Opinion ID: 610154
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fifth Amendment Objection

Text: 12 Shipp objects to the admission of his statements to officer Ballew when he was sitting in the police car and to officer Patterson when he was being taken to the station house. Shipp contends these statements were obtained in violation of his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. The government argues the statements were spontaneously given by Shipp without custodial interrogation. 13 The Fifth Amendment does not bar the admission of volunteered statements which are freely given. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 478 (1966). When a person voluntarily speaks without interrogation by an officer, the Fifth Amendment's protection is not at issue. See United States v. Thoma, 726 F.2d 1191, 1197-98 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1228 (1984). 14 The district court found Shipp's statements to the officers were spontaneously given. The court was concerned that the officers did not immediately give Shipp his Miranda warnings after he was subdued and arrested, but the court did not doubt the statements were voluntarily made. Any failure to give Miranda warnings would require suppression of statements only if they were obtained as a result of interrogation of the defendant while he was in custody. Shipp was not interrogated by the officers when he made his statements though he surely was in custody. 15 We do not find the district court's denial of the defendant's motion was clearly erroneous. The officers' testimony about the circumstances concerning the voluntariness and spontaneity of the statements was uncontroverted by defendant. See United States v. Monzon, 869 F.2d 338, 342 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1075 (1989); United States v. Laughlin, 772 F.2d 1382, 1386 (7th Cir.1985); United States v. Rodgers, 755 F.2d 533, 546 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 473 U.S. 907 (1985). Defendant's volunteered statements should not have been barred by the Fifth Amendment in this instance. See Miranda, 384 U.S. at 478.