Opinion ID: 2631901
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Elicitation Of Ketchum's Address During The Field Booking Procedure

Text: The prosecution challenges the circuit court's COL No. 7, asserting that the address Ketchum provided to an officer who, under the supervision of Detective Towne, was filling out the booking sheet fell within the routine booking question exception. In light of our discussion supra in section III. A.1, we construe the prosecution's argument to be that the officer did not interrogate Ketchum. The prosecution does not dispute that, at the time the officer elicited the information necessary to complete the booking sheet, Ketchum was in custody for purposes of article I, section 10; nor does the prosecution contend that the officer did not expressly question Ketchum regarding his address. Rather, the prosecution argues that [t]he booking questions were necessary to the criminal investigation[ ] and that they were straight-forward, non-accusatory in nature, and legitimate. By contrast, Ketchum maintains that, inasmuch as the officer knew or should have known that the question was likely to elicit an incriminating response, the routine booking question exception does not apply. As the prosecution asserts, obtaining Ketchum's residential address was crucial to determining whether there was probable cause to formally arrest Ketchum and, thus, was a reasonable component of the officers' investigation, insofar as, according to Detective Towne, whether any given occupant of the premises was a visitor partially informed the officers' decision whether to arrest that occupant. As we have indicated, however, the Miranda rule does not preclude police officers engaged in a drug raid of a residence from asking questions designed to determine whether an occupant is a visitor. So long as the point of arrest has not yet arrived, an officer is unfettered by article I, section 10 from asking such questions in the course of his or her investigation or relying upon an occupant's response to assess whether probable cause to arrest the occupant has developed. Nor does the Miranda rule preclude an officer from asking questions of an arrestee that are necessary for the sole purpose of booking him or her. The point is that, if the booking officer knows or reasonably should know that a routine booking question is likely to elicit an incriminating response, he or she must administer the requisite warnings and obtain a valid waiver of the arrestee's relevant constitutional rights before posing the question if the prosecution, in a subsequent criminal prosecution of the arrestee, is to be permitted to adduce evidence of the arrestee's response without running afoul of article I, section 10 of the Hawai`i Constitution. Inasmuch as Ketchum was, in fact, under arrest and, therefore, in custody at the time he was subjected to the field booking procedures, we turn to the question whether the field booking officer interrogated him. Although the officer asked Ketchum for the information necessary to complete the booking sheet shortly after Ketchum was arrested, the information was not gathered in a traditional station house or other formal booking station. The record is devoid of any evidence that the officer who obtained the information from Ketchum was ordinarily involved in booking defendants. And, most significantly, the officer reasonably should have knowninasmuch as (1) he or she is presumed to be aware of the concept of constructive possession, see, e.g., State v. Roman, 70 Haw. 351, 358, 772 P.2d 113, 117 (1989) ([w]e do not condone any police ignorance about the law and the consequences of a custodial interrogation (citing State v. Uganiza, 68 Haw. 28, 702 P.2d 1352 (1985))), (2) the search warrant authorized a search for drugs, (3) Ketchum was found within a bedroom, and (4) the officers conducted the raid early in the morningthat asking Ketchum for his address was likely to elicit an incriminating response, to wit, that he resided in the residence identified in the search warrant. That being the case, justifying the inquiry on the ground that it was an innocuous routine booking question is simply another post hoc rationalization of the police having compelled Ketchum to implicate himself in the alleged crimes. We hold that the booking officer obtained Ketchum's admission regarding his address as a result of custodial interrogation. Insofar as the prosecution failed to adduce any evidence at the suppression hearing that Ketchum was first informed, inter alia, of his right against self-incrimination and that he waived that right, the circuit court correctly concluded that Ketchum's statement was inadmissible at trial. Accordingly, COL No. 7 was not wrong.