Chapter 6 Case Studies

A custodial interrogation has two components: (1) custody and (2) interrogation. Custody exists when a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would experience the encounter as equivalent to an arrest. Officer Compton has just encountered a woman lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen and her son lying on the floor in the bedroom holding a knife that appeared to be impaled in his armpit. Tom was yet a suspect, the situation was unclear, and Officer Compton was trying to get a handle on what happened so that he could figure out how to respond. While Officer Compton did not intend the encounter to be custodial, his intentions are not relevant to whether Tom was in custody. Custody is determined from the vantage point of a reasonable person in Tom’s position. A reasonable person in Tom’s position who was found holding a knife in the apartment of woman who had been stabbed to death and who was ordered at gun point to drop the knife would experience the encounter as an arrest.

The determination that Tom was in custody leads to the next question. Was Officer Compton’s question “What happened here?” an interrogation? The answer is no. The term “interrogation” includes both express questioning and the functional equivalent. Functional equivalent refers to words or actions that the officer should have known were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect. Officer Compton’s question was not an interrogation because it was asked for a noninvestigative reason. The officer was trying to get a handle on a murky, dangerous, and volatile situation. He needed to find out whether the crime was committed by an intruder, whether the intruder was still in the apartment, whether Tom was injured and in need of aid, whether there were other victims, and so on. Since Sam was not under suspicion, Officer Compton had no reason to expect an incriminating response. Consequently, there was no interrogation.

The public safety exception furnishes an alternative rationale for finding Tom’s unwarned statement admissible. This exception allows police to dispense with Miranda warnings when information is immediately needed to protect the public safety, their own safety, or the suspect’s safety. The Supreme Court announced this exception in New York v. Quarles, where officers asked the suspect where he discarded his gun before advising him of his Miranda rights. Officer Compton’s question “What happened here?” falls within this exception. Office Crompton was seeking information needed to manage a dangerous situation. Tom’s safety, his own safety, and the safety of the other officer in the apartment appeared to be at risk. Since his question was asked to ascertain information required to protect safety, and not to elicit an incriminating response, warnings were not necessary.

No. Improper police activity is necessary to render a confession involuntary. The activity may take the form of physical violence, verbal threats, promises of leniency, and other improper inducements. Misstatements about the strength of the evidence are a common interrogation strategy and almost never render a confession involuntary. Police are allowed to deceive suspects about the strength of the evidence linking them to the crime, such as that they were caught on video camera, their fingerprints were found at the crime scene, they were identified by an eyewitness, they flunked the lie detector test, their codefendant confessed and named them as the trigger man, and so on. Courts have explained that lies and tricks like these are unlikely to induce an innocent person to confess. Sam’s confession was voluntary, albeit induced by trickery.

Yes. Sam was illegally seized when police falsely told him that they had a warrant for his arrest. This constituted a show of legal authority; Sam submitted and was seized. The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine requires suppression of confessions that are caused by the violation of the suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights. Sam’s confession was made moments after his bogus arrest; there were no intervening circumstances; and the police violation of his Fourth Amendments was flagrant. All three factors courts are considered in applying the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule to confessions given after an illegal arrest point to the need for suppression in this case.

Yes.  Custody requires either a formal arrest or a restraint of the suspect’s freedom of movement to the degree associated with a formal arrest. Sam was falsely arrested when he submitted to the officers’ bogus claim that they had a warrant for his arrest. The officers’ false statement that Sam’s image had been captured on Thelma Stump’s video camera constituted an interrogation. The term “interrogation” includes both express questioning and the functional equivalent. Functional equivalent refers to words or actions that the officer should have known were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect. Interrogation strategies like the one used on Sam are the functional equivalent of an express question because their purpose is to trick suspects into incriminating themselves. Since Sam’s confession was the product of a custodial interrogation, suppression is required because warnings were not administered before using this strategy.

No. The facts of this hypothetical were taken from Edwards v. Arizona  where the Supreme Court held that once a suspect makes a clear request for an attorney, all questioning must cease and may resume again only if (1) counsel has been made available, or (2) the accused initiates further contact with the police. The purpose of the rule announced in Edwards v. Arizona is to protect suspects who have invoked their Miranda rights from being badgered into relinquishing them. The rule of Edwards v. Arizona does this by preventing suspects who have invoked their Miranda rights from giving a valid waiver during a police-initiated contact. Since the police, rather than Kamke, initiated the further contact, Kamke’s waiver of his right to counsel was invalid. The Supreme Court has since recognized a limited exception to Edwards v. Arizona. In Maryland v. Shatzer, the Court ruled that police may initiate contact with a suspect who has invoked his Miranda rights after a break in custody of at least 14 days. Police in this problem did not wait 14 days before initiating contact; they did not wait even one day. As a result, Kamke’s confession is inadmissible.

The basis for the motion is Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches when adversary judicial proceedings are initiated by way of indictment, information, arraignment, or other method of lodging formal charges. Since Kyle Butler was under indictment for Dorothy Flowers’s murder when he was questioned, his Sixth Amendment right to counsel had attached and there was no Miranda phase.

Yes. The Sixth Amendment affords broader protection for the right to counsel than does the Miranda rule. A defendant under formal charges is entitled to have counsel present whenever the government deliberately elicits incriminating information about the charges unless the defendant is informed of his rights and voluntarily waives them. These protections must be observed whether the defendant is in custody or at large. The encounter between the police and Kyle Butler closely resembles Fellers v. United States, where the Court held that police officers violated the Sixth Amendment when they spoke to the defendant in his home after he was indicted, without obtaining a waiver of the right to counsel. Butler did not waive his Sixth Amendment right to counsel; he was never advised of his right.

No. The only protection for the right to counsel before formal charges are lodged is the Miranda rule. Miranda protection exists only during custodial interrogations. Butler was not in custody when was questioned in his home. The questioning was in a relaxed environment, he was not handcuffed or physically restrained, and the tone of the questioning was not overbearing. Since Butler was not in custody, he would not have been entitled to Miranda warnings had he been questioned in his home before his indictment.

Yes. Inadmissible confessions can be used to impeach a defendant’s credibility, but only if: (1) the defendant takes the stand and testifies on his own behalf; (2) the defendant tells the jurors a different story than the one he told to the police; and (3) the confession was freely and voluntarily given. When an inadmissible confession is used for impeachment, the jury will be told that they cannot consider the confession as evidence of guilt. They may consider it only for the sake of evaluating whether Butler’s testimony at the trial is trustworthy. Other evidence will be needed to establish that Butler committed the murder, and if other evidence is not available, Butler will go free.