves a mixed-law-and-fact analysis that implicates constitutional rights. State v. Guzman, 752 A.2d 1, 3 (R.I. 2000); see also State v. Kryla, 742 A.2d 1178, 1183 (R.I. 1999). Both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article 1, section 6, of the Rhode Island Constitution require that before a police officer can arrest a person, he or she must have probable cause to support such a seizure.*fn3 State v. Belcourt, 425 A.2d 1224, 1226 (R.I. 1981).
In Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31, 99 S.Ct. 2627, 61 L.Ed.2d 343 (1979), the United States Supreme Court held that a police officer may arrest a suspect without a warrant if, before the arrest, the police had probable cause to believe that the suspect had committed a crime. Rhode Island case law indicates that the existence of probable cause at the time of arrest determines its legality. Guzman, 752 A.2d at 4-5; Kryla, 742 A.2d at 1182-83; Belcourt, 425 A.2d at 1227. Thus, in State v. Frazier, 421 A.2d 546, 550 (R.I. 1980), this Court explained that "[o]ne of the most important elements in determining whether probable cause existed is satisfied when the police know a crime has actually been committed." "[P]robable cause must be based on more than mere suspicion, *
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