Opinion ID: 2556883
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did The Police Fail to Give Loper A Miranda Warning?

Text: Loper's second claim of error is that the police violated his constitutional rights, because they did not give him a Miranda [25] warning before questioning him. Loper argues that because a reasonable person would not feel free to ignore the presence of a police officer, he was in custody when ordered to exit his car. Therefore, when the police asked Loper whether he had anything illegal on him, that constituted an interrogation which required a Miranda warning. For Miranda to apply, the defendant must be: (i) in custody or in a custodial setting, and (ii) the questioning must rise to the level of an interrogation. [26] Loper's Miranda claim cannot succeed because he was not in custody when being questioned. A person is in custody when, considering the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable man in the suspect's position would feel a restraint on his freedom of movement fairly characterized as that `degree associated with formal arrest' to such an extent that he would not feel free to leave. [27] In Berkemer v. McCarty , the police stopped the defendant after observing his car weave in and out of a highway lane, and ordered the defendant to exit his car. [28] An officer asked the defendant whether he was intoxicated without first giving him Miranda warnings. [29] The defendant replied that he had consumed two beers and had smoked marijuana. [30] The defendant later claimed that his Fifth Amendment rights had been violated and moved to suppress the evidence. [31] The United States Supreme Court held that the noncoercive aspect of ordinary traffic stops prompts us to hold that persons temporarily detained pursuant to such stops are not `in custody' for purposes of Miranda.  [32] Berkemer is dispositive here. Even if Loper did not feel free to leave when being asked to exit his car, his Miranda argument gains no traction because he was not in custody.