Opinion ID: 2545905
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Miranda vis-a-vis Child Protection Officers

Text: Defendant argues the case of State v. Saltzman, 2002-1350 (La.App. 3 Cir.2003), 843 So.2d 1206, rev'd on other grounds, 871 So.2d 1087 (per curiam), establishes a rule that, as a matter of law, OCS agents conducting investigations are agents of law enforcement for the purposes of Miranda. [6] This is a misreading of Saltzman. The appellate court in Saltzman did not establish a per se rule, but applied a totality of the circumstances test in finding, as a matter of fact, the OCS agent was acting as an agent of law enforcement. Saltzman, like defendant in the case sub judice, was charged with aggravated rape of his minor stepdaughters. Martin Caeser, a child protection investigator, interviewed the defendant without giving Miranda warnings and elicited incriminating statements. Id. at 1208. Also present at the interview was Detective Michael Primeaux. As soon as Caeser finished his interview, Detective Primeaux read defendant the Miranda rights and conducted his own interrogation. The appellate court held under these facts, Caeser was acting as an agent of law enforcement: Mr. Ceasar filed a report at the police station, reviewed the interviews of the children with Detective Primeaux and told Detective Primeaux that he would be interviewing the Defendant the next day. Detective Primeaux was present for the interview and took notes. Certainly, Mr. Ceasar knew that the statements he was eliciting from the defendant could be used by Detective Primeaux to arrest the defendant. Id. at 1211. The court's findings were essentially factual in nature. The OCS agent filed a report directly with the police, talked with the police about the case prior to interviewing the defendant, told police when and where he would be interviewing the defendant, and interviewed the defendant in the presence of the detective in charge of the investigation. It can be discerned he was acting as a law enforcement agent. The precise factual circumstances in Saltzman are not involved in the case presently before us, nor do we pass judgment on whether that court's factual findings were correct. We discuss it here merely to emphasize whether someone is acting as an agent of law enforcement is dependent upon the unique circumstances of each case. As we now state, this determination is fact-driven and can vary widely on a case by case basis. To further illustrate our discussion, we find it appropriate to mention an interesting Texas case concerning similar facts as here and that court's treatment of the central issue before us. Wilkerson v. State, 173 S.W.3d 521 (Tex.Crim.App. 2005), concerned the subject of both a criminal investigation and a separate investigation by the Texas Department of Child Protective Services (CPS). The Texas CPS investigator, like Collins, was a state employee who questioned family members in cases of suspected child abuse. She was bound by law to forward her reports to the police. Id. at 525 n. 5. The defendant argued, as a matter of law, CPS investigators are law enforcement agents under Miranda. The court rejected this contention, as a CPS worker's primary job is not to gather evidence for the prosecution of criminal cases: Their mission is to protect the welfare and safety of children in the community. Although this duty may at times entail the investigation of child abuse claims, that alone does not transform CPS workers into law enforcement officers or their agents. Id. at 528. Instead, courts must make a case-by-case finding and review the entire record to determine whether a CPS worker is acting as a law enforcement agent in each particular case. Id. at 530. The Wilkerson court set forth a lengthy series of factors for lower courts to consider: First, courts should look for information about the relationship between the police and the potential police agent. Did the police know the interviewer was going to speak with the defendant? Did the police arrange the meeting? Were the police present during the interview? Did they provide the interviewer with the questions to ask? Did they give the interviewer implicit or explicit instructions to get certain information from the defendant? Was there a calculated practice between the police and the interviewer that was likely to evoke an incriminating response from defendant during the interview? And finally, does the record show that the police were using the agent's interview to accomplish what they could not lawfully accomplish themselves? In sum, was law enforcement attempting to use the interviewer as its anointed agent? Second, courts should examine the record concerning the interviewer's actions and perceptions: What was the interviewer's primary reason for questioning the person? Were the questions aimed at gaining information and evidence for a criminal prosecution, or were they related to some other goal? How did the interviewer become involved in the case? Did the interviewer help build a case that led to the person's arrest, or was the interviewer pursuing some other goal or performing some other duty? At whose request did the interviewer question the arrestee? In sum, did the interviewer believe that he was acting as an agent of law enforcement? Finally, courts should examine the record for evidence of the defendant's perceptions of the encounter. When the defendant was interviewed, did he believe that he was speaking with a law-enforcement agent, someone cloaked with the actual or apparent authority of the police? What gave him this impression? Alternatively, would a reasonable person in defendant's position believe that the interviewer was an agent of law enforcement? At bottom, the inquiry is: Was this custodial interview conducted (explicitly or implicitly) on behalf of the police for the primary purpose of gathering evidence or statements to be used in a later criminal proceeding against the interviewee? Put another way, is the interviewer acting as an instrumentality or conduit for the police or prosecution? Most simply: is the interviewer in cahoots with the police? Id. at 530-531 (footnotes omitted). We find the list of factors in this Texas case worthy of mentioning. We note not all of these factors will be probative in every case, and the presence or absence of any one factor should not be considered dispositive. Instead, courts must consider the totality of circumstances in each case. The most important factors are those discussed in State v. Perry, 502 So.2d 543 (La.1986): whether the investigator discussed the case with police prior to the interview, whether the interview was conducted at the police's request, and whether the primary purpose of the investigator's visit was to elicit a confession while in cahoots with law enforcement. In short, police may not circumvent Miranda by using OCS investigators (or anyone else) as stand-ins to conduct interrogations in their stead. Applying a case-by-case standard, we now turn to the record evidence before us in determining whether Collins was an agent of law enforcement when she interviewed defendant.