## Facts

- Federal prosecutors charged Felix DeJesus and Ricardo Rosario with narcotics conspiracies involving large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine under 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), and 846.
- After a jury trial in the District of Connecticut, DeJesus and Rosario were convicted; DeJesus received concurrent 360-month sentences and Rosario received 240 months’ imprisonment.
- A five-officer fugitive task force executed an arrest warrant for DeJesus at an apartment in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
- Officers entered, secured DeJesus, and asked about weapons before providing Miranda warnings.
- DeJesus stated he had a gun in his jacket; officers recovered a gun and narcotics from the jacket.
- At trial, the district court followed a categorical practice for impeaching witnesses with prior felony convictions: allowing inquiry into the fact and date of conviction while barring the statutory name or nature of the offense for certain felony convictions.
- On appeal, the court issued a published opinion addressing only (1) the public-safety exception to Miranda as applied to DeJesus’s pre-warning statement and its fruits, and (2) whether the categorical impeachment limitation violated Federal Rule of Evidence 609(a)(1).

## Issues

1. Whether the public-safety exception to Miranda permitted admission of DeJesus’s pre-Miranda statement about a gun in his jacket, and the gun and narcotics recovered as a result.
2. Whether a district court may, as a categorical policy, bar cross-examination identifying the statutory name or nature of a witness’s prior felony conviction when admitted for impeachment under Federal Rule of Evidence 609(a)(1).

## Decision

- The Second Circuit held the public-safety exception applied, making admissible DeJesus’s statement that he had a gun in his jacket despite the lack of Miranda warnings at the time of questioning.
- The court held the gun and narcotics recovered from the jacket were likewise admissible because the pre-warning question fell within the public-safety exception.
- The court held the district court’s categorical policy preventing disclosure of the statutory names of impeaching convictions violated Rule 609(a)(1).
- The court concluded the Rule 609(a)(1) error was harmless on the record presented.
- The court affirmed the convictions and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion and a contemporaneous summary order addressing additional issues.

## Legal Principles

- Under the Miranda public-safety exception, pre-warning questions are permissible when officers have an objectively reasonable belief that an immediate threat to safety exists and the questions are directed to neutralizing that threat.
- The public-safety exception is assessed objectively and is not defeated merely because the safety question is likely to elicit incriminating information.
- When a statement is properly admitted under the public-safety exception, physical evidence located as a direct result of the statement is not suppressed on Miranda grounds.
- Federal Rule of Evidence 609(a)(1) generally contemplates that jurors may be told the statutory name or basic nature of a qualifying felony conviction used for impeachment, subject to case-specific balancing of probative value against unfair prejudice.
- A blanket, categorical policy restricting impeachment to the “fact and date” of a felony conviction, without individualized balancing, violates Rule 609(a)(1).
- A Rule 609 violation does not require reversal when the limitation did not substantially affect the verdict in light of other impeachment and the overall evidentiary record.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit admitted a pre-Miranda weapon-related statement and its physical fruits under the public-safety exception, and it rejected a categorical rule that concealed the names of impeaching felony convictions under Rule 609(a)(1), while affirming because the impeachment error was harmless.


United States v. Estrada, 430 F.3d 606 (2d Cir. 2005)