Opinion ID: 2299910
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The existence of the routine booking question exception.

Text: Prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U.S. 582, 110 S.Ct. 2638, 110 L.Ed.2d 528 (1990), it was the law in this jurisdiction that even routine questions to an accused in custody must be preceded by a Miranda warning. See Proctor v. United States, 131 U.S.App. D.C. 241, 242-43, 404 F.2d 819, 820-21 (1968); Brewster v. United States, 271 A.2d 409, 412 n. 6 (D.C. 1970). This court stated in Brewster that whether it is routine is not a relevant consideration. Miranda applies to custodial interrogation. Routine questions, no matter how innocuous they may seem, are part of an interrogation. The fact that an interrogation contains nothing but routine questions does not make it any less interrogation; nor, more emphatically, does the quality of routineness suspend fifth amendment rights. Id. The rule is fundamental in our jurisprudence that no division of this court will overrule a prior decision of this court. Washington v. Guest Servs., 718 A.2d 1071, 1075 (D.C.1998) (quoting M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310, 312 (D.C.1971)) (internal quotation marks omitted). This court will not lightly deem one of its decisions to have been implicitly overruled [5] and thus stripped of its precedential authority. Lee v. United States, 668 A.2d 822, 828 (D.C.1995). [6] Nevertheless, [w]e do not believe ... that M.A.P. v. Ryan ... obliges us to follow, inflexibly, a ruling whose philosophical basis has been substantially undermined by subsequent Supreme Court decisions. Frendak v. United States, 408 A.2d 364, 379 n. 27 (D.C. 1979); accord, Washington, supra, 718 A.2d at 1075 (quoting Frendak ). In this instance, we conclude that the philosophical basis of Proctor and Brewster has been substantially undermined by Muniz and its progeny. In Muniz, Justice Brennan, writing for a four-justice plurality, recognized a routine booking question exception which exempts from Miranda's coverage questions [designed] to secure the biographical data necessary to complete booking or pretrial services. 496 U.S. at 601, 110 S.Ct. 2638 (internal quotation marks omitted). [7] The plurality specified that questions posed by the police to the defendant regarding his name, address, height, weight, eye color, date of birth and current age did not qualify as custodial interrogation. Id. Four justices concurred on other grounds without explicitly addressing the existence vel non of a pedigree exception. See id. at 608, 110 S.Ct. 2638 (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring) (it is unnecessary to determine whether the questions fall within the `routine booking question' exception to Miranda Justice Brennan recognizes). Only a single justice disagreed with the plurality's recognition of the exception. See id. at 608, 110 S.Ct. 2638 (opinion of Marshall, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Notwithstanding the fact that Justice Brennan's plurality opinion was not technically an opinion of the Court, the routine booking question exception has been uniformly recognized since Muniz by the federal and state courts. See, e.g., United States v. Duarte, 160 F.3d 80, 81 (1st Cir.1998) (per curiam); United States v. Montana, 958 F.2d 516, 518 (2d Cir.1992); United States v. D'Anjou, 16 F.3d 604, 608 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1242, 114 S.Ct. 2754, 129 L.Ed.2d 871 (1994); United States v. Clark, 982 F.2d 965, 968 (6th Cir.1993); United States v. Leung, 929 F.2d 1204, 1209 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 906, 112 S.Ct. 297, 116 L.Ed.2d 241 (1991); United States v. Brown, 101 F.3d 1272, 1274 (8th Cir.1996); United States v. Henley, 984 F.2d 1040, 1042 (9th Cir.1993); United States v. Parra, 2 F.3d 1058, 1067-68 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1026, 114 S.Ct. 639, 126 L.Ed.2d 597 (1993); Franks v. State, 268 Ga. 238, 486 S.E.2d 594, 597 (1997); Hughes v. State, 346 Md. 80, 695 A.2d 132, 140(Md.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 459, 139 L.Ed.2d 393 (1997); Commonwealth v. White, 422 Mass. 487, 663 N.E.2d 834, 844 (1996); People v. Rodney, supra note 7, at 473; State v. Stevens, 181 Wis.2d 410, 511 N.W.2d 591, 599 (1994), cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1102, 115 S.Ct. 2245, 132 L.Ed.2d 254 (1995). [8] Thomas has not directed our attention to any contrary post- Muniz authority, and we are aware of none. Under these circumstances, we consider it appropriate to recognize a routine booking question exception to Miranda's restrictions on custodial interrogation.