Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Law enforcement officers must give Miranda warnings prior to “questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.” 1 Such warnings are thus required when a person is (1) taken into custody, and (2) subject to interrogation. The Supreme Court has explained that whether a person is “in custody” depends on the results of a two-part test that considers whether a reasonable person in the suspect’s shoes would feel that he could freely exercise his right against self-incrimination and the degree to which the suspect’s freedom of action is restricted.

First, whether a person is “in custody” during questioning depends on the degree of coercive pressure imposed on him. The Court applies an objective, context-specific test that considers the degree of intimidation that a reasonable person in the suspect’s shoes would feel if he were to freely exercise his right against self-incrimination. A police officer’s subjective and undisclosed view that a person being interrogated is a criminal suspect is not relevant for Miranda purposes, nor is the subjective view of the person being questioned.2 However, age may weigh in favor of requiring Miranda warnings if the detainee is a juvenile.3

Second, the Supreme Court has considered whether various restrictions on a person’s freedom of action constitute taking that person into custody for purposes of Miranda. The Court has determined that, for example, an ordinary traffic stop does not to amount to Miranda “custody.” 4 Moreover, interrogating a prison inmate about previous outside conduct does not necessarily amount to custody, even if the inmate is isolated from the general prison population for questioning.5 The fact that a suspect may be present in a police station does not necessarily mean, absent further restrictions, that questioning is custodial.6 By itself, the fact that the suspect is in his home or other familiar surroundings will not ordinarily lead to a conclusion that the inquiry was custodial.7 However, questioning a person upon arrest in his home may be custodial.8 When a person has been subjected to Miranda custody that custody ends when he is free to resume his normal life activities after questioning.9 Nevertheless, a break in custody may not end all Miranda implications for subsequent custodial interrogations.10

In addition to requiring that a person be taken into custody to trigger Miranda warnings, such warnings must precede custodial interrogation. It is not necessary under Miranda that the police ask a question in order to “interrogate” the suspect, as demonstrated in Rhode Island v. Innis.11 There, police had apprehended the defendant as a murder suspect but had not found the weapon used. While he was being transported to police headquarters in a squad car, the officers did not question the defendant, who after receiving Miranda warnings had wanted to consult a lawyer. However, the officers discussed among themselves that a school for children with disabilities was near the crime scene, and that they hoped to find the weapon before it injured a child. The defendant then took them to the weapon’s hiding place.

Unanimously rejecting a contention that only express questioning violates Miranda, the Court said: We conclude that the Miranda safeguards come into play whenever a person in custody is subjected to either express questioning or its functional equivalent. That is to say, the term ‘interrogation’ under Miranda refers not only to express questioning, but also to any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect. The latter portion of this definition focuses primarily upon the perceptions of the suspect, rather than the intent of the police. This focus reflects the fact that the Miranda safeguards were designed to vest a suspect in custody with an added measure of protection against coercive police practices, without regard to objective proof of the underlying intent of the police.12

The Court, however, concluded that the officers’ conversation was not the functional equivalent of questioning and the evidence was admissible.13 A later Court applied Innis in Arizona v. Mauro14 to hold that a suspect who had requested an attorney was not “interrogated” when the police instead brought the suspect’s wife, who also was a suspect, to speak with him in the police’s presence. The majority emphasized that the suspect’s wife had asked to speak with her husband; therefore, the meeting was not a police-initiated ruse designed to elicit a response from the suspect. Furthermore, the meeting could not be characterized as a police attempt to use the coercive nature of confinement to extract a confession that would not have been given in an unrestricted environment.

In Estelle v. Smith,15 the Court held that a court-ordered jailhouse interview by a psychiatrist seeking to determine the defendant’s competency to stand trial constituted “interrogation” with respect to testimony on issues of guilt and punishment. Thus, the psychiatrist’s conclusions about the defendant’s dangerousness were inadmissible at the capital sentencing phase of the trial because the defendant had not received his Miranda warnings prior to the interview. That a psychiatrist designated to conduct a neutral competency examination had questioned the defendant, rather than a police officer, was “immaterial,” the Court concluded, because the psychiatrist’s testimony at the penalty phase changed his role from one of neutrality to that of the prosecution’s agent.16

Footnotes

1

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444 (1966) (emphasis added).

2

Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318 (1994).

3

J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. 261 (2011) (case remanded to evaluate whether a 13-year-old student questioned by a uniformed police officer and school administrators on school grounds was in custody).

4

Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440 (1984) (roadside questioning of motorist stopped for traffic violation not custodial interrogation until “freedom of action is curtailed to a ‘degree associated with formal arrest’” ). Thus, “custody” for self-incrimination purposes under the Fifth Amendment does not necessarily cover all detentions that are “seizures” under the Fourth Amendment. Id.

5

Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. 499 (2012) (taking a prisoner incarcerated for disorderly conduct aside for questioning about an unrelated child molestation incident held, 6-3, not to constitute custodial interrogation under the totality of the circumstances), distinguishing Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1 (1968) (questioning state prisoner about unrelated federal tax violation held to be custodial interrogation). While the Howes Court split 6-3 on whether a custodial interrogation had taken place for Fifth Amendment purposes, the case was before it on habeas review, which requires that a clearly established Supreme Court precedent mandates a contrary result. All the Howes Justices agreed that Mathis had not, for purposes of habeas review of a state case, “clearly established” that all private questioning of an inmate about previous, outside conduct was “custodial” per se. Rather, Howes explained that a broader assessment of all relevant factors in each case was necessary to establish coercive pressure amounting to “custody.” Cf. Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U.S. 98 (2010) (extended release of interrogated inmate back into the general prison population broke “custody” for purposes of later questioning); see also Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292 (1990) (inmate’s conversation with an undercover agent does not create a coercive, police-dominated environment and does not implicate Miranda if the suspect does not know that he is conversing with a government agent).

6

Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492 (1977) (suspect came voluntarily to police station to be questioned, he was not placed under arrest while there, and he was allowed to leave at end of interview, even though he was named by victim as culprit; questioning took place behind closed doors, and he was falsely informed his fingerprints had been found at scene of crime); Salinas v. Texas, 570 U.S. 178 (2013) (plurality opinion) (voluntarily accompanying police to station for questioning). Cf. Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318 (1994). See also Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420 (1984) (required reporting to probationary officer is not custodial situation); Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652 (2004) (state court determination that a teenager brought to police station by his parents was not “in custody” was not “unreasonable” for purposes of federal habeas review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)).

7

Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341 (1976) (IRS agents’ interview with taxpayer in private residence was not a custodial interrogation, although inquiry had “focused” on him).

8

Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324 (1969) (police entered suspect’s bedroom at 4 a.m., told him he was under arrest, and questioned him; four of the eight Justices who took part in the case, including three dissenters, voiced concern about “broadening” Miranda beyond the police station).

9

This holds even in the case of a convict who is released after interrogation back into the general population. Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U.S. 98 (2010).

10

Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 (1981).

11

446 U.S. 291 (1980). A similar factual situation was presented in Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387 (1977), which the Court decided under the Sixth Amendment. In Brewer, Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964), and United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264 (1980), the Court had difficulty explaining what constitutes interrogation for Sixth Amendment counsel purposes. The Innis Court indicated that the definitions are not the same for each Amendment. 446 U.S. at 300 n.4.

12

Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300–01 (1980).

13

446 U.S. at 302–04. See also Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292 (1990) (absence of coercive environment makes Miranda inapplicable to jail cell conversation between suspect and police undercover agent).

14

481 U.S. 520 (1987).

15

451 U.S. 454 (1981).

16

451 U.S. 454 (1981).