Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-56650/USCOURTS-ca9-12-56650-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Greg Lewis
Appellee
Adrian Reyes
Appellant

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ADRIAN REYES,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

GREG LEWIS, Warden,

Respondent-Appellee.

No. 12-56650

D.C. No.

5:12-cv-00691-GAF-E

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Gary A. Feess, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

November 19, 2014—Pasadena, California

Filed August 14, 2015

Before: William A. Fletcher and Jay S. Bybee, Circuit

Judges, and James K. Singleton, Senior District Judge.*

Opinion by Judge W. Fletcher;

Concurrence by Judge Singleton

* The Honorable James K. Singleton, Senior District Judge for the U.S.

District Court for the District of Alaska, sitting by designation.

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2 REYES V. LEWIS

SUMMARY**

Habeas Corpus

The panel reversed the district court’s denial of a habeas

corpus petition alleging that petitioner’s state-court

conviction rested on a confession obtained in violation of

Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004).

The panel held that for the purpose of review under the

Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, Justice

Kennedy’s concurrence in Siebert constitutes “clearly

established” Supreme Court law. Under this concurrence, a

post-Miranda-warning statement must be suppressed if

interrogating officers deliberately use the two-step

interrogation technique that was used in Siebert, and if

effective curative measures are not taken to ensure that the

suspect genuinely understood the Miranda warnings. The

two-step technique involves interrogating in successive,

unwarned and warned phases.

The panel held that under the circumstances of this case ̄

where police interrogated the fifteen-year-old petitioner over

the course of two days; where on the first day at a police

station they conducted a two-hour unwarned interrogation;

where on the second day at a sheriff’s station they obtained

a confession during an unwarned interrogation following an

unwarned polygraph test; and where they transported the

petitioner back to the police station and obtained a

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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REYES V. LEWIS 3

postwarning confession “clarifying” what he had stated at the

sheriff’s station ̄a Siebert analysis was clearly required.

The panel held that because the state court did not

conduct such an analysis, its decision was contrary to clearly

established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court,

and thus was owed no deference. The panel held that the

district court clearly erred in finding that the law enforcement

officers had not deliberately employed the two-step

interrogation process. In addition, the officers did not take

effective curative measures. The panel held, alternatively, in

agreement with the concurrence, that the state court’s

conclusion that sufficient curative measures were taken was

an unreasonable determination of the facts. The panel

reversed and remanded with instructions to grant the writ

unless the petitioner was tried within a reasonable time, not

to exceed 180 days.

Concurring, District Judge Singleton wrote that a Siebert

analysis includes two parts. First, the court asks whether the

two-step interrogation procedure was chosen intentionally in

order to render subsequent Miranda warnings ineffective. 

Second, the court asks if the two-step process, whether or not

intentional, rendered the subsequent warnings ineffective. 

Judge Singleton wrote that the state court followed Siebert by

applying the second part of the test and concluding that

sufficient curative measures were taken. Reviewing the first

part of the test de novo, because the state court did not

address it, Judge Singleton agreed with the majority that the

use of the two-step procedure was a conscious effort to

undermine Miranda. Granting deference to the state court on

the second part of the Siebert test, Judge Singleton wrote that

the state court’s finding was based on an unreasonable

determination of the facts.

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4 REYES V. LEWIS

COUNSEL

Elizabeth Armena Missakian (argued), SanDiego, California,

for Petitioner-Appellant.

Kevin Vienna (argued), David Delgado-Rucci, and Daniel

Rodgers, Deputy Attorneys General, Julie L. Garland, Senior

Assistant Attorney General, and Kamala D. Harris, Attorney

General, San Diego, California, for Respondent-Appellee

OPINION

W. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge:

Petitioner Adrian Reyes petitions for a writ of habeas

corpus on the ground, inter alia, that his state-court

conviction rested on a confession obtained in violation of

Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004). For the reasons that

follow, we reverse the district court and remand with

instructions to grant the writ.

I. Factual Background

On January 11, 2006, an armed person got out of a silver

Toyota Camry and shot Derek Ochoa three times. The person

may have yelled “Delhi” (the name of an Orange County

gang). Ochoa died as a result of the shooting. He was a

senior at La Sierra High School in Riverside County.

Riverside Police Department officers traced the Camry to

the home of Andres Munoz, an older cousin of petitioner

Adrian Reyes. The car was registered to another member of

the Munoz family, Albert. Reyes had recently moved to

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REYES V. LEWIS 5

Riverside County from Orange County. He was a freshman

at La Sierra. He was not quite two months past his fifteenth

birthday.

The day before the shooting, Reyes had been walking

home from school with a friend. A carload of gang members

drove up and asked Reyes where he was from. Reyes

answered “Delhi.” One of the gang members punched Reyes

in the eye. They then drove away, yelling “South Side

Riverside 51-50.”

Two days after the shooting, Riverside Police Department

homicide detectives James Brandt and Rick Wheeler

questioned Reyes at his aunt’s home. Reyes had moved from

his family’s home to his aunt’s home the day after his assault

by the gang members. The detectives’ questions related

primarily to the assault. During the questioning, Reyes

acknowledged that he had known Ochoa and that he knew

Delhi was a “group in Santa Ana.”

Nearly a month later, on February 9, sometime between

5:20 and 5:30 in the morning, a SWAT team of between

fifteen and twenty officers executed a search warrant on

Reyes’s aunt’s home. They handcuffed Reyes and searched

the house. In Reyes’s bedroom they discovered papers with

“Delhi” written in large block letters. After the house was

secured, Reyes was released from handcuffs and allowed to

eat breakfast.

Brandt told Reyes that he was not under arrest, but that he

wanted to ask him some questions at the station. Reyes

acquiesced, and he was driven to the Riverside police station. 

Reyes was not accompanied to the station by any family

member. At the station, Brandt and Wheeler together

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6 REYES V. LEWIS

questioned Reyes. At no point during their questioning on

February 9 did they provide Miranda warnings.

Reyes was held at the station for some time before he was

questioned. Wheeler began the interview by saying, “Thanks

for being so dang patient man I appreciate you . . . [h]anging

out for us ’cause it’s been a long day, long day.” Wheeler

told Reyes that he could stop the interview at any time: “Ijust

wanna make sure that you understand that if we get at some

point in the interview that you’re done talkin’ . . . and you

don’t feel like answering any more questions or whatever, let

me know, okay?”

Wheeler asked briefly about the assault the day before the

shooting. He then asked about the shooting. He said that the

search warrants had been executed and that they had talked

“with all these different people.” “[W]e got pictures, too, . . .

and I’ve had more than one person say that’s the car that the

guy was in, okay? . . . I’ve got enough information that shows

that you were there.” (Wheeler’s statement was false. The

only witness who had made any type of identification had not

identified Reyes.) According to the transcript, Wheeler was

interrupted by the “sound of sniffing.” Wheeler continued,

“[T]here’s no denying it. . . . [T]he truth is gonna come out

and, and I already know what it is.” Reyes denied that he was

there. “I didn’t go out that day you could ask my Mom, you

would ask anybody in my home I didn’t come out that day, I

was sleeping.” When Wheeler said that the police had

spoken to his family already, Reyes said, “Don’t you guys

have a lie detector or something? I, I was in my house.”

Brandt then took over the questioning. He challenged

Reyes, saying that he had his phone records. “When your

phone is being used basically six, seven, eight times an hour

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REYES V. LEWIS 7

every, you know, on an average every five minutes so you’re

not sleeping okay?” Brandt was interrupted by the “sound of

sniffing.” Brandt suggested a mitigating version of events: 

“There is a big difference between being in the car when this

thing happens . . . and being the shooter and stuff. . . . So

just tell us what happened, okay?” “We’ve done our

homework, dude and . . . don’t screw yourself and lie to us,

seriously, tell us what happened.”

Wheeler and Brandt pressed Reyes on the inconsistency

between Reyes’s statements and his phone records. Wheeler

asked him about the papers found in his room with “Delhi

written in big letters.” Brandt said, “We work homicide,

alright, we gonna do our homework, definitely, I’m telling

you, we have the car, we have the gun, we have five guns

total. . . .” (Brandt’s statement was false. The Sheriff’s

Department had not recovered—indeed, never did

recover—the gun used to shoot Ochoa.)

Wheeler and Brandt continued to press Reyes. Brandt

said, “[T]here’s another detective was out showing witnesses

the picture . . . ’cause we had a picture of you.” Wheeler

immediately followed, “And we identified you as being in the

car.” (Wheeler’s statement was false. Reyes had not been

identified by anyone as having been in the car.) Brandt said,

“I’m not trying to trick you and . . . I’m not making the stuff

up that I’m telling you . . . . [S]o you know I’m not trying to

trick you.”

Brandt talked about Ochoa’s family and their “right to

understand what happened.” Reyes responded, “I don’t really

want to say nothing no more . . . trying to cooperate here.” 

(Elision in original.) Brandt replied, “You’re not

cooperating.” Brandt was interrupted multiple times by the

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8 REYES V. LEWIS

“sound of sniffing.” A moment later, Brandt said, “Tell me

what happened.” Reyes responded, “I don’t know nothing

man.”

Reyes said, “Stop askingme questions.” Brandt said, “No

I’m not gonna stop asking you questions.” Brandt was again

interrupted by the “sound of sniffing.”

Brandt said, “[A]re you willing to take a polygraph

examination?” Reyes responded, “Yeah.” Brandt elaborated,

“About everything.” Reyes responded, “I guess, man, I don’t

know nothing man.” Reyes mentioned that he might need to

have his parents there, but Brandt interrupted him, saying,

“[W]e’ll certainly arrange for all that stuff just seeing that

you’re willing to . . . do it.”

A moment later, Reyes said, “You guys stop asking me

. . . kinda questions.” (Elision in original.) “Stop[] asking

this kind of stuff man.” Wheeler, who had begun the

interview by telling Reyes that he could stop at any time, did

not stop. He responded to Reyes, “The only rope that you got

is me throwing it to you right now and telling you ‘you gotta

be clean’ because you haven’t been. This thing’s gonna burn

you down.”

Wheeler persisted, interrupted frequently by the “sound

of sniffing.” Reyes continued to indicate that he did not want

to talk. “I’ve got nothing to say man.” Brandt took over the

questioning: “Okay, so witnesses identifying you and other

people in the car identifying you, . . . you’re good with that?

. . . You want us to go in there with this two-hour

conversation of you just lying about where you were when

your phone records show it’s not the case and all that stuff,

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REYES V. LEWIS 9

you’re comfortable with that.” Reyes replied, “Stop asking

me man. I don’t know nothing.”

Brandt terminated the interview, saying, “This time when

I walk out I’m not gonna come back and give you another

shot, okay? We’re gonna, we’ll, we’ll go to the D.A.’s office

and, and then later on to court with the case we have and, and

I’m, I’m not worried about it, I’m not gonna lose.” Wheeler

added, “Oh ya, we’re not gonna lose that case.” Brandt said,

“Last chance.” Reyes responded, “I don’t know nothing

man.”

The transcript of the February 9 interview does not

indicate start and stop times, but it is apparent from Brandt’s

statement referring to “this two-hour conversation,” quoted

above, that the interview took about two hours. Brandt

testified at Reyes’s preliminary hearing that the interview

had taken “forty minutes to an hour,” but his testimony is

inconsistent with what he himself said during the interview

and with the length of the transcript. The interview was

interrupted thirty-three times by the “sound of sniffing.”

Reyes went to his mother’s house to sleep that night. The

next morning, Brandt and Michael Medici, another Riverside

Police Department detective, picked up Reyes and took him

to the San Bernardino County sheriff ’s station for a

polygraph test. There is no written consent by an adult to the

polygraph test. Brandt testified at the preliminary hearing

that Reyes’s mother gave permission “on the phone,” and the

record contains a police report stating that she had given

permission. No family member accompanied Reyes to the

sheriff’s station.

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10 REYES V. LEWIS

Robert Heard of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s

Department administered the polygraph test. Before

administering the test, Heard spoke with Reyes for a

sustained period. He impressed on Reyes the fact that he was

an experienced test administrator. He recounted that he had

gone to “polygraph school” “9 years before you were born,”

and that he was high demand as a polygraph teacher. At no

point did Heard provide Miranda warnings.

Reyes had difficulty filling out a form Heard gave him,

not knowing his zip code or his height and weight. Reyes had

even more difficulty with the written consent form. When he

did not understand the terms “duress and coercion” and

“immunity,” Heard explained them in simpler language. 

Reyes had particular trouble understanding what was meant

by the sentence, “I hereby release the County of San

Bernardino, the Sheriff’s Department and Examiner

administering this examination from any and all claims

resulting from, or arising out of, this examination. . . .” After

Heard explained what “release . . . from any and all claims”

meant, Reyes said, “Alright, so that, that means like that you

guys won’t, won’t trick me . . . .” Heard corrected him,

saying, “Well, no, this doesn’t say I won’t trick you.” Heard

then added, “[Y]ou have my word I won’t trick you.” Heard

again explained what “release” meant, and said, “That’s what

it means.” Reyes responded, “Like you haven’t tricked me or

something.” Heard replied, “Exactly, exactly.” Thus

informed, Reyes signed the consent form.

After administering the test, Heard told Reyes, “You

failed the test. I have no doubt that you were there when

Derek was shot.” (There is nothing in the record to indicate

whether Reyes had in fact failed the test.) Heard pressed

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REYES V. LEWIS 11

Reyes to give details about what he had done. Reyes asked,

“[L]ike what’s the truth gonna help?” Heard answered:

[T]hey read my report and the detectives, their

supervisor reads the report. . . . And the

District Attorney’s gonna ask these detectives

hey, how was Adrian? Is he one of these, you

know tough, gang banger type guys[]? No,

no. Adrian’s a nice young man. He

cooperated, failed the test, and without

hesitation he says hey, look, man, I feel bad

about what happened. . . . Adrian, I can’t tell

you what’s gonna happen because you know

what? I don’t know. I don’t[] know what’s

gonna happen because you haven’t told me

what happened out there. . . . [Y]ou tell me

I’m going to state prison for, I, I, said 25 to

life or something like that. Fifteen year olds

don’t go to state prison, Adrian.

Reyes responded, “I know, but I’ve got a go to Juvenile

Hall.” Heard replied, “Well, I don’t know what’s gonna

happen because I, you haven’t told me anything yet, Adrian.”

Heard continued to ask Reyes what happened, and Reyes

repeated several times that he did not know. Heard asked

from what side of the car the shooter had shot. Reyes

responded, “Oh, not that I know, you know, so don’t ask any

question.” Heard asked, “You wanna be alone?” Reyes

replied, “No, it’s just, just don’t ask any questions,” and then

said, “Can we just call the detectives?”

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12 REYES V. LEWIS

Brandt and Medici then came into the room and took over

from Heard. At no point in the interview that followed did

they provide Miranda warnings.

Brandt asked at the outset, “[W]hat’s your biggest

concern, going to jail?”

Reyes: Think so.

Brandt: At all or for a long time?

Reyes: For a long time.

Brandt: Okay, how long do you think you

would go to jail for?

Reyes: I don’t know. Like it’s a murder,

probably like 25 years.

Brandt: Yeah? How old are you?

Reyes: 15.

Brandt: How many 15 year olds do you know

that go to jail for 25 years?

Reyes: None.

Brandt: Huh?

Reyes: None.

Brandt: Okay, so why would you be any

different?

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REYES V. LEWIS 13

Reyes: I don’t know.

Brandt then asked, “Remember yesterday I asked you . . .

if Derek had anything in his hands or reached for his pockets,

anything like that? You remember me asking you that?” 

Reyes replied, “No.” Brandt then told Reyes that Ochoa had

had a gun:

There’s a reason, a very easy explanation to

this whole thing. . . . The deal is . . . Derek

had a gun in his pocket. . . . Now, if he’s

going for a gun in his pocket or you believed

he was going for a gun in his pocket and we

find one, that’s obviously, and it’s, there’s an

explanation as to what happened. Maybe you

just stopped and talked to him because you

knew him, and then he’s going for a gun or

something like that . . . and shit happens.

(Third elision in original.) (Brandt’s statement was false. 

Ochoa had not had a gun.)

Brandt went on, “If it’s just . . . a cold blooded thing, no,

we just, went up and . . . did it and, and shot him just because,

um, and I don’t feel bad about it . . . that looks bad.” Reyes

said, “It wasn’t like that.” Brandt said, “Tell me, tell me why,

how did it happen then?” Reyes hesitated. “I’m scared,

man. . . . Make everybody go to prison and everything, like I

want everybody to get locked up.” Brandt responded, “[I]f

he’s going for a gun, dude, . . . that’s gotta be explained. We

have to know that and we have to be able to tell the District

Attorney’s office that . . . .” Reyes still hesitated. After

encouragement from Brandt, he finally said, “Um hmm,

hmm, well, he, you, he always had a gun.”

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14 REYES V. LEWIS

After more encouragement, Reyes said, “He was just

running up to the car.” Brandt asked, “Okay, was he reaching

for his pockets or anything like that?” Reyes replied, “Yeah.” 

Brandt said, “Okay, and what happened?” Reyes replied, “I

don’t know.” Reyes expressed concern about his older

cousin, Andres Munoz, and sought to exculpate him. “Well,

if I say something like what’s going to happen with my

cousin? Is he still gonna go to jail? . . . He had nothing to do

with it.”

Brandt asked, “Did you shoot him because you thought he

was going for a gun? Yeah? Did you . . . see the gun in his

pocket?”

Reyes: He was reaching for it.

Brandt: Okay . . . and then what happened?

Reyes: He had a grip on it.

Brandt: Okay, do you remember . . . what

pocket it was in, what side it was in? Okay,

do you remember seeing the grip of the gun

though? And he was reaching for it? But

what was he yelling at you guys?

Reyes: I don’t know. It was just, I wasn’t

panicked . . . ain’t gonna say nothing, just

scared.

Brandt: You were scared cause he was going

for the gun? And then, and what happened?

Reyes: I don’t know. I just shot.

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REYES V. LEWIS 15

Reyes’s statement that he had shot Ochoa came early in

the interview, on the seventh page of the transcript. Brandt

and Medici continued to question and talk to Reyes for

another thirty-five pages. Much of the later exchange was

friendly, even including a discussion of Christmas. Reyes

said that his family opens presents at “twelve in the night.” 

Brandt responded, “Oh, see I can’t stay up that late,” and

Reyes laughed. Near the end of the interview, Medici asked,

“Does your Mom know about any of this, your Dad?” Reyes

responded, “It’ll be cool like if you guys don’t tell my Mom,

you know, cause . . . [l]ike it’ll break her heart and shit, you

know, cause like she’s very religious.” Brandt told Reyes,

“Oh, we don’t need to run over there.”

Immediately after the February 10 interview at the San

Bernardino sheriff’s station, Brandt drove Reyes back to the

Riverside police station where he and Wheeler had

interviewed him the day before. The length of the drive is not

in the record, but it is apparent from a map of the area that it

was no more than fifteen miles. When they arrived at the

Riverside police station, Reyes was put in an interview room.

Brandt and Medici together questioned Reyes. Brandt

began the interview:

OK. Uuh, we talked to people at the D.A.’s

office and stuff about the case. Kinda told

them that, you know, you came clean and

finally told us the truth and why things

happened and, you know that you were, you

know, obviously scared and all that kind of

stuff. Uuh, there’s more questions that they

want answered, if we can. OK, just to, to

clarify stuff. Alright, so I wanna talk to you

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16 REYES V. LEWIS

again, but because you’ve been sitting in that

room and the door was locked and you’re not

free to leave, I wanna read you your rights,

OK? And then ask you some questions. OK?

You have the right to remain silent. Anything

you say can and will be used against you in a

court of law. You have the right to talk to a

lawyer and have him present with you while

you’re being questioned. If you cannot afford

to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to

represent you before any questioning. Do you

understand each of these rights that I’ve

explained to you? Yeah? OK. Can we talk

about the stuff we talked about earlier today?

Is that a yes?

Reyes, who had not previously spoken, answered, “Yeah.”

Under questioning from Brandt, Reyes repeated his

confession. At the end of the interview, Reyes said, “Let me

call my mom.” Medici then handcuffed Reyes before taking

him to McDonald’s to get something to eat.

The total elapsed time, from when Brandt picked up

Reyes at his mother’s house on February 10 until the

conclusion of the interview at the Riverside police station on

the same day, was somewhere between five and six hours. 

Brandt testified at Reyes’s preliminary hearing that he picked

up Reyes at approximately 9:00 am to drive him to the San

Bernardino sheriff’s station. He estimated that Reyes then

spent about three hours at that station, including both his

polygraph test with Heard and his post-polygraph interview

with Brandt and Medici. During the suppression hearing, the

state represented that Reyes spent four hours at the San

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REYES V. LEWIS 17

Bernardino sheriff’s station. Brandt then drove Reyes to the

Riverside police station for the second interview with Brandt

and Medici. Brandt estimated that the second interview took

between forty minutes and an hour. There is nothing in the

record to indicate that Reyes had anything to eat until Medici

took him to McDonald’s for a late lunch at the conclusion of

the interview at the Riverside police station.

II. Prior Judicial Proceedings

Reyes and his cousin Andres Munoz were charged in

California Superior Court with first-degree murder. They

were tried before the same judge with separate juries. Reyes

moved to suppress his confession as having been obtained in

violation of Miranda. The judge concluded that Reyes’s

February 10 post-polygraph confession at the San Bernardino

sheriff’s station was voluntary but that he had been in custody

within the meaning of Miranda when he made the statement. 

The judge therefore suppressed his unwarned post-polygraph

statement at the sheriff’s station. However, the judge refused

to suppress Reyes’s postwarning confession at the Riverside

police station.

At trial, there was inconsistent evidence about the identity

of the shooter. Except for Reyes’s postwarning confession,

the evidence largely pointed to Reyes’s cousin, Munoz, who

had been the driver of the car, rather than Reyes, who had

been a passenger.

A friend of both Ochoa and Reyes testified that Reyes had

been in the back seat, on the passenger side, of a silver car on

the afternoon of the shooting. An eyewitness to the shooting

testified that she saw the driver of a silver Camry get out of

the car and shoot Ochoa. She made an in-court identification

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18 REYES V. LEWIS

of the driver as Munoz. Another eyewitness agreed with this

account. She testified that the driver got out of the car,

walked toward Ochoa, shot Ochoa, and “continue[d]shooting

until he couldn’t anymore.” She testified that the back door

on the driver’s side was opened, but that no one got out of the

back seat. She was unable to identify the shooter, either

when shown photographs shortly after the shooting, or in the

courtroom.

Another witness testified that he heard gunshots as he was

pulling out of his father’s driveway. He pulled back into the

driveway and got out of the car to look. He testified that he

saw someone get out of the back seat on the passenger side

and come around to the driver’s side. “I don’t know if he

actually went to check on the kid [who had been shot] or . . .

what else happened. . . . [I]t just happened so quick.” He

estimated that the time between the shots being fired and the

person getting out of the back passenger seat “wasn’t

long”—“[m]aybe a couple of seconds.” Yet another witness,

a friend of Ochoa’s, testified that he was on the front porch of

a friend’s house when he heard shots. His view was obscured

by cacti, so he “started walking toward the front yard.” “We

were going towards [Ochoa], and that’s when we saw the guy

shooting at him. But I only saw when he just went inside the

car, like turned around inside the car and yelled out ‘Delhi.’” 

He testified that there were five people in the car and that it

was “light brown.” He testified that he saw only one person

get into the car, and that this person got into the back seat on

the driver’s side.

The jury returned a verdict finding Reyes guilty of firstdegree murder with gang and firearm enhancements. The

judge sentenced Reyes to fifty years to life in prison, twentyfive years for the murder conviction and twenty-five years for

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REYES V. LEWIS 19

the firearm enhancement. The court stayed sentencing on the

two gang enhancements.

Reyes appealed, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court

had erred in admitting his February 10 confession at the

Riverside police station, after he had received Miranda

warnings. In his brief to the California Court of Appeal,

Reyes made an argument based on Seibert. The Court of

Appeal affirmed Reyes’s conviction, holding that his

confession at the Riverside police station was admissible.

In the view of the Court of Appeal, the “operative

question” was whether Reyes’s post-polygraph statement had

been voluntary. The Court of Appeal wrote:

The issue on appeal is whether the trial

court erred in allowing defendant’s

subsequent statements made at the Riverside

police station after defendant was advised of

his Miranda rights. The operative question is

thus whether defendant was subjected to

coercion within the meaning of the Fifth and

Fourteenth Amendments when he was

interrogated at the sheriff’s station and, if so,

whether his statements made thereafter at the

Riverside police station were the tainted

product of the earlier statements.

. . .

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20 REYES V. LEWIS

We thus will consider whether the trial

court erred in finding that defendant’s

statements were voluntary.

(Emphasis added.)

The Court of Appeal then spent nine pages analyzing in

detail what had taken place during the post-polygraph

interview at the police station, concluding that the “trial court

had properly ruled defendant’s statements, both at the

sheriff’s station and thereafter at the Riverside police station,

were voluntary beyond a reasonable doubt.” In the view of

the Court of Appeal, because Reyes’s statements at the

sheriff’s station had been voluntary, his later statements at the

police station were necessarily “likewise volitional.” The

Court of Appeal dismissed Reyes’s argument under Seibert

in a single paragraph, on the ground that his statement at the

Riverside police station had been “volitional”:

Since defendant’s statements made at the

sheriff’s station were voluntary, his waiver of

Miranda rights at the Riverside police station

and statements made thereafter were likewise

volitional. Unlike in Missouri v. Seibert

(2004) 542 U.S. 600, 61[7], the circumstances

in the instant case need not “be seen as

challenging the comprehensibility and

efficacy of the Miranda warnings to the point

that a reasonable person in the suspect’s shoes

would not have understood them to convey a

message that [he] retained a choice about

continuing to talk.” (Id. at p. 61[7].)

(Second alteration in original.)

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Reyes filed a state habeas petition contemporaneously

with his direct appeal. The Court of Appeal declined to

consolidate the petition and the appeal, summarily denying

the petition in a one-sentence order. The California Supreme

Court summarily denied both Reyes’s direct appeal and his

habeas petition.

Reyes timely filed a petition for federal habeas corpus

under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In his Report and Recommendation,

the magistrate judge devoted most of his analysis to whether

Reyes’s Riverside police station confession was coerced. He

concluded under the deferential standard of the AntiTerrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”) that

the Court of Appeal had not been unreasonable in concluding

that the confession was not coerced. He dismissed Reyes’s

Seibert argument in a footnote, concluding that there was no

evidence that the law enforcement officers deliberately

employed the two-step method of interrogation condemned

in that case. The district court adopted without comment or

correction the conclusions and recommendations of the

magistrate judge.

Reyes timely appealed. Prior to oral argument, we asked

the parties to provide supplemental briefs on Seibert and its

application to the facts of this case.

III. Standard of Review

We review de novo the district court’s decision to deny

Reyes’s habeas petition. Martinez-Villareal v. Lewis, 80 F.3d

1301, 1305 (9th Cir. 1996).

Under AEDPA, we may not grant an application for a writ

of habeas corpus for a state prisoner with respect to any claim

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22 REYES V. LEWIS

adjudicated on the merits in state court unless the state

adjudication “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or

involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established

Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the

United States,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1), or “resulted in a

decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of

the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court

proceeding,” id. § 2254(d)(2). “[C]learly established Federal

law” includes only governing legal principles established by

the United States Supreme Court at the time the state decision

was rendered. Greene v. Fisher, 132 S. Ct. 38, 44 (2011).

A state court’s decision is “contrary to” or is an

“unreasonable application” of clearly established federal law

if it applies a rule that contradicts governing Supreme Court

precedent, “unreasonably extends a legal principle . . . to a

new context where it should not apply, or unreasonably

refuses to extend that principle to a new context where it

should apply.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405–07

(2000).

“A state-court decision will certainly be contrary to . . .

clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule

that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme

Court] cases.” Id. at 405; see also Early v. Packer, 537 U.S.

3, 8 (2002) (per curiam) (“Avoiding [a ‘contrary to’ error]

does not require citation of [Supreme Court] cases—indeed,

it does not even require awareness of [Supreme Court] cases,

so long as neither the reasoning nor the result of the statecourt decision contradicts them.”); Frantz v. Hazey, 533 F.3d

724, 734 (9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (“[M]istakes in reasoning

or in predicate decisions of the type in question here—use of

the wrong legal rule or framework—do constitute error under

the ‘contrary to’ prong of § 2254(d)(1).”). If a state court’s

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REYES V. LEWIS 23

decision is “contrary to clearly established Federal law, as

determined by the Supreme Court,” § 2254(d)(1), a federal

habeas court does not owe deference under AEDPA to that

decision. Frantz, 533 F.3d at 739; cf. Panetti v. Quarterman,

551 U.S. 930, 948 (2007) (stating this rule for “unreasonable

application” error). If a “contrary to” error is identified, then

“we must decide the habeas petition by considering de novo

the constitutional issues raised.” Frantz, 533 F.3d at 735.

We may also grant a writ of habeas corpus in cases where

the state-court decision “was based on an unreasonable

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented

in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). We

“may not second-guess a state court’s fact-finding process

unless, after review of the state-court record, [we]

determine[] that the state court was not merely wrong, but

actually unreasonable.” Taylor v. Maddox, 366 F.3d 992, 999

(9th Cir. 2004). To grant relief under this prong, “we must be

convinced that an appellate panel, applying the normal

standards of appellate review, could not reasonably conclude

that the finding is supported by the record.” Id. at 1000.

The relevant state court decision for purposes of AEDPA

review is the last reasoned state court decision. Ylst v.

Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 804–06 (1991); Medley v.

Runnels, 506 F.3d 857, 862 (9th Cir. 2007) (en banc). Here,

that decision is the California Court of Appeal’s decision on

direct review of Reyes’s conviction. See Nunnemaker, 501

U.S. at 805–06.

IV. Discussion

Reyes makes two arguments. First, he argues that his

warned Riverside police station confession on February 10

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24 REYES V. LEWIS

was coerced in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Second, he

argues that this confession was admitted in violation of

Seibert. For the reasons that follow, we agree with Reyes’s

second argument. We therefore do not need to reach his first

argument.

A. “Contrary To”

As the Supreme Court explained in Oregon v. Elstad,

470 U.S. 298, 304 (1985), “[p]rior to Miranda, the

admissibility of an accused’s in-custody statements was

judged solely by whether they were ‘voluntary’ within the

meaning of the Due Process Clause.” That is, the preMiranda exclusionaryrule analysis was simply a Due Process

Clause voluntariness inquiry. Miranda fundamentallyaltered

the analysis: “The Miranda Court . . . presumed that

interrogation in certain custodial circumstances is inherently

coercive and held that statements made under those

circumstances are inadmissible unless the suspect is

specificallyinformed of his Miranda rights and freelydecides

to forego those rights.” New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649,

654 (1984). The Court was concerned in Miranda that its

“‘traditional totality-of-the-circumstances’ test posed an

‘unacceptably great’ risk that involuntary custodial

confessions would escape detection.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at

608 (quoting Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 444

(2000)). The Court therefore held in Miranda that finding a

statement had been “voluntary” would no longer be

sufficient. The Court explained, “Failure to administer

Miranda warnings creates a presumption of compulsion. 

Consequently, unwarned statements that are otherwise

voluntary within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment must

nevertheless be excluded from evidence under Miranda.” 

Elstad, 470 U.S. at 307 (emphasis added). Miranda and later

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cases thus clearly establish that voluntariness, while relevant

to the admissibility of a statement given during a custodial

interrogation, is not by itself sufficient to establish the

statement’s admissibility.

Miranda was decided in 1966. By the time the Court

decided Seibert in 2004, “Miranda warnings” had taken on 

near-talismanic significance, almost guaranteeing

admissibility of a warned statement. Justice Souter wrote in

Seibert that “giving the warnings and getting a waiver has

generally produced a virtual ticket of admissibility;

maintaining that a statement is involuntary even though given

after warnings and voluntary waiver of rights requires

unusual stamina, and litigation over voluntariness tends to

end with the finding of a valid waiver.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at

608–09 (Souter, J., plurality opinion). In Elstad, the Court

had held that an unwarned voluntary confession followed by

a voluntary warned confession did not require the exclusion

of the second, warned confession. But in Seibert, the Court

limited its holding in Elstad. In some circumstances, the

Court wrote in Seibert, “the technique of interrogating in

successive, unwarned and warned phases,” was a “new

challenge to Miranda” that Elstad had not resolved. Id. at

609.

In Seibert, a police officer in Rolla, Missouri, conducted

an unwarned interrogation of Seibert that was “systematic,

exhaustive, and managed with psychological skill.” Id. at

616. The unwarned interrogation produced a confession. 

The officer then gave Seibert a twenty-minute coffee and

cigarette break. After the break, he read Seibert her Miranda

warnings, and she signed a written waiver. The officer then

resumed questioning, reminding Seibert of her prior

prewarning statements. Id. at 605. The officer later “testified

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that he made a ‘conscious decision’ to withhold Miranda

warnings, thus resorting to an interrogation technique he had

been taught: question first, then give the warnings, and then

repeat the question ‘until I get the answer that she’s already

provided once.’” Id. at 605–06. The Seibert plurality wrote,

with some understatement, that the use of this two-step

interrogation technique “[wa]s not confined to Rolla,

Missouri.” Id. at 609. Indeed, as the plurality noted, its use

had been promoted and endorsed by national police training

organizations including the Police Law Institute. Id. at

609–10.

Justice Souter observed in his plurality opinion in Seibert

that the purpose of the two-step interrogation technique was

“to render Miranda warnings ineffective by waiting for a

particularly opportune time to give them, after the suspect has

already confessed.” Id. at 611. He concluded:

It would have been reasonable to regard the

two sessions as parts of a continuum, in which

it would have been unnatural to refuse to

repeat at the second stage what had been said

before. These circumstances must be seen as

challenging the comprehensibility and

efficacy of the Miranda warnings to the point

that a reasonable person in the suspect’s shoes

would not have understood them to convey a

message that she retained a choice about

continuing to talk.

Id. at 616–17. In a footnote appended to this passage, Justice

Souter made clear that if a two-step interrogation technique

violated Miranda, the voluntariness of the postwarning

statement is irrelevant. In that circumstance, even a voluntary

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statement must be suppressed. Justice Souter wrote,

“Because we find that the warnings were inadequate, there is

no need to assess the actual voluntariness of the statement.” 

Id. at 617 n.8.

Concurring, Justice Kennedy agreed with Justice Souter

that, if deliberately employed, a two-part interrogation

technique presented “different considerations” from earlier

Miranda cases. Id. at 620 (Kennedy, J., concurring in the

judgment). While Justice Kennedy’s fifth-vote concurrence

narrowed Seibert’s holding to “those cases involving

deliberate use of the two-step procedure to weaken

Miranda’s protections,” United States v. Williams, 435 F.3d

1156, 1157–58 (9th Cir. 2006) (emphasis added), the plurality

and Justice Kennedy agreed that even a voluntary

postwarning confession must be excluded where law

enforcement officials deliberately withheld Miranda

warnings until after obtaining an in-custody confession, and

where insufficient curative measures had been taken to ensure

that the suspect understood the meaning and importance of

the previously withheld warnings.

Justice Kennedy wrote:

The plurality concludes that whenever a

two-stage interview occurs, admissibility of

the postwarning statement should depend on

“whether [the] Miranda warnings delivered

midstream could have been effective enough

to accomplish their object” given the specific

facts of the case. . . . I would apply a

narrower test applicable only in the infrequent

case, such as we have here, in which the twostep interrogation technique was used in a

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calculated way to undermine the Miranda

warning.

The admissibility of postwarning

statements should continue to be governed by

the principles of Elstad unless the deliberate

two-step strategy was employed. If the

deliberate two-step strategy has been used,

postwarning statements that are related to the

substance of prewarning statements must be

excluded unless curative measures are taken

before the postwarning statement is made. 

Curative measures should be designed to

ensure that a reasonable person in the

suspect’s situation would understand the

import and effect of the Miranda warning and

of the Miranda waiver. For example, a

substantial break in time and circumstances

between the prewarning statement and the

Miranda warning may suffice in most

circumstances, as it allows the accused to

distinguish the two contexts and appreciate

that the interrogation has taken a new turn. 

Alternatively, an additional warning that

explains the likely inadmissibility of the

prewarning custodial statement may be

sufficient.

Id. at 621–22 (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment)

(internal citations omitted).

The Court has instructed us to take as “clearly

established” for purposes of § 2254 the “narrowest” opinion

in a fractured majority, as defined under Marks v. United

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States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977). See Panetti, 551 U.S. at

949. In accordance with this instruction, we have held that

Justice Kennedy’s concurrence “represents Seibert’s

holding.” Williams, 435 F.3d at 1158; accord United States

v. Capers, 627 F.3d 470, 476 (2d Cir. 2010) (collecting

cases). While Supreme Court precedent is the only definitive

source of “clearly established” federal law, we may consider

circuit precedent for the limited purpose of assessing what

constitutes “clearly established” Supreme Court law. Woods

v. Sinclair, 764 F.3d 1109, 1121 (9th Cir. 2014).

Justice Kennedy’s concurrence thus constitutes “clearly

established” law for the purpose of AEDPA review. Under

JusticeKennedy’s concurrence, a postwarning statement must

be suppressed if interrogating officers deliberately use the

two-step interrogation technique that was used in Seibert, and

if effective curative measures are not taken to ensure that the

suspect genuinely understood the Miranda warnings. In the

words of Justice Kennedy, quoted above, “[c]urative

measures should be designed to ensure that a reasonable

person in the suspect’s situation would understand the import

and effect of the Miranda warning and of the Miranda

waiver.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 622 (Kennedy, J., concurring in

the judgment).

The California Court of Appeal did not understand

Seibert. In the view of the Court of Appeal, the “operative

question” under Miranda was whether Reyes’s unwarned

post-polygraph statement at the San Bernardino sheriff’s

station had been voluntary. In the view of the Court of

Appeal, if that statement had been voluntary, his later

Mirandized statement at the San Bernardino police station

was necessarily “likewise volitional.” The Court of Appeal

spent nine pages addressing the voluntariness of Reyes’s

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unwarned post-polygraph statement at the San Bernardino

sheriff’s station. For the Court of Appeal, the voluntariness

of that statement determined the admissibility of the

subsequent warned statement at the Riverside police station. 

The Court of Appeal addressed Seibert in a single paragraph.

We quoted that paragraph above, but we reproduce it

here, in its entirety, for the convenience of the reader:

Since defendant’s statements made at the

sheriff’s station were voluntary, his waiver of

Miranda rights at the Riverside police station

and statements made thereafter were likewise

volitional. Unlike in Missouri v. Seibert

(2004) 542 U.S. 600, 616, the circumstances

in the instant case need not “be seen as

challenging the comprehensibility and

efficacy of the Miranda warnings to the point

that a reasonable person in the suspect’s shoes

would not have understood them to convey a

message that [he] retained a choice about

continuing to talk.” (Id. at p. 616.)

(Alteration in original.) The first sentence of the paragraph

recites the Court of Appeal’s conclusion that Reyes’s

postwarning statement was “volitional.” The second sentence

states that, unlike in Seibert, Reyes “retained a choice about

continuing to talk.” That is, in the Court of Appeal’s view,

because Reyes “retained a choice,” his “continuing to talk”

was voluntary.

The clearly established rule under Seibert is that if

officers deliberatelyemploythe two-step technique employed

in Seibert, and if insufficient curative measures are taken to

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ensure that later Miranda warnings are genuinely understood,

any warned statement thereby obtained must be suppressed,

even if the statement is voluntary. Contrary to Seibert, the

Court of Appeal did not address the question whether the

officers deliberately employed the two-step technique. Also

contrary to Seibert, the Court of Appeal did not address the

adequacy, or even existence, of any “curative measures.” 

Instead, the Court of Appeal analyzed at length Reyes’s postpolygraph statement at the San Bernardino sheriff’s station

and concluded that because it was voluntary his subsequent

warned statement at the Riverside police station was also

voluntary.

Under the circumstances of this case—where police

interrogated fifteen-year-old Reyes over the course of two

days; where on the first day at the Riverside police station

they conducted a two-hour unwarned interrogation; where on

the second day at the San Bernardino sheriff’s station they

obtained a confession during an unwarned interrogation

following an unwarned polygraph test; and where they

transported Reyes back to the Riverside police station and

obtained a postwarning confession “clarifying” what he had

stated at the sheriff’s station—a Seibert analysis was clearly

required.

Contrary to Seibert, the Court of Appeal did not conduct

such an analysis. Instead, the Court of Appeal examined only

whetherReyes’s statement in his post-polygraph interrogation

was voluntary. It wrote, as a prelude to its analysis, that the

“operative question” was voluntariness: “We thus will

consider whether the trial court erred in finding that

defendant’s statements were voluntary.” Upon determining

that Reyes’s unwarned statements were voluntary, the Court

of Appeal concluded that Reyes’s later warned statement at

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the Riverside police station was necessarily “likewise

volitional.” The Court of Appeal then affirmed the trial

court’s decision not to suppress Reyes’s postwarning

statement. The Court of Appeal thus addressed, and treated

as dispositive, the question whether Reyes’s postwarning

statement was voluntary, which is precisely the question that

is irrelevant under Seibert.

We therefore conclude that theCourt of Appeal’s decision

was “contrary to . . . clearly established Federal law, as

determined by the Supreme Court,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). 

Because its decision was “contrary to” Seibert, we owe it no

deference.

On habeas review, the federal magistrate judge

recommended denying relief, rejecting in a footnote Reyes’s

argument under Seibert. The magistrate judge correctly

understood the rule in Seibert but concluded without analysis

of the evidence that the law enforcement officers in this case

had not deliberately employed the two-step interrogation

process. Deliberateness is a factual finding that we review

for clear error. United States v. Narvaez-Gomez, 489 F.3d

970, 974 (9th Cir. 2007); McClure v. Thompson, 323 F.3d

1233, 1240 (9th Cir. 2003) (applying clear error review to

findings of fact made by a district court on AEDPA review). 

Clear error review requires us to form a “definite and firm

conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Easley v.

Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 242 (2001) (internal quotation

marks omitted). A more searching review is appropriate

where the trial court’s decision was based on documents, as

it was here, rather than credibility evaluations. See id. at 243

(“[T]he key evidence consisted primarily of documents and

expert testimony. Credibility determinations played a minor

role. Accordingly, we find that an extensive review of the

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District Court’s findings, for clear error, is warranted.”); Bose

Corp. v. Consumers Union of U.S., Inc., 466 U.S. 485,

500–01 (1984) (“The same ‘clearly erroneous’ standard

applies to findings based on documentary evidence as to

those based entirely on oral testimony, but the presumption

has lesser force in the former situation than in the latter.”

(internal citation omitted)).

We conclude that the magistrate judge, and the district

court in entering judgment based on the recommendation of

the magistrate judge, clearly erred. We wrote in Williams

that evidence of deliberateness in a Seibert inquiry can be

either objective or subjective. “[I]n determining whether the

interrogator deliberately withheld the Miranda warning,

courts should consider whether objective evidence and any

available subjective evidence, such as an officer’s testimony,

support an inference that the two-step interrogation procedure

was used to undermine the Miranda warning.” 435 F.3d at

1158. The absence of direct evidence of subjective intent is

not dispositive. Capers, 627 F.3d at 479. As we have

recognized, “the most plausible reason” for delaying Miranda

warnings until after a suspect has confessed “is an illegitimate

one, which is the interrogator’s desire to weaken the

warning’s effectiveness,” and “‘the intent of the officer will

rarely be as candidly admitted as it was [in Seibert].’”

Williams, 435 F.3d at 1158–59 (quoting Seibert, 542 U.S. at

617 n.6 (Souter, J., plurality opinion)) (emphasis in original).

In Williams, we provided a nonexhaustive list of

probative objective evidence. Such evidence includes “the

timing, setting and completeness of the prewarning

interrogation, the continuity of police personnel and the

overlapping content of the pre- and postwarning statements.” 

Id. at 1159; see also United States v. Barnes, 713 F.3d 1200,

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1205 (9th Cir. 2013) (per curiam) (examining the record for

objective evidence under Seibert); Capers, 627 F.3d at 479

(“[W]e join our sister circuits in concluding that a court

should review the totality of the objective and subjective

evidence surrounding the interrogations in order to determine

deliberateness, with a recognition that in most instances the

inquiry will rely heavily, if not entirely, upon objective

evidence.”); United States v. Nunez-Sanchez, 478 F.3d 663,

668–69 (5th Cir. 2007) (examining the totality of the

circumstances to infer deliberateness); United States v. Street,

472 F.3d 1298, 1314 (11th Cir. 2006) (holding that the

deliberateness determination requires an evaluation of “the

totality of the circumstances, including ‘the timing, setting

and completeness of the prewarning interrogation, the

continuity of police personnel and the overlapping content of

the pre- and post-warning statements’” (quoting Williams,

435 F.3d at 1159)); United States v. Briones, 390 F.3d 610,

614 (8th Cir. 2004).

Based on the objective evidence in this case, we conclude

that Brandt and his fellow officers deliberately employed the

two-step interrogation technique condemned in Seibert, and

that the magistrate judge and the district court clearly erred in

concluding otherwise. Reyes first confessed in the unwarned

interrogation conducted by Brandt and Medici at the San

Bernardino sheriff’s station on February 10, after Heard told

Reyes that he had failed the polygraph test. That unwarned

interrogation, as well as the unwarned interrogation the

previous day at the Riverside police station, were, like the

interrogation in Seibert, “systematic, exhaustive, and

managed with psychological skill.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 616.

In the unwarned interrogation at the San Bernardino

sheriff’s station, Brandt and Medici obtained statements from

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Reyes admitting that he shot Ochoa and establishing the

outline of the events that occurred that afternoon; information

about how Reyes obtained the gun used in the shooting and

what happened to it afterward; and details about the shooting. 

In the warned interrogation that followed, Reyes provided

essentially the same information.

The three Riverside police officers involved in the case—

Brandt, Wheeler and Medici—were all experienced officers. 

Cf. Capers, 627 F.3d at 481 (“Inexperience, while not a

legitimate excuse for postponing a Miranda warning,

nevertheless may save a confession from exclusion under

Seibert.”). All three were homicide detectives. At the time

of the interrogations, Brandt had been a police officer in

California for twelve years and a homicide detective for the

last four. The tenure of Wheeler and Medici is not specified

in the record, but we may infer from their ranks that they both

had substantial experience.

Brandt did not take “curative measures” to ensure that

Reyes understood “the import and effect of the Miranda

warning and of the Miranda waiver.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at

622 (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment). Indeed, he

did quite the opposite. Brandt was the lead investigator. He

was involved in the case from beginning to end. Brandt

asked Reyes to accompany him to the Riverside police station

on the morning of February 9 after the SWAT team had

entered his aunt’s house and placed him in handcuffs. Brandt

and Wheeler questioned Reyes at the police station for about

two hours that day. During that interview, Brandt asked

Reyes if he would be willing to take a polygraph

examination. Brandt picked Reyes up at his mother’s house

the next morning and took him to the San Bernardino

sheriff’s station for the examination. After Heard told Reyes

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that he had failed the polygraph examination, Brandt and

Medici came into the room and took over from Heard. 

During the unwarned interview at the sheriff’s station on

February 10, Brandt and Medici obtained a detailed

confession from Reyes. After obtaining the confession,

Brandt drove Reyes directly to the Riverside police station,

where he and Wheeler had questioned him the day before. 

On arrival at the Riverside station, Brandt and Medici

questioned Reyes again. At the beginning of this interview,

Brandt finally provided Miranda warnings. During this

interview, Reyes gave to Brandt and Medici the same detailed

confessions he had just given.

Brandt and Medici had obtained the incriminating

information from Reyes very early in the unwarned interview

at the sheriff’s station, on the seventh page of the transcript. 

Yet they continued questioning and talking to Reyes for

another thirty-five pages. They did so in a

nonconfrontational, sympathetic way, with the result that

Reyes was made to feel sufficiently comfortable that he

talked about his family’s Christmas rituals and laughed when

Brandt said he could not stay up late enough to open presents. 

At the end of the interview, Reyes even asked Brandt and

Medici not to tell his mother what he had confessed to them: 

“It’ll be cool like if you guys don’t tell my Mom.”

At the beginning of the follow-on interview at the

Riverside police station, Brandt gave Reyes the Miranda

warnings, as recounted above. But, as is evident from the

transcript, he played down their importance. He said he

wanted “just to clarify stuff,” suggesting by his use of the

word “clarify” that the “stuff” had already been conveyed in

the earlier interview, and that the only purpose of the later

interview was clarification. Brandt then said he wanted to

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“read you your rights” because “you’ve been sitting in that

room and the door was locked and you’re not free to leave.” 

To a reasonable person not trained in the law, let alone a

fifteen-year-old high school freshman, these stated reasons

were hardly an effective means of conveying the fact that the

warning he was about to give could mean the difference

between serving life in prison and going home that night.

After Brandt read the Miranda warnings, he said, “Do

you understand each of these rights that I’ve explained to

you? Yeah? OK. Can we talk about the stuff we talked

about earlier today? Is that a yes?” While giving the

Miranda warnings, Brandt did not pause to ask “Is that a

yes?” after asking if Reyes understood “each of the rights”

listed. Only after the Miranda warnings had been completed

and after Brandt asked whether “we [can] talk about the stuff

we talked about earlier today” did Brandt finally ask “Is that

a yes?” and wait for a response. In contrast to the

interrogation in Seibert, Brandt did not ask Reyes for a signed

waiver of rights or a signed acknowledgment of having read

and understood the Miranda warnings.

The psychological, spatial, and temporal break between

the unwarned and warned interrogations was not enough to

cure the violation. Perhaps most important, Brandt had been

a continuous presence throughout. He and Wheeler were the

two questioners in the unwarned interrogation on February 9;

he was the primary questioner in both the unwarned and

warned interrogations on February 10; and he had personally

driven Reyes on February 9 and 10, including the short trip

between the sheriff’s station and the police station on

February 10. Further, although the unwarned February 10

interrogation took place at the San Bernardino sheriff’s

station and the warned interrogation took place at the

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38 REYES V. LEWIS

Riverside police station, the warned interrogation was

conducted in a familiar place where Reyes had been

questioned by Brandt the previous day. The record does not

tell us the driving distance and time between the sheriff’s

station and the Riverside police station, but a map of the area

indicates that it was no more than fifteen miles. The timeline

for the events on February 10, described above, indicated that

the driving time was not likely to have been more than about

thirty minutes. This case is quite unlike Bobby v. Dixon,

132 S. Ct. 26, 32 (2011) (per curiam), in which there was a

four-hour gap, during which the defendant was transported

from the police station to a separate jail and back, and during

which the defendant spoke with his lawyer and learned

material facts about the ongoing investigation. See also

Capers, 627 F.3d at 484 (holding that a ninety-minute break

in time between interrogations was not curative in part

because police personnel were consistent and “both

[interrogations] occurred while Capers remained in handcuffs

and in settings that clearly established the authoritative nature

of the questioning”).

B. “Unreasonable Determination of the Facts”

Our concurring colleague reads the Court of Appeal’s

decision as understanding and applying Seibert. In his view,

the Court of Appeal’s quotation from Justice Souter’s

plurality opinion (in the paragraph we quoted above) shows

that it understood Seibert, and that the Court of Appeal

viewed the question before it to be whether Brandt and his

fellow officers took sufficient curative measures to ensure

that the Miranda warnings given at the Riverside police

station were effective. Thus, in the view of our concurring

colleague, the Court of Appeal’s decision was not “contrary

to” Seibert. But our colleague nonetheless agrees with the

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REYES V. LEWIS 39

result we reach in this case. In his view, even under

AEDPA’s deferential standard, we must grant habeas relief

because the Court of Appeal’s conclusion that sufficient

curative measures were taken is an “unreasonable

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented

in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). See

Concurrence at 44–45.

For the reason given above, we disagree with our

concurring colleague on the question whether the Court of

Appeal’s decision was “contrary to” Seibert. However, we

note that, although we do not need to reach the question

whether the Court of Appeal’s decision rests on an

“unreasonable determination of the facts,” we entirely agree

with him on that question. It is readily apparent, on the

factual record of this case, that Brandt and his fellow officers

did not take “curative measures” that would “ensure that a

reasonable person in [Reyes’s]situation would understand the

import and effect of the Miranda warning and of the Miranda

waiver.” 542 U.S. at 622 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Indeed,

as described above, far from taking “curative measures,” they

took affirmative steps to ensure that Reyes did not

“understand the import and effect” of the Miranda warning

he was finally given at the Riverside police station.

Conclusion

The California Court of Appeal applied a rule that was

contrary to federal law as clearly established by the Supreme

Court in Seibert when it concluded that Reyes’s postwarning

confession was admissible solely on the ground that it was

voluntary. We hold that police officers deliberately

employed a two-step interrogation technique, and that they

did not take appropriate “curative measures,” in violation of

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40 REYES V. LEWIS

Seibert. We therefore hold that Reyes’s postwarning

confession should have been suppressed. Because the state

did not argue harmless error in this court or the district court,

that defense is waived. See United States v. Vallejo, 237 F.3d

1008, 1026 (9th Cir. 2001). Accordingly, we reverse the

district court’s denial of Reyes’s petition for a writ of habeas

corpus and remand with instructions to grant the writ unless

Reyes is retried within a reasonable time, not to exceed 180

days.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

SINGLETON, Senior District Judge, concurring:

The majority has joined in a thoughtful and thorough

judgment in this case. I concur in that judgment. The

majority has forcefully marshaled the facts and analyzed the

applicable law. If this case had arisen entirely within the

federal system, e.g., under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, I would fully

join in the opinion and have no further comments or

suggestions.

This case does not arise entirelywithin the federal system,

however, but comes to us from state court under § 2254, and

thus our review must be guided by the Antiterrorism and

Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). AEDPA

requires us to give deference to decisions of the state courts

both as to the facts and the law, except in limited

circumstances.

The majority identifies Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600

(2004), as clearly established federal law at the time the

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California Court of Appeal decided this case and looks to

Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion to provide the

appropriate rule of decision. I agree. See United States v.

Williams, 435 F.3d 1148, 1157–59 (9th Cir. 2006) (analyzing

Seibert and concluding that Justice Kennedy’s opinion is the

narrowest holding obtaining five votes). In the majority’s

view, the California Court of Appeal recognized Seibert as

controlling but unreasonably interpreted it, effectively

ignoring Seibert and deciding the case under the prior law set

out in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 (1985). The majority

concludes that, since the California court failed to apply

clearly established law, we may withhold any deference and

exercise our independent judgment in reviewing the

California Court of Appeal’s decision de novo.

I disagree. My review of the record leads me to conclude

that the California Court of Appeal’s conclusions of law are

in conformity with Seibert and Justice Kennedy’s

concurrence. In my view, the state court’s approach to the

law is sound, but its finding of facts are unreasonable in

context. I therefore, on this alternate ground, join in this

Court’s judgment. My reasons are as follows.

In reaching a contrary view, the majority focuses

exclusively on one part of Justice Kennedy’s concurrence. 

Seibert addresses what we have termed a two-step

interrogation leading to a confession. The first part of the

interrogation is unwarned. Once the suspect confesses,

Miranda warnings are given, and the interrogation resumes. 

Typically, the suspect confirms his confession. In practice,

the earlier confession is suppressed, but following Elstad, the

subsequent post-warning statement is allowed into evidence

if it is voluntary. Seibert modified Elstad in cases such as

this. The opinion was fragmented. Justice Souter wrote an

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opinion for a plurality of four justices. Justice Kennedy

separately concurred, arguably on a more limited basis, and

Justice O’Connor wrote a dissent in which three other justices

joined. The majority and I agree that Justice Kennedy’s

opinion provides the holding of Seibert. We disagree on how

Seibert should be applied to this case.

In my view, Justice Kennedy adopts all of Justice Souter’s

plurality opinion but imposes a limitation. Rightly

understood, Justice Kennedy’s opinion adopts a two-part test

for determining the validity of a confession where the police

use a two-step approach in their interrogation of a suspect. 

The first prong, which I will call the Kennedy prong, asks

whether the two-step procedure was chosen intentionally in

order to render subsequent Miranda warnings ineffective. 

The second prong, which I will call the Souter prong, asks if

the two-step process, whether or not intentional, rendered the

subsequent warnings ineffective. For Justice Kennedy, both

prongs must be satisfied in order to create a Siebert violation

and take the case out of Oregon v. Elstad. Since the test has

two prongs, it is analogous to the Strickland test for

determining ineffective assistance of counsel.1 Like that test,

a reviewing court should be able to look to either prong first,

and, if that prong is not satisfied, there is no need to address

the other prong. See Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 241

(2009). Viewed in this light, the California Court of Appeal’s

decision is within the law. That court quoted Justice Souter

directly for the second prong of the test and concluded that

nothing in the record of the interrogation “challenged the

comprehensibility and efficacy of the Miranda warnings to

the point that a reasonable person in the suspect’s shoes

 

1

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).

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would not have understood them to convey a message that

[he] retained a choice about continuing to talk.”

Justice Kennedy’s test requires that any two-step

procedure must be intentionally motivated to undermine

Miranda. Justice Souter rejects reference to the police intent

and focuses only on whether the process itself challenged the

comprehensibilityand effectiveness of theMirandawarnings. 

Thus, if as the California Court of Appeal found, Reyes

understood at the time of the second stage of the interview

that he retained a choice about whether to talk, his decision to

talk was consistent with Seibert, and there was no need for

the Court of Appeal to address the first prong of the test and

determine whether the police intended to nullify the Miranda

warnings.

The Court of Appeal did not separately address the first

prong of the test, and so by analogy to Strickland, we may

review that prong de novo and exercise independent

judgment.2See Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30, 39 (2009);

Mann v. Ryan, 774 F.3d 1203, 1215 (9th Cir. 2014)

(“Because the state post-conviction court did not reach the

deficiency prong of the Strickland analysis, our review of this

prong is not circumscribed by AEDPA.”). I agree with the

majority that, under the facts of this case, the use of the twostep procedure was a conscious effort to undermine Miranda. 

2

It is clear that the Court of Appeal did not think that the procedure

followed undermined the effectiveness of the mid-stream Miranda

warnings. It is not clear that the Court of Appeal considered whether the

procedure was chosen to undermine Miranda. Even if I were to assume

that the Court of Appeal found no intent, sub silentio, requiring deference

I would still conclude under Williams that the procedure was chosen

intentionally. See Williams, 435 F.3d at 1160 (discussing how to prove a

deliberate choice of procedure).

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See Williams, 435 F.3d at 1158–60 (discussing how a court

should determine whether an interrogation was deliberately

used to undermine Miranda).

The second prong of the test was addressed by the Court

of Appeal, and we must grant deference and may only reject

the finding if it was “based on an unreasonable determination

of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state

court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(2).

The majority points out that the Court of Appeal did not

explain its factual finding that the mid-stream Miranda

warning was not undermined by the interrogation procedure

chosen by the police. In such a case, we must look to all of

the relevant evidence to determine if the fact finding is

reasonably supported. See Delgado v. Lewis, 223 F.3d 976,

982 (9th Cir. 2000) (“Federal habeas review is not de novo

when the state court does not supply reasoning for its

decision, but an independent review of the record is required

to determine whether the state court clearly erred in its

application of controlling federal law.”). Reyes has a heavy

burden to establish that a state court fact finding is

unreasonable. See Burt v. Titlow, __ U.S. __, 134 S. Ct. 10,

15–16 (2013). I am satisfied that he has sustained that burden

here.

The majority has summarized all of the relevant evidence,

and it need not be repeated here. Guided by Williams

regarding a determination of the effectiveness of mid-stream

Miranda warnings, see Williams, 435 F.3d at 1160–62, I do

not believe that there is substantial evidence that would

support an inference that the warnings given to Reyes were

effective at the time they were given. There is no evidence of

the corrective measures identified by Justice Kennedy. 

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Turning to the factors considered relevant by the plurality:

1) the pre-warning interrogation was complete and detailed,

consuming many hours; 2) the two rounds of interrogation

overlapped; 3) the two rounds of interrogation were close in

time; 4) there was a continuity of police personnel; and, most

importantly, 5) the interrogator’s questions treated the second

round of interrogation as continuous with the first.

Viewed in light of the totality of the circumstances, there

is no evidence that would permit a finding that the two-step

interrogation in this case did not undermine Miranda and lead

to an involuntary confession.

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