Opinion ID: 6112171
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Clark’s Recorded Interrogation

Text: Clark challenges the admission of his recorded interrogation with Officer Benner, which Clark alleges was obtained in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights because he was not given Miranda warnings. The government responds that Clark waived his Miranda argument because Clark conceded during the trial that he was not under arrest and that the police did not have to give him Miranda warnings. In the alternative, the government argues, first, that we should decline to review Clark’s claim because it turns on unresolved questions of fact and, second, that the interrogation was not custodial. We find that Clark waived his Miranda claim. No. 20-5722 United States v. Clark Page 12 “[W]aiver is the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right.” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733 (1993) (quotation marks omitted). It is different from mere forfeiture, which “is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right.” Id. We have found that a defendant waives an argument by, for example, raising and then abandoning it, United States v. Denkins, 367 F.3d 537, 543 (6th Cir. 2004), stating in a brief that a proposition is not disputed, United States v. Walker, 615 F.3d 728, 733 (6th Cir. 2010), or conceding it in open court and then changing positions on appeal, United States v. Abdi, 827 F. App’x 499, 506 (6th Cir. 2020). On the other hand, we have found that a defendant forfeits an argument by, for example, failing to make it before the district court, United States v. Montgomery, 998 F.3d 693, 698 (6th Cir. 2021), only summarily raising it without a developed argument, Automated Sols. Corp. v. Paragon Data Sys., Inc., 756 F.3d 504, 521–22 (6th Cir. 2014), or acknowledging it without “press[ing] it,” Jones Bros., Inc. v. Sec’y of Labor, 898 F.3d 669, 677 (6th Cir. 2018). Clark never asserted his Miranda claim before the district court. He did not bring a pretrial motion to suppress his recorded statements, as required by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure12(b); and he did not object to the admission of his statements during trial, or when the district court sua sponte told the jury that “[a]s a matter of law, Miranda warnings were not necessary in this case.” Most importantly, Clark told the jury, “[w]e all know that [Clark] at the time of the interrogation[] [was] not under arrest” and therefore the police “didn’t have to give [him] the Miranda warnings.” Clark, therefore, conceded his Miranda claim in a manner that we have found evinces an intentional relinquishment of a known right. See United States v. Soto, 794 F.3d 635, 655 (6th Cir. 2015) (“[W]e do not treat the failure to file a [Rule 12(b)] motion as a waiver unless the circumstances of the case indicate that the defendant intentionally relinquished a known right.”). Clark’s conduct was not merely passive. He made a “a plain, explicit concession on the record addressing the precise issue later raised on appeal,” and therefore affirmatively waived his claim going forward. United States v. Mabee, 765 F.3d 666, 673 (6th Cir. 2014); Abdi, 827 F. App’x at 506. No. 20-5722 United States v. Clark Page 13 But even if Clark did not waive his Miranda claim, he certainly forfeited it. In such a case, we review the admission for plain error. United States v. Ramamoorthy, 949 F.3d 955, 962 (6th Cir. 2020). A plain-error review of a forfeited suppression claim is “permissive, not mandatory.” Id. (quoting Olano, 507 U.S. at 735). We have declined to review such claims when they “turn[] on unresolved questions of fact.” Id. This is because “[s]uppression claims typically present fact-oriented issue[s]” that appellate courts “are not equipped to decide . . . in the first instance.” Id. at 962–63 (cleaned up). Clark’s claim, like most suppression claims, implicates these concerns. He asks us to decide whether he was subject to custodial interrogation when he was questioned by Officer Benner. Resolving that question depends on the “totality of the circumstances” and whether a reasonable person in Clark’s position would have felt free to leave—inquiries that necessitate the “balancing [of] a series of factors, no one of which is determinative, and all of which are highly dependent upon what transpired . . . that day.” Ramamoorthy, 949 F.3d at 963; see United States v. Brooks, 379 F. App’x 465, 473 (6th Cir. 2010). The district court is better suited to develop these fact-intensive questions. See United States v. Simer, 835 F. App’x 60, 68 (6th Cir. 2020) (declining review because appellate courts are “ill-equipped to re-create the fact-intensive and focused nature of a suppression hearing”). And because these questions were not raised earlier, the district court made no factual findings relevant to them and neither party had the “incentive to develop the factual record” on them. Ramamoorthy, 949 F.3d at 963 (quotation omitted); see United States v. Finch, 998 F.2d 349, 355 (6th Cir. 1993) (declining review because “[a]lthough the facts appear to have been well developed, it is possible that the failure of the defense to raise the issue may have influenced the manner in which the evidence was developed”). Therefore, even if Clark’s Miranda claim was not waived, it turns on unresolved questions of fact, and we decline to review it.