Opinion ID: 858528
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: deliberate delay in providing miranda

Text: WARNINGS When a law enforcement officer interrogates a suspect in custody but does not warn the suspect of his Miranda rights until after he has made an inculpatory statement, the inquiry is whether the officer engaged in “a deliberate two-step interrogation.” Williams, 435 F.3d at 1150. Such an interrogation occurs when an officer deliberately questions the suspect without Miranda warnings, obtains a confession or inculpatory admission, offers mid-stream warnings after the suspect has admitted involvement or guilt, and then has the suspect repeat his confession or elaborate on his earlier statements. Id. at 1159–60. If the FBI agents “deliberately employed the two-step strategy,” we then “evaluate the effectiveness of the midstream Miranda warning to determine UNITED STATES V . BARNES 9 whether the postwarning statement is admissible.” Id. at 1160 (citing Seibert, 542 U.S. at 615). The evidence reflects that the agents deliberately employed the two-step interrogation tactic. In reaching this conclusion, we “consider whether objective evidence and any available subjective evidence, such as an [agent’s] testimony, support an inference that the two-step interrogation procedure was used to undermine the Miranda warning.” Id. at 1158. Agent Eckstein testified that he was familiar with Miranda’s requirements, believed Barnes would think he was not free to leave the meeting, and intended to question Barnes about his involvement in a crime. He further stated that the agents played the recorded phone conversation to demonstrate that they “were investigating [Barnes],” because “unless he believed that[,] he would not cooperate” with the agents and “would not talk to [them].” Agent Eckstein explained that he did not give the warnings at the beginning of the meeting because he “wanted to allay any concerns [Barnes] had that he was being arrested that day”: A: We could have [Mirandized Barnes at the beginning of the meeting], but it’s been my experience that . . . when you Mirandize somebody . . . they think they’re under arrest because they equate being Mirandized with being under arrest. And so we were trying to convince him that he was not going to be arrested that day . . . . So I felt like, well, on the one hand we’re saying Mr. Barnes, you’re not under arrest, we’re here to get your cooperation . . . . [H]ad he just walked in and 10 UNITED STATES V . BARNES we immediately Mirandized him, it would’ve . . . seemed to him that he was under arrest. Whether the agents planned to arrest Barnes forthwith or to turn him into a cooperating witness is not the bellwether for administering Miranda warnings. The simple reason the agents delayed was so that Barnes would talk to them about his role in the drug transaction. It is the agents’ interrogation of Barnes to this end in a custodial setting that triggers the need for Miranda warnings, where, as here, the suspect’s statements are later proffered against him at trial. The agents made a deliberate decision not to warn first, but instead to confront Barnes with accusations of guilt and the tape recording. Agent Eckstein’s testimony was clear on this point: Q: Okay. But you didn’t . . . confront him with something to the effect of we know you know about crimes that others committed, did you? In fact, . . . you confronted him with we know you committed a crime? A: Initially. And the plan certainly was after we talked to him about that and he agreed to cooperate[,] we were going to then question him about his associates. (Emphasis added.) Agent Eckstein feared that if Barnes heard the warnings, he would be less willing to talk about the suspect that the agents were targeting. That the ultimate goal of the interrogation was apparently to gather information to charge Pebenito, rather than to charge Barnes, does not sanction the agents’ decision to delay Miranda warnings. The two-step tactic UNITED STATES V . BARNES 11 necessarily elicited inculpatory information about Barnes’s transactions with Pebenito, and thus necessarily inculpated Barnes. Indeed, at one point, the agents told Barnes he could be prosecuted and that it was not their decision whether he would be charged. The agents deliberately withheld the warnings to prevent Barnes from being aware that he had entered a phase of the adversary system, in direct contravention of one of Miranda’s key goals. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 469 (1966).