The Legal Intelligencer
September 22, 2022
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
recently ruled that a suspect handcuffed and standing outside of a police car
for 15 minutes, on a “dark street,” in the middle of the night is not entitled
to be informed of his constitutional right to an attorney and his right to not
answer questions. More compelling is the fact that five of 12 circuit courts
agree with this interpretation of a fundamental constitutional protection.
In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miranda
v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), that police officers are required to inform a
suspect that he has the right to remain silent and the right to legal counsel
when being subject to a custodial interrogation.
The landmark Supreme Court decision has become a
part of American culture. Miranda’s conversion from legal holding to cultural
icon is due mainly to the nation’s insatiable appetite for true-crime drama.
Everyone with a television or streaming service has heard of Miranda warnings.
What did Miranda do to earn his place in American
consciousness? In 1963, Ernesto Miranda was arrested for robbery. While in the
midst of a custodial interrogation by police he confessed to raping an
18-year-old woman. At trial, prosecutors offered his confession into evidence.
Miranda was convicted of rape and sentenced to prison. He appealed and his case
made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Miranda and
excluded his confession. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote the court’s opinion
finding a confession would be barred under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments
unless a suspect had been made aware of his rights and the suspect had waived
them. Warren made it clear, “If the individual indicates in any manner, at any
time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the
interrogation must cease … If the individual states that he wants an attorney,
the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present.”
Courts have whittled away at those rights for years.
In United States v. Coulter, 2022 BL 248481, 5th Cir., No. 20-1099,
7/18/22 the Fifth Circuit’s recent decision, a police officer pulled over
Braylon Coulter in the middle of the night. The officer suspected that Coulter,
who had a conviction for aggravated robbery, might be armed. The officer
removed Coulter from the van he was driving and handcuffed him.
Once cuffed the officer asked Coulter where he was
keeping his gun. The officer’s partner found a .40 caliber pistol and small
amount of marijuana in a backpack in the van.
Before Coulter was cuffed and questioned, the
officer did not provide Miranda warnings. The admissibility of
Coulter’s unwarned statements would turn on whether he was “in custody” at the
time of his questioning.
Although handcuffed, the Fifth Circuit held that a
“reasonable person” in Coulter’s position would not have thought that he was in
custody for Miranda purposes.
The court appears to suggest that custody can only
be substantiated when a suspect is in the “station house.” As a result, the
statements made by Coulter, without being warned of his right to silence or to
an attorney, were admissible.
In a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, the
justices reminded us that “Miranda rules are prophylactic rules that the court
found to be necessary to protect the Fifth Amendment right against compelled
self-incrimination.” See Vega v. Tekoh, 597 U.S. __, 2022 WL 2251304 (June
23, 2022).
The decision in Tekoh, went so far as to
suggest that suppression issues should not necessarily have bright-line rules,
but should be analyzed on a case-by-case basis using a cost-benefit analysis.
Tekoh’s civil rights complaint alleged that police
questioned him about a reported sexual assault at his workplace, a medical
facility. Tekoh was not informed of his rights under Miranda. Tekoh eventually
provided a written statement apologizing for inappropriately touching the
patient’s genitals.
Tekoh was prosecuted for unlawful sexual
penetration. His written statement was admitted against him at trial. After the
jury returned a verdict of not guilty, Tekoh sued the police for a violation of
his civil rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983.
The Ninth Circuit held that the use of an
un-Mirandized statement against a defendant in a criminal proceeding violates
the Fifth Amendment and may support a Section 1983 claim against the officer
who obtained the statement. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed. A violation of
the Miranda rules does not provide a basis for a Section 1983 claim.
When the Supreme Court creates a prophylactic rule
to protect a constitutional right, the relevant “reasoning” is the weighing of
the rule’s benefits against its costs.
Examples of the high court weighing costs and
benefits when making a suppression decision are evident in two rulings of the
court.
In Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778,
793 (2009), Jesse Montejo was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
At his trial, the prosecution submitted a letter of apology he wrote to the
victim’s wife. Montejo wrote the letter at the suggestion of a detective who
accompanied him in a search for the murder weapon. Before the search he was
Mirandized, but neither he nor the police were aware that a lawyer had been
appointed to represent him.
The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the letter of
apology Montejo wrote was admissible because he had to do something beyond
“mute acquiescence” to trigger the protections of the Sixth Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court overruled prior
decisions that held that evidence obtained through interrogation after the
defendant has invoked his right to counsel was inadmissible. The court ruled
that the prior decisions of the court were unworkable in jurisdictions that
appoint counsel regardless of a defendant’s request. Instead, the court stated
that the protections afforded under Miranda were sufficient to protect a
defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights from police badgering.
In Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U.S. 98, 106
(2010) Blain Shatzer was incarcerated for the sexual assault of a child when he
as interviewed by police for the sexual abuse of his own 3-year-old child.
He invoked the Fifth Amendment requesting an
attorney be present during his interview. The investigation was subsequently
closed. It was reopened several years later. Shatzer was interviewed a second
time, and advised of his Miranda rights. He waived his rights, and confessed to
sexually abusing his child.
Shatzer moved to suppress the confessions he made
during his second interview arguing that his prior invocation of the Fifth
Amendment was still applicable.
The Supreme Court found that a break
in Miranda custody that enabled the suspect to be re-acclimated to
normal life did not mandate suppression. In Shatzer’s case a number of years
passed between interviews. However, the court set a bright-line standard of 14
days. If 14 days passes between a first and second interview the police are
able treat a subsequent interview as though it were a first interview.
In Coulter, the recent decision from the Fifth
Circuit, Judge Edith H. Jones ruled that Coulter’s statements while handcuffed
were admissible, even though he had not received Miranda warnings before he
told the officer where the gun could be found.
In an unusual concurrence to her own majority
opinion, Jones argued that when appeal judges can’t agree on whether a
traffic-stop suspect is in custody for Miranda warning purposes, the panel
“ought to consider the costs and benefits of suppressing incriminatory
statements.” As the high court said in Tekoh a violation of Miranda
does not necessarily constitute a violation of the Constitution, and therefore
such a violation does not constitute “the deprivation of a right … secured
by the Constitution.”
“A judicially crafted” prophylactic rule should
apply “only where its benefits outweigh its costs.”
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with
Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George in New Castle. He is the author of “The
Executioner’s Toll,” 2010. He was the former district attorney of Lawrence
County. Contact him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter
@MatthewTMangino.
To visit the column CLICK HERE
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment