Court Opinion

ID: 9721663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:04:53.302132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:28.033847
License: Public Domain

FRANSON, Acting P. J., and ANDREEN, J.
We concur.
We wish to note, however, that while we agree with the holding that appellant’s statements to Mr. Huston were not the product of a police “interrogation,” we disagree with the finding that Huston was not a police agent or peace officer within the meaning of Miranda.
Although Huston apparently had no investigative functions, he had training in security measures and had custody responsibility of appellant. In short, Huston was more than a janitor or a cook at the juvenile facility; he was in essence a “jailor.”
Justice Kaus, in holding that a security guard employed by the Los Angeles County General Hospital does not belong to that class of people who must advise a suspect of his constitutional rights prior to asking a question which may elicit an incriminating statement, had the following to say in People v. Wright (1967) 249 Cal.App.2d 692, 694-695 [57 Cal.Rptr. 781]: “It does not matter that a particular employee’s duties may be confined to the protection of persons and property on his employer’s premises or that his employer may be the state, a political subdivision thereof or a local entity. What does matter is whether he is employed by an agency of government, federal, state or local, whose primary mission is to enforce the law. This conclusion, it appears to us, is implicit from the purposes of the Dorado rule, as explained In re Lopez, 62 Cal.2d 368 [42 Cal.Rptr. 188, 398 P.2d 380].” (Fns. omitted.)
That Penal Code section 830.5 was amended in 1980 to give peace officer status to supervisors or other employees having custody of wards does not suggest that before the 1980 amendment persons having juvenile custody duties were not already peace officers in the Miranda sense. They are directly engaged in the detention of juveniles, which is a *671central function of the probation office—an organization whose primary mission is to enforce the law. The amendment merely reflected the existing realities of the juvenile-supervisor relationship.
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 26, 1982, and appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 28, 1982. Bird, C. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.