Opinion ID: 2756545
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Teers’s Motion to Suppress Statements

Text: Prior to trial, defendant Teers moved to suppress statements he made during two interviews with IRS special agents. Teers argued that his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was violated when IRS agents questioned him during an investigation of Hulse without first advising him of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966). Teers asserted that the agents interrogated him as both a witness and a suspect in the ongoing criminal fraud investigation concerning Hulse and, during the interrogation, accused Teers of committing bank fraud. The government filed a response to the motion to suppress. The magistrate judge held a two-day suppression hearing on Teers’s motion.
IRS Special Agent Michael Caldwell testified that he interviewed Teers in February and June of 2005 after Teers’s name “came up” during an investigation of Hulse for possible violations of Title 26, the tax code. In his position, Agent Caldwell investigated only Title 26 cases. Prior to both interviews, Agent Caldwell called Teers on the telephone to arrange the interviews. Agent Caldwell did not recall specifically the substance of his telephone conversations with Teers, 13 Case: 13-15677 Date Filed: 12/02/2014 Page: 14 of 49 but he did not indicate that Teers was in trouble in any way and did not threaten Teers with a summons if Teers did not appear for an interview willingly. Generally, when arranging interviews, Agent Caldwell would identify himself to the witness as an agent working for the criminal investigation unit of the IRS, let the witness know that he wanted to discuss a case, and inform the witness that he could hold the interview either at the IRS office or at the witness’s location. Teers’s interviews took place at the Houston IRS building, which Teers had to pass through security to enter. After passing through security, however, Teers would have been permitted to go from the first floor to the IRS’s tenth-floor office unescorted. The IRS agents conducted interviews in an area of their floor that was unlocked and open to the public. Teers would have been free to come and go as he pleased from the area of the floor where the interview room was situated. For both interviews, Teers was not physically brought into the IRS office, he was not handcuffed or restrained in any way during the interviews, and he was free to leave for any reason. Agent Caldwell’s first interview with Teers was on February 16, 2005. Agent Caldwell was joined by Agent Duncan, as well as a third agent, and the interview lasted an hour and ten minutes. The agents did not give Teers a Miranda warning at the beginning of the interview and did not record the interview. Agent Caldwell considered Teers only a witness and not a suspect. He did not find 14 Case: 13-15677 Date Filed: 12/02/2014 Page: 15 of 49 helpful any of the information provided by Teers, but he had no indication that Teers was not being truthful during the interview and no indication that Teers himself was involved in any criminal conduct. Agent Caldwell and Agent Duncan interviewed Teers for the second time on June 15, 2005. This interview lasted around an hour and a half. At the second meeting, Agent Caldwell did not advise Teers of his Miranda rights. Agent Caldwell did not believe that he needed to provide Teers Miranda warnings because Teers was not in custody and was not the subject of an investigation. But he did inform Teers that he worked in the criminal division of the IRS, as he always does at the beginning of an interview. Again, Agent Caldwell did not suspect Teers of any criminal activity and did not consider Teers to be in custody, but he believed that Teers might have information relevant to his investigation of Hulse. Following the earlier interview of Teers, however, Agent Caldwell had become aware that Teers was providing lists of bonds to Hulse. During the June 2005 interview, Teers admitted that he had provided the lists of bonds to Hulse. Agent Duncan told Teers that by going around to various financial institutions and representing that Hulse owned the bonds, he was possibly committing bank fraud and securities fraud. From Agent Caldwell’s perspective, however, Teers did not become a suspect when Agent Duncan made the comment about Teers possibly 15 Case: 13-15677 Date Filed: 12/02/2014 Page: 16 of 49 committing bank or wire fraud. Teers responded to Agent Duncan’s comment by stating that he was not telling the different institutions that Hulse owned the bonds. Agent Caldwell did not provide any information that he received from Teers, during his investigation of Hulse, to other law enforcement agencies. Agent Caldwell was not working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) at any time with regard to his Hulse investigation. In fact, it was more than three years after the June 2005 interview before Agent Caldwell became aware that the FBI was investigating Hulse, Teers, and Mock for bank and wire fraud. Teers, on the other hand, testified that he felt compelled to come to the IRS office for both interviews. According to Teers, the IRS agent who called to set up the interviews told him that either they could meet at the IRS office or his location or a summons would be issued to compel his presence at the IRS office. Teers was never told during either interview that he was free to leave, and he did not feel free to leave. As to the June 2005 interview, the tone of the entire interview was “accusatory.” On cross-examination, Teers conceded that he was never told he was under arrest, was never handcuffed, and was never told that he could not leave.