Opinion ID: 1175284
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statements Immediately After the Fire

Text: After defendant was pulled from the smoke-filled pod, Captain Padilla asked him what happened and defendant said he burned Buster. Asked if Buster was dead, defendant answered, He should be, he's on fire. Defendant claims the trial judge should not have admitted these statements into evidence because defendant was not read his Miranda rights. We disagree for two reasons. First, Miranda warnings are required to be given only when a defendant is in custody and under interrogation. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). We do not believe Vickers was under interrogation or in custody when Padilla asked him what happened. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has stated: The question in this case is unique because Cervantes was residing in jail when the questioning occured. Cervantes relies on Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1503, 20 L.Ed.2d 381 (1968), for the proposition that any interrogation during prison confinement constitutes custodial interrogation requiring Miranda warnings. We do not read Mathis so broadly....       Adoption of Cervantes' contention would not only be inconsistent with Miranda but would torture it to the illogical position of providing greater protection to a prisoner than to his nonimprisoned counterpart. We cannot believe the Supreme Court intended such a result. Thus, while Mathis may have narrowed the range of possible situations in which on-the-scene questioning may take place in a prison, we find in Mathis no express intent to eliminate such questioning entirely merely by virtue of the interviewee's prisoner status. Cervantes v. Walker, 589 F.2d 424, 427 (9th Cir.1978). See also State v. Cruz-Mata, 138 Ariz. 370, 372-73, 674 P.2d 1368, 1370-72 (1983). Nor was defendant under interrogation. Under Miranda, the term interrogation refers to questioning which the police should know [is] reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect. Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 301, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 1689-90, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980). There is no evidence indicating that Padilla could have known that his question, What happened? would elicit an incriminating response from Vickers. Nor is there any evidence indicating that Vickers was suspected of committing a crime when Padilla asked him what happened. Both Padilla and Vancura testified that they had no idea what had happened. They had no reason to believe, at that point, that a crime had been committed. Vickers was not under interrogation, and Padilla was not required to read Vickers the Miranda warnings. Second, even if Vickers was under custodial interrogation the statements are, nevertheless, admissible under the public safety exception recognized in New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 655, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 2631, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984). In Quarles, a woman told police officers that she had been raped by a man who had just walked into a certain supermarket with a gun. The police officers apprehended the defendant in the specified supermarket, frisked him and discovered the defendant was wearing a shoulder holster but was not carrying a gun. The police officer asked the defendant where the gun was and the defendant stated, the gun is over there. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 652, 104 S.Ct. at 2629. The Supreme Court held that Miranda need not be applied in all its rigor to a situation in which police officers ask questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 656, 104 S.Ct. at 2632. The Court stated that the need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination. Quarles, 467 U.S. at 657, 104 S.Ct. at 2632. In the instant case, Padilla testified that he asked Vickers what happened and whether Buster was dead in order to make a strategic plan of rescuing the other inmates. Padilla testified that, based on Vickers' statements, they decided it would be best to rescue Smith and Mata first before attempting to save Buster. We believe defendant's statements fall under the public safety exception to Miranda.