Opinion ID: 2548593
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Wallace was in Custody

Text: It is a fundamental tenet of criminal law that `the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination.' [4] State v. Naititi, 104 Hawai'i 224, 235, 87 P.3d 893, 904 (2004) (quoting Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966)) (emphases in original). The  Miranda rule[ ] ... is, at core, a constitutionally prescribed rule of evidence that requires the prosecution to lay a sufficient foundation  i.e., that the requisite warnings were administered and validly waived before the accused gave the statement sought to be adduced at trial  before it may adduce evidence of a defendant's custodial statements that stem from interrogation during his or her criminal trial.... The prosecution's burden of establishing that the requisite warnings were given, however, is not triggered unless the totality of the circumstances reflect that the statement it seeks to adduce at trial was obtained as a result of custodial interrogation, which, as the United States Supreme Court defined it in Miranda, consists of questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his [or her] freedom of action in any significant way. 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602 (footnote omitted); see also [ State v.] Hoey , 77 Hawai'i [17,] 33, 881 P.2d [504,] 520 [(1994)] (the privilege [against self-incrimination] is jeopardized when an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his [or her] freedom by the authorities in any significant way and subjected to questioning) (citations, original ellipsis points, and internal quotations signals omitted); State v. Melemai, 64 Haw. 479, 481, 643 P.2d 541, 543 (1982); State v. Patterson, 59 Haw. 357, 359, 581 P.2d 752, 754 (1978). In other words, the defendant, objecting to the admissibility of his or her statement and, thus, seeking to suppress it, must establish that his or her statement was the result of (1) interrogation that occurred while he or she was (2) in custody. See, e.g., [State v.] Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i [207,] 210, 10 P.3d [728,] 731 [(2000)] (the requirement of Miranda warnings is triggered by `two criteria': '(1) the defendant must be under interrogation; and (2) the defendant must be in custody' (quoting State v. Kauhi, 86 Hawai'i 195, 204, 948 P.2d 1036, 1045 (1997) (quoting State v. Blanding, 69 Haw. 583, 586, 752 P.2d 99, 100 (1988))) (original brackets omitted)). State v. Ketchum, 97 Hawai'i 107, 117-18, 34 P.3d 1006, 1016-18 (2001) (emphases and some brackets added) (footnotes omitted). As previously indicated, the circuit court found, and the prosecution does not dispute, that Wallace was not in custody the first time he approached Officers Adachi and Rowe. Additionally, with respect to the second time Wallace approached Officers Adachi and Rowe, the prosecution does not dispute that Wallace was subject to interrogation. Our inquiry, therefore, focuses strictly on whether Wallace was in custody during his second encounter with Officers Adachi and Rowe for purposes of triggering the protections afforded by Miranda.  To determine whether `interrogation' is `custodial,' we look to the totality of the circumstances, focusing on `the place and time of the interrogation, the length of the interrogation, the nature of the questions asked, the conduct of the police, and [any] other relevant circumstances.'  Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 210, 10 P.3d at 731 (quoting Melemai, 64 Haw. at 481, 643 P.2d at 544) (brackets in original). Again, the question to be answered, once it is determined that a defendant has been interrogated within the meaning of article I, section 10, is whether the defendant, at the time of the interrogation, was in[ ] custody or otherwise deprived of his [or her] freedom ... in any significant way[.] Hoey, 77 Hawai'i at 33, 881 P.2d at 520 (citations omitted). Ketchum, 97 Hawai'i at 122, 34 P.3d at 1021 (emphasis added)(footnote omitted). [N]o precise line can be drawn delineating when custodial interrogation, as opposed to non-custodial on-the-scene questioning (which is outside the protection against self-incrimination that article I, section 10 affords to an accused), has occurred. Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 210, 10 P.3d at 731 (citations, internal quotation signals, and original brackets omitted). Rather, the question whether a person has been significantly deprived of his or her freedom, such that he or she is `in custody' at the time he or she is `interrogated,' must be addressed on a case-by-case basis `because each case must necessarily turn upon its own facts and circumstances.'  Ketchum, 97 Hawai'i at 123, 34 P.3d at 1022 (quoting Patterson, 59 Haw. at 362, 581 P.2d at 756). However, as explained by the Ketchum court: Nonetheless, we discern a point along the spectrum beyond which on-the-scene [questioning] becomes custodial, such that article I, section 10 precludes the prosecution from adducing a defendant's resulting statement at trial unless the question has been preceded by the requisite Miranda warnings. Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 210, 10 P.3d at 731; Patterson, 59 Haw. at 362, 581 P.2d at 755-56. On one side of that point is the situation in which a person subjected to lawful investigative detention, which is brief in duration and during which the officer poses questions that are designed to confirm or dispel the officer's reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, has not had his or her liberty infringed to such a significant degree as to render the detainee in custody for purposes of triggering the prosecution's burden  under article I, section 10 of the Hawai'i Constitution  of establishing that the requisite Miranda warnings were first properly administered as an evidentiary precondition to the admissibility of the detainee's responses to the officer's questions at trial. See Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 212, 10 P.3d at 733; State v. Hoffman, 73 Haw. 41, 54, 828 P.2d 805, 813 (1992); Patterson, 59 Haw. at 362-63, 581 P.2d at 755-56. .... .... In essence, ... Ah Loo reiterates the basic principle that when an officer lawfully conducting an investigative detention lacks probable cause to arrest the detainee and  so long as his or her questions remain brief and casual and do not become sustained and coercive  has not impliedly accused the detainee of committing a crime, the officer has not significantly infringed upon the detainee's liberty, such that the detainee is in custody and has thus been transformed into an accused to whom the protection against self-incrimination attaches. But, under Ah Loo, once a detainee becomes expressly or impliedly accused of having committed a crime  because the totality of the circumstances reflects either that probable cause to arrest the detainee has developed or that the officer's questions have become sustained and coercive, the officer's investigation having focused upon the detainee and the questions no longer being designed to dispel or confirm the officer's reasonable suspicion  , then Miranda warnings, as well as a valid waiver [of] the detainee's related constitutional rights, are required before the fruit of further questioning can be introduced in a subsequent criminal proceeding against the detainee. Id. at 212, 10 P.3d at 733. Id. at 123-24, 34 P.3d at 1022-23 (emphases added). Discussing the other side of the `point along the spectrum,' the Ketchum court stated: Accordingly, on the other side of the point along the spectrum stands the proposition, equally axiomatic, that a person whom an officer has formally and physically arrested is in custody for purposes of article I, section 10.... As this court acknowledged in [State v.] Wyatt, [i]t is well settled that the safeguards prescribed by Miranda become applicable as soon as a suspect's freedom of action is curtailed to a `degree associated with formal arrest.' 67 Haw. [293,] 301 n. 6, 687 P.2d [544,] 550 n. 6 [(1984)] (quoting Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984) (quoting California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275 (1983) (per curiam))). Simply said, even without sustained and coercive questioning, if the point of arrest ... has been reached, the prosecution must establish that Miranda warnings, as well as a valid waiver of the defendant's related constitutional rights, preceded any interrogation as a precondition to the admissibility at trial of any resulting statement made by the defendant. See Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 210, 10 P.3d at 731 (citations omitted). However, determining the precise point at which a temporary investigative detention has ripened into a warrantless arrest is no more susceptible to a bright-line rule than is determining when a suspect is in custody. ... Nevertheless, it is self-evident that a temporary investigative detention in the absence of sustained and coercive questioning is noncustodial, whereas an arrest is custodial. See Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 210, 10 P.3d at 731. Accordingly, an arrestee is obviously in custody whether or not, in retrospect, the arresting officer had probable cause to effect the arrest in the first place.... So long as an objective assessment of the totality of the circumstances reflects that the point of arrest has arrived, the arrestee, at that point, is in custody for purposes of article I, section 10. Although there is no simple or precise bright line delineating when the point of arrest has arrived, it is well settled that a temporary investigative detention must, of necessity, be truly temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the [detention]  i.e., transpire for no longer than necessary to confirm or dispel the officer's reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. [ U.S. v. ] Sharpe, 470 U.S. [675] at 684, 105 S.Ct. 1568 [84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985)] (quoting Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983))[ ].... In other words, a temporary investigative detention must be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified [the detention] in the first place, State v. Silva, 91 Hawai'i 80, 81, 979 P.2d 1106, 1107 (1999) (quoting Sharpe, 470 U.S. at 682, 105 S.Ct. 1568), and, thus, must be no greater in intensity than absolutely necessary under the circumstances, see Silva, 91 Hawai'i at 81, 979 P.2d at 1107 (quoting State v. Kaluna, 55 Haw. 361, 369, 520 P.2d 51, 58-59 (1974)). Moreover, while no single factor, in itself, is dispositive as to when a temporary investigative detention has morphed into an arrest, the potential attributes of arrest clearly include such circumstances as handcuffing, leading the detainee to a different location, subjecting him or her to booking procedures, ordering his or her compliance with an officer's directives, using force, or displaying a show of authority beyond that inherent in the mere presence of a police officer, as well as any other event or condition that betokens a significant deprivation of freedom, such that [an] innocent person could reasonably have believed that he [or she] was not free to go and that he [or she] was being taken into custody indefinitely, Kraus v. County of Pierce, 793 F.2d 1105, 1109 (9th Cir.1986).... We agree with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that, when determining whether an arrest has occurred, a court must evaluate all the surrounding circumstances, `including the extent to which liberty of movement is curtailed and the type of force or authority employed.' United States v. Torres-Sanchez, 83 F.3d 1123, 1127 (9th Cir.1996) (quoting United States v. Robertson, 833 F.2d 777, 780 (9th Cir.1987)). Id. at 124-26, 34 P.3d at 1023-25. The Ketchum court ultimately held: In summary, we hold that a person is in custody for purposes of article I, section 10 of the Hawai'i Constitution if an objective assessment of the totality of the circumstances reflects either (1) that the person has become impliedly accused of committing a crime because the questions of the police have become sustained and coercive, such that they are no longer reasonably designed briefly to confirm or dispel their reasonable suspicion or (2) that the point of arrest has arrived because either (a) probable cause to arrest has developed or (b) the police have subjected the person to an unlawful de facto arrest without probable cause to do so. Id. at 126, 34 P.3d at 1025. In the present case, the circuit court concluded in COL 7 that, [w]hen Officer Adachi developed the conclusion that Defendant knew more about the vehicle than what he was saying, the questioning ceased to be brief and casual and became sustained and coercive, requiring Miranda warnings. Based on the record, we cannot agree. It is undisputed that it was Wallace who returned to the vehicle and approached Officers Adachi and Rowe of his own volition. It is also uncontroverted that it was Wallace who initiated conversation with the officers by asking, [W]hat was going on, what [they] were doing, what's up with the truck. After Wallace walked around the vehicle and indicated that he wanted the cigarettes out of the vehicle, Officer Adachi, thinking Wallace's actions were suspicious, asked Wallace what he knew about the vehicle, including whether he knew who was driving the vehicle or whether anybody else was in the vehicle. At this point, Officer Adachi's questions were brief and casual and clearly constituted noncustodial, on-the-scene questioning. In other words, Officer Adachi's questions were investigatory in nature, designed to confirm or dispel his suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. Thereafter, when Wallace responded that he was at the scene when haole Jeff pulled up in the vehicle, parked it and fled, it is undisputed that Wallace appeared nervous and jittery, would not make eye contact, and he kept playing with his clothes. Additionally, as the circuit court found in FOF 29, which the prosecution does not dispute, [b]ased on the fact that [Wallace] matched the description of the driver coupled with his unusual behavior, Officer Adachi came to the conclusion that [Wallace] knew more than what he was telling police. As previously indicated, the circuit court ruled that it was at this juncture that Wallace was in custody for Miranda purposes inasmuch as the questioning ceased to be brief and casual and became sustained and coercive [.] The record, however, evinces merely that, after being Mirandized, Wallace eventually admitted that he was driving the vehicle, and that Jeff was with him in the vehicle. In other words, the record does not reveal with any degree of specificity the nature of the question or questions asked by Officer Adachi in eliciting Wallace's incriminating statement about driving the vehicle. Absent this evidence, we are unable to conclude as the circuit court did that, under an objective assessment of the totality of the circumstances, the questioning became sustained and coercive thereby triggering the protections afforded by Miranda. This conclusion is patently unsupported by the record. Nonetheless, Wallace claims that: Although Officer Adachi testified that Wallace was free to leave if he wanted to, there is no evidence in the record that this information was conveyed to Wallace. In fact, Officer Adachi directed Wallace to stand to the side while police were continuing their investigation of the truck. And, certainly at the point where Officer Adachi began to inform Wallace of his constitutional rights and instructed him to initial the police form, it would have been reasonable for Wallace to believe that police viewed him as a suspect and that he had to remain at the scene with police. Given Officer Adachi's conduct and show of authority, a reasonable person would not feel free to walk away. Wallace appears to be arguing that an objective assessment of the totality of the circumstances reflects that the point of arrest had arrived because he was subjected to unlawful de facto arrest without probable cause to do so. Again, we cannot agree. It was only in the context of being asked whether Wallace was crowded or restrained by officers that Officer Adachi replied in the negative, explaining, I actually just told him to stand on the side, and we kept doing what we had to do with the vehicle. The record, therefore, reflects that Officer Adachi instructed Wallace to stand on the side not for the purpose of detaining Wallace, but so that he could continue the investigation without Wallace getting in the way. As for the fact that Officer Adachi did not advise Wallace that he was free to leave the scene during the encounter: Though informing a suspect that he is not under arrest is one factor frequently considered to show lack of custody, see, e.g., [Oregon v.] Mathiason, 429 U.S. [492,] 495 [97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714] [(1977)]; [United States v.] Stanley, 597 F.2d [866,] 869 [(4th Cir.1979)], it is not a talismanic factor. See, e.g., Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984). Where[ ] ... the entire context indicates a lack of custody, failure to inform defendant of his status is not dispositive. Davis v. Allsbrooks, 778 F.2d 168, 171-72 (4th Cir.1985). In the instant case, the record evinces that (1) Wallace voluntarily approached Officers Adachi and Rowe to engage them in conversation regarding the vehicle, (2) Wallace's liberty of movement was not curtailed in any significant manner, (3) no force was used during the encounter, (4) Wallace was not moved to a different location or physically restrained, and (5) neither Officer Adachi nor Officer Rowe displayed a show of authority beyond that inherent in the mere presence of a police officer. Therefore, Wallace's assertion that he was not free to leave the scene is belied by the record. Rather, the entire context of the encounter plainly indicates a lack of custody. Furthermore, we reject Wallace's contention that the very giving of Miranda rights essentially produced a custodial interrogation. Numerous courts have held, and we hereby agree, that the precaution of giving Miranda warnings in a noncustodial setting does not transform that setting into a custodial interrogation for Miranda purposes. See, e.g., United States v. Bautista, 145 F.3d 1140, 1148 (10th Cir.1998); Davis 778 F.2d at 171-72; United States v. Charles, 738 F.2d 686, 694 n. 6 (5th Cir.1984), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Bengivenga, 845 F.2d 593 (5th Cir.1988) (en banc); United States v. Lewis, 556 F.2d 446, 449 (6th Cir.1977) (per curiam), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 863, 98 S.Ct. 193, 54 L.Ed.2d 137 (1977); State v. Haddock, 257 Kan. 964, 897 P.2d 152, 162-63 (1995), overruled on other grounds by State v. James, 276 Kan. 737, 79 P.3d 169 (2003); State v. Taillon, 470 N.W.2d 226, 229 (N.D.1991); State v. Doby, 273 S.C. 704, 258 S.E.2d 896, 899 (1979). In this case, the totality of the circumstances compels us to conclude for the reasons discussed supra that an innocent person in Wallace's position could not reasonably have believed that he or she was under arrest at the time of the encounter with Officers Adachi and Rowe. As previously indicated, Wallace has the burden of proving custody. Naititi, 104 Hawai'i at 235, 87 P.3d at 904 (quoting Ketchum, 97 Hawai'i at 118, 34 P.3d at 1017). Inasmuch as an objective assessment of the totality of the circumstances fails to reflect either that (1) Wallace had become impliedly accused of committing a crime because Officer Adachi's questions became sustained and coercive, such that they were no longer reasonably designed briefly to confirm or dispel their reasonable suspicion or (2) the point of arrest had arrived because Wallace was subjected to unlawful de facto arrest without probable cause to do so, we hold that Wallace fails to sustain his burden of proof.