Opinion ID: 504895
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Reasonable Person Test

Text: 11 The Miranda Court first defined custodial interrogation to mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. 7 The meaning of custody has been refined so the ultimate inquiry is simply whether there is a 'formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement' of the degree associated with formal arrest. 8 The Supreme Court has also explained that the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect's position would have understood the situation. 9 A suspect is therefore in custody for Miranda purposes when placed under formal arrest or when a reasonable person in the suspect's position would have understood the situation to constitute a restraint on freedom of movement of the degree which the law associates with formal arrest. The reasonable person through whom we view the situation must be neutral to the environment and to the purposes of the investigation--that is, neither guilty of criminal conduct and thus overly apprehensive nor insensitive to the seriousness of the circumstances.
12 Although the task of defining custody can be a slippery one, 10 Supreme Court precedent has substantially undermined the four factors comprising our custody test. First, the existence of probable cause to arrest is largely immaterial to the question of custody. In a case holding that traffic stops do not ordinarily place a motorist in custody, the Court rejected the position that custody arises as soon as the level of suspicion amounts to probable cause to arrest. Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 435 n. 22, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3148 n. 22, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984). 13 The threat to a citizen's Fifth Amendment rights that Miranda was designed to neutralize has little to do with the strength of an interrogating officer's suspicions. And, by requiring a policeman conversing with a motorist constantly to monitor the information available to him to determine when it becomes sufficient to establish probable cause, the [proposed rule] would be extremely difficult to administer. 14 Id. Police officers are not required to effectuate an arrest the moment probable cause arises. 11 Regardless of the presence of probable cause, until an officer acts to exert some type of restraint a suspect cannot reasonably believe her freedom is restrained. 15 The Supreme Court has also made it clear that focus alone does not create Miranda custody. 12 Acknowledging this rule, 13 our cases have held that custody arises when focus is coupled with another factor such as probable cause. 14 Even this approach remains problematic because the exertion of restraint no more accompanies focus than it does probable cause. In particular, the presence of probable cause and focus often adds little to the custody equation because facts that establish these two factors tend to coalesce. 15 Probable cause and focus become material to the custody inquiry only when they influence a reasonable person's perception of the situation. 16 To consider these factors in any other light may hamper legitimate police practices that do not threaten Fifth Amendment rights. 16 Finally, both our third and fourth factors--the unrevealed subjective intent of the law enforcement officer and the subjective belief of the suspect--are irrelevant to the custody determination. The Supreme Court recently stated that [a] policeman's unarticulated plan has no bearing on the question whether a suspect was 'in custody' at a particular time; the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect's position would have understood his situation. 17 Consideration of the subjective belief of the suspect may have an apparent logical soundness because a person who honestly but unreasonably believes he is in custody is subject to the same coercive pressures as one whose belief is reasonable. 18 But the Supreme Court adopted a reasonable person test because it  'is not solely dependent either on the self-serving declarations of the police officers or the defendant nor does it place upon the police the burden of anticipating the frailties or idiosyncracies of every person whom they question.'  19 17
18 In the past, we have questioned the relationship between Miranda custody and the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable seizures. See, e.g., United States v. Brunson, 549 F.2d 348, 356 n. 9 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 842, 98 S.Ct. 140, 54 L.Ed.2d 107 (1977). We know that a person has been 'seized' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave. 20 But a Fourth Amendment seizure does not necessarily render a person in custody for purposes of Miranda. For example, traffic stops--stops which constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure 21 --do not automatically place a person in custody for purposes of Miranda. 22 In Brunson, 549 F.2d at 357 n. 12, a panel of this court noted that the core meaning both of 'seizure' in the Fourth Amendment sense, and of 'custody' in the Miranda sense, appears to be the same: the restraint of a person's 'freedom to walk away' from the police. The critical difference between the two concepts, however, is that custody arises only if the restraint on freedom is a certain degree--the degree associated with formal arrest. 19