Cameron Awbrey Case

our honor, the prosecution respectfully requests that the defense motion be denied and the statement made by the defendant Cameron Awbrey be admitted into court. In today’s case, the officer’s actions did not violate the defendant's 4 and 5 amendment rights. The statement should be admitted into court for three reasons: The connection between the illegal stop and the statement were attenuated by an intervening circumstance, Officer West was acting in good faith, and Cameron Awbrey voluntarily made the statement at his own free will. This statement should be admissible due to the attenuation of the illegal stop and the defendant’s statement. Utah vs. Strieff established three factors to determine attenuation: the amount of time, presence …show more content…
Although, the case of Utah v. Streiff held that there was an attenuation with only minutes passing between the unlawful stop and discovery of evidence. This allows for an inference that an attenuation can be made with a short amount of time. In the case at hand, the outstanding warrant served as a crucial intervening circumstance between the unlawful stop and the statement made by the defendant. The warrant then prompted an arrest, separating the situation of the stop from the voluntary statement made by the defendant. Utah vs. Strieff established that evidence is admissible if the misconduct performed by the police officer is less severe than the mere absence of proper cause for the stop.The Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio found that a defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated because any reasonable officer would have believed his safety or the safety of others were endangered. In today’s case, Cameron Awbrey aggressively responded to Officer West’s initial remarks. In response, Officer West decided to stop and search for a warrant, as any reasonable officer would have thought to do. His actions were simply in protection of the well being of others, showing that Officer West acted with misconduct to the benefit of others. Officer West was performing his duty, acting reasonably in a difficult situation. These three critical circumstances show a clear attenuation of the unlawful stop from the defendant's …show more content…
The Supreme Court case Thompson v. Keohane established two inquiries to determine whether a person was in custody: the circumstances surrounding the interrogation and whether a reasonable person would have felt at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave. In this case, the conversation held between the defendant and the police officer was not considered an interrogation as the officer was unaware his remarks would elicit an incriminating response. In the Supreme court case Rhode Island v. Innis, a conversation that took place between police officers in front of the defendant did not constitute an interrogation under Miranda. An interrogation for Miranda purposes refers to any words or actions that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect. In Rhode Island v. Innis, the police officers were not aware their conversation would be susceptible to the defendant, similar to the case today. Officer West had no way of knowing that his remarks towards Mr. Awbrey’s behavior would elicit any incriminating response by the defendant. These circumstances show that Mr. Awbrey was not in an interrogation during the time of his statement. Secondly, during the time of the statement, Mr. Awbrey knew he was no longer in custody as he had heard the radio call to Officer West and was aware that the officer had made