Opinion ID: 6317124
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Booking Exception to Miranda

Text: Under Miranda, a person in custody must be informed of their rights before they are interrogated. 384 U.S. at 498–99. “[T]he term ‘interrogation’ under Miranda refers not only to express questioning, but also to any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect.” Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 301 (1980). Law enforcement enjoys a limited exception to Miranda in the context of booking and arrest. Questions that fall under the booking3 exception to 3 Although called the “booking” exception, this exception applies equally to questions asked at the time of arrest but before being formally “booked” into jail. Even 9 Miranda are those “reasonably related to the police’s administrative concerns.” Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U.S. 582, 601–02 (1990). The aforementioned includes information whose usefulness is related to record-keeping, incarceration, and pre-trial services. Dixon v. Commonwealth, 149 S.W.3d 426, 432 (Ky. 2004). The United States Supreme Court “has been reluctant to circumscribe the authority of the police to conduct reasonable booking searches,” giving officers some latitude when arresting and booking individuals accused of a crime. Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. 435, 456 (2013). Not all questions incident to booking are protected from Miranda. See Dunlap v. Commonwealth, 435 S.W.3d 537, 598–99 (Ky. 2013) abrogated on other grounds by Abbott, Inc. v. Guirguis, 626 S.W.3d 475 (Ky. 2021). If the question is not “normally attendant to arrest and custody,” or is not “reasonably related to the police’s administrative concerns,” then “it is not the sort of ‘booking question’ for which a Miranda exception has been created.” Id. (citations omitted). However, when asking questions incident to booking such as a person’s “name, address, height, weight, eye color, date of birth and current address,” or employment status, police need not Mirandize a person in custody. Id. at 599 (citing United States v. Pacheco-Lopez, 531 F.3d 420, 423 (6th Cir. 2008)); Dixon, 149 S.W.3d at 432. In Dixon, this Court held that the trial court did not err by admitting the defendant’s responses to a question about employment status asked at this finding is a mixed finding of fact and law, given the unique status of booking questions with reference to Miranda rights. 10 booking. 149 S.W.3d at 431. There, the trial court found that the employment question was not intended to incriminate but was instead part of routine intake questions on a form used by the officers. Id. at 433. On appeal, this Court held that given the lack of intent to incriminate, the questions did not run afoul of the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Muniz, even though Dixon had asserted his right to counsel before the booking began. Id. at 431–32. There are, therefore, two kinds of questions that may result from a booking interaction: questions “normally attendant to arrest and custody” (including questions “reasonably related to the police’s administrative concerns”), and interrogations. Although some questions will fall neatly into either category, others may require a case-by-case analysis to determine whether or not they are appropriate under Miranda and Muniz. In the matter herein, some questions may have had the effect of incriminating Jones, while others were relatively innocuous. We must therefore determine which questions, if any, violated Jones’s Miranda rights.