Opinion ID: 424960
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Asserted Distinction Between Civil and Criminal Investigations

Text: 8 The trial court ruled that DeWitt's questioning was not interrogation because it occurred during a civil, rather than a criminal, investigation. This distinction between civil and criminal investigations in a custodial setting was, however, decisively rejected by the Supreme Court in Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1503, 20 L.Ed.2d 381 (1968). 9 In Mathis, the Supreme Court held that self-incriminating statements given by a jailed defendant to a revenue agent during a routine tax investigation were inadmissible in a criminal tax fraud prosecution because the agent had failed to give Miranda warnings. The arguments rejected in Mathis are virtually identical to the arguments advanced here. The Mathis court stated: 10 The government here seeks to escape application of the Miranda warnings on two arguments: (1) that these questions were asked as part of a routine tax investigation where no criminal proceedings might even be brought; and (2) that the petitioner had not been put in jail by the officers questioning him, but was there for an entirely separate offense. These differences are too minor and shadowy to justify a departure from the well-considered conclusions of Miranda with reference to warnings to be given to a person held in custody. 11 Id. at 4, 88 S.Ct. at 1504-1505. 12 The Mathis Court noted that civil tax investigations often result in criminal prosecutions. Id. It emphasized that full-fledged criminal investigations began within eight days of the last visit of the revenue agent to the jail. Id. It concluded that the revenue agent should have given Miranda warnings at the initiation of the custodial questioning. 13 The facts here show the need for Miranda warnings in civil custodial investigations even more vividly than did those in Mathis. Mata was jailed on state firearms charges. As an INS criminal investigator with 23 years of investigative experience, DeWitt knew that evidence of alienage, coupled with the evidence of firearms possession, could lead to federal prosecution under 18 U.S.C.App. Sec. 1202. He had reason to know that any admission of alienage by Mata would be highly incriminating. 14 DeWitt's actions immediately after the unwarned statement strengthen the inference that he already contemplated criminal prosecution at the time of the first interview. He returned to his office to check INS records for evidence of Mata's status. Finding none, he immediately obtained a warrant for Mata's arrest. By any reckoning, full-fledged criminal investigations began no later than three hours after Mata's unwarned statement. This is much shorter than the eight days that the Court found significant in Mathis. 15 The trial court stated that the initial civil questioning was not a subterfuge to avoid the need to give Miranda warnings. It did not make any inquiries or findings of fact regarding that assertion. The close sequence of civil investigation and criminal prosecution raises the possibility that the initial investigation was both civil and criminal. If civil investigations by the INS were excluded from the Miranda rule, INS agents could evade that rule by labeling all investigations as civil. Civil as well as criminal interrogation of in-custody defendants by INS investigators should generally be accompanied by the Miranda warnings. 16 This does not mean that admissions obtained in civil investigations of in-custody suspects can never be used in criminal prosecutions, unless the investigator first gives warnings. The question here, as in other contexts, turns on whether there was interrogation within the meaning of Miranda. If an INS investigator has no reason to suspect that the question asked is likely to elicit an incriminating response, there is no interrogation and, therefore, no Miranda violation. Not all civil questioning constitutes interrogation. We simply follow Mathis in holding that the investigator cannot control the constitutional question by placing a civil label on the investigation. 17