Opinion ID: 1848945
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of Miranda

Text: The objection made by defense counsel was that the admission should have been excluded because the defendant was in custody and was subject to interrogation and that, as a consequence, the exclusionary rule of Miranda applied to all statements elicited prior to the Miranda warnings. We do not agree that Miranda controls this situation. The trial judge specifically found that the admission was not in response to interrogation and that the defendant was free to leave. In view of the record, the appears to be an unquestionably correct decision. There was no evidence to the contrary. While the defendant's counsel now asserts that the defendant did not feel free to leave and considered himself in custody, defendant failed to take the stand at the hearing outside the presence of the jury to state his version of the circumstances. This he could have done when the evidentiary matter was considered outside the presence of the jury without waiving his right against self-incrimination, and he would not have been required to testify to the same facts before the jury unless he so desired. State ex rel. Goodchild v. Burke (1965), 27 Wis. 2d 244, 265, 133 N. W. 2d 753. The defendant relies heavily upon State v. La Fernier (1967), 37 Wis. 2d 365, 155 N. W. 2d 93. This case is not in point, inasmuch as the defendant there was clearly in custody and had been subjected to interrogation. The record therein indicated that he had been interviewed on the day before. He was asked whether he wanted to take the lie detector test. We held that that was a sufficient custodial interrogation to vitiate any subsequent statement in the absence of a Miranda warning. Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U. S. 436, 86 Sup. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694, was the outgrowth of Escobedo v. Illinois (1964), 378 U. S. 478, 84 Sup. Ct. 1758, 12 L. Ed. 2d 977. The essence of Escobedo was that a confession made after a police procedure had changed from the investigatory to the accusatory was in violation of the basic constitutional rights against self-incrimination and a deprivation of the right of counsel unless certain constitutional safeguards were observed. Escobedo, page 492. Miranda explained in greater detail what the United States Supreme Court meant when in Escobedo it spoke of an investigation which had focused on the accused. It defined that stage of the investigation by referring to it as custodial interrogation and stated: By custodial interrogation, we mean 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. (P. 444.) Each of the four cases considered in Miranda involved a defendant who was questioned by law enforcement officers, in a room in which he was cut off from the outside world. (P. 445.) In Miranda the court placed much emphasis upon the police-dominated atmosphere and the Mutt and Jeff playacting of the successive series of interrogators. (P. 452.) They referred to the police-dominated atmosphere as creating an aura of confidence in his guilt [that] undermines his will to resist. (P. 455.) In referring to the four cases considered in Miranda, the supreme court referred to the fact that: In each of the cases, the defendant was thrust into an unfamiliar atmosphere and run through menacing police interrogation procedures. (P. 457.) Miranda refers to: An individual swept from familiar surroundings into police custody, surrounded by antagonistic forces, and subjected to the techniques of persuasion . . . . (P. 461.) In referring to related cases as well as those included in Miranda, the court said: The entire thrust of police interrogation there, as in all the cases today, was to put the defendant in such an emotional state as to impair his capacity for rational judgment. (P. 465.) Miranda is made applicable to an individual held for interrogation. (Emphasis supplied.) (P. 471.) As important as was the discussion of the situations in which Miranda was to be applicable was the court's statement about what situations it was to be inapplicable: General on-the-scene questioning as to facts surrounding a crime or other general questioning of citizens in the fact-finding process is not affected by our holding. (P. 477.) The court also made it eminently clear that the mere fact that a person was in custody did not invoke the rule. The court stated: In dealing with statements obtained through interrogation, we do not purport to find all confessions inadmissible. Confessions remain a proper element in law enforcement. Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence. The fundamental import of the privilege while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel, but whether he can be interrogated. . . . Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today. (Emphasis supplied.) (P. 478.) Applying these standards of Miranda to the actual situation of this case, it is apparent that they are not applicable. The defendant was not taken from familiar surroundings. He was not stopped. The place where he was found and where the admission was made was completely of his own choosing, and the evidence which he did not seek to controvert was that he was free to leave. The overwhelming atmosphere of a custodial or in-station interrogation was totally absent. Moreover, in the instant case the police procedure at the service station was certainly not accusatory. The police officers did not think, and they had no reason to think, that a crime had been committed or that the defendant was a culprit. They had no knowledge that the car was stolen. The only question put to him was to ask if he had identification. This is hardly the type of in-custody interrogation proscribed by Miranda. The facts clearly support the judge's finding that the defendant was not in custody. As is clearly stated in Miranda, however, custody alone does not invoke the Miranda rule. Miranda holds that a statement that is volunteered and not elicited as a result of prior interrogation is free from the strictures of Miranda even if made while in custody. The statement of the defendant herein was completely spontaneous and was not in response to any interrogation that would lead the defendant to conclude that he was the subject of an accusatory procedure. It was admitted by the police officers that, when they initially left their squad car, they unsnapped the holsters of their pistols, but there is no evidence whatsoever that the defendant saw these movements or was even aware of them. If Miranda is applicable to the situation in the instant case, then the extensive discussion by the United States Supreme Court pointing out the admissibility of volunteered confessions, despite custody, is completely meaningless; and the proper statement of the rule would then be that all statements volunteered during the course of a police investigation are subject to exclusion on the Miranda rationale. Such is not our understanding of the law. The spontaneous and volunteered statement of the defendant without prior questioning of an accusatory nature and without substantial deprivation of his personal liberty was not in violation of Miranda.