Opinion ID: 205890
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure To Secure Suppression of Orr's Un-Mirandized, Custodial Confession

Text: Next, Orr contends that Cohn rendered ineffective assistance of counsel when he failed to secure suppression of Orr's un- Mirandized, custodial confession to Deputy Siegfried during his arrest on June 4, 2007. Cohn filed his Motion to Exclude Evidence Concerning Incident of June 4, 2007, but did not state what evidence he sought to exclude or to which June 4 incident the motion referred. At the pretrial conference, the district court denied the motion. Orr concedes that once Deputy Siegfried began testifying about Orr's statement, Cohn timely objected to the introduction of any evidence of Orr's confession, and further secured an opportunity to voir dire Deputy Siegfried, on the record and outside the jury's presence, about all of the events surrounding Orr's confession. After his voir dire of Deputy Siegfried, Cohn renewed his motion to exclude any evidence of Orr's confession on the ground that it was elicited in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), reasoning that Deputy Siegfried's comment about also possessing an arrest warrant for Pfaltzgraff amounted to the functional equivalent of an interrogation pursuant to Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980). The district court denied Cohn's renewed motion. As the district court correctly observed in its denial of Orr's motion for new trial, [b]y objecting appropriately, [Cohn] performed `within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance.' Likewise, the district court was correct in its conclusion that, even if counsel was ineffective in failing to file a pretrial motion to suppress, Orr's custodial confession was not excludable because Deputy Siegfried's statements could not reasonably be perceived by Orr to elicit an incriminating response. See id., at 301, 100 S.Ct. 1682. As the Supreme Court noted in Innis, the definition of interrogation can extend only to words or actions on the part of police officers that they should have known were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. Id. at 302, 100 S.Ct. 1682. Moreover, as this court has stated, a `law enforcement officer's mere description of the evidence and of potential charges against a suspect, in direct response to the suspect's importuning, hardly can be classified as interrogatory.' United States v. Wipf, 397 F.3d 677, 685 (8th Cir.2005) (quoting United States v. Conley, 156 F.3d 78, 83 (1st Cir.1998)). The evidence reflects that, in response to Orr's challenge that no valid warrant for his arrest existed, Deputy Siegfried merely assured Orr that he (Deputy Siegfried) possessed a warrant for Orr and Pfaltzgraff. This is precisely the type of benign, informative comment envisioned by the Supreme Court and our circuit as not running afoul of Miranda. Consequently, because Cohn's failure to secure suppression of Orr's custodial confession did not constitute ineffective assistance under Strickland, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Orr's motion for new trial on that basis.