Court Opinion

ID: 9477212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:17:22.823275+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:45.625427
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join in the judgment of Judge Guy affirming the district court’s judgments of conviction as to all three defendants. However, there is more to be said since defendants also challenge, under the fifth amendment, the district court’s unexplained denial of their motion to suppress statements made prior to the receipt of Miranda warnings. While I ultimately am compelled to conclude that no fifth amendment Miranda violation is established because the guiding legal principles in this area are cloudy, I write separately.
In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), the Supreme Court held that:
[T]he prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpato-ry, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we 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.
Id. at 444, 86 S.Ct. at 1612 (footnote omitted). Thus, when deciding whether Miranda warnings were improperly withheld, it must first be determined whether the defendants were subjected to “interrogation” while “in custody.”
It is clear that the brief questioning to which the defendants were subjected constituted “interrogation” under the plain language of Miranda, as well as the subsequent explication in Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300-01, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 1689, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980). The Court explained in Innis that:
the term “interrogation” under Miranda refers not only to express questioning, but also to any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect.
Id. at 301, 100 S.Ct. at 1689-90 (footnotes omitted). The term “incriminating response” was defined as “any response— whether inculpatory or exculpatory — that the prosecution may seek to introduce at trial.” Id. at 301 n. 5,100 S.Ct. at 1690 n. 5 (emphasis in original). Since the responses elicited from the three defendants in the instant case were inherently contradictory and, therefore, subject to introduction into evidence by the prosecution as proof of both the defendants’ guilty states of mind and the officer’s justification for continued detention, they were “incriminating responses.”
The question whether defendants were “in custody” while they were isolated and detained in the airport security rooms is much more problematic. Referring to the original Miranda standard, one might be hard pressed to argue that defendants were not deprived of their freedom of ac*296tion in any significant way. Indeed, the factual similarity between the instant case and the Miranda cases is noteworthy — all involve police questioning of suspects while isolated in police rooms without the suspect being warned of his constitutional rights to counsel and against self-incrimination. See 384 U.S. at 445, 86 S.Ct. at 1612.
Despite the relative simplicity of the Miranda standard for determining whether a person is “in custody,” the Supreme Court in a 1983 per curiam summarily reversed a decision of a California state court and essentially redefined the relevant inquiry:
Although the circumstances of each case must certainly influence a determination of whether a suspect is ‘in custody’ for purposes of receiving Miranda protection, the ultimate inquiry is simply whether there is a ‘formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement’ of the degree associated with a formal arrest.
California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 3520, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275 (1983) (per curiam) (quoting Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495, 97 S.Ct. 711, 714, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) (per curiam)). The italicized language could be read to engraft the fourth amendment concept of arrest onto the requirement of custody — a concept that had in some respects been treated as a fifth amendment term of art. This would be all the more unusual since the relevant provisions of the fourth and fifth amendments are based on different principles; one protects against unreasonable seizures while the other grants an absolute guarantee against compelled self-incrimination. As the Court stated in Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391, 400, 96 S.Ct. 1569, 1576, 48 L.Ed.2d 39 (1976), “the Fifth Amendment’s strictures, unlike the Fourth’s, are not removed by showing reasonableness.” Nonetheless, Beheler’s amended definition of the term “in custody” has been applied without further discussion in subsequent cases. See, e.g., Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3150, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984); New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 655, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 2631, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984); Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420, 430-31, 104 S.Ct. 1136, 1143-44, 79 L.Ed.2d 409 (1984).
The real difficulty with this interpretation of the Beheler definition is apparent in the instant case. Investigative detentions conducted in airport security offices are very controversial from a judicial/constitutional perspective, see, e.g., Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983), but at the same time they are a highly effective law enforcement tactic. Effectiveness alone, however, does not validate that which is constitutionally invalid. The effectiveness of this tactic is due in no small part to the psychological objectives of isolated, police-dominated interrogation discussed at length in Miranda, 384 U.S. at 448-56, 86 S.Ct. at 1614-18. For these reasons, it is safe to say that nonconsensual, investigatory detentions conducted in airport security offices represent the outer limits of legitimate Terry seizures. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Still, since a valid Terry seizure is, by definition, not a “full seizure” —a term synonomous with “arrest” — a person properly seized on reasonable and artic-ulable suspicion for a brief investigatory detention could never be considered “in custody” so long as the scope and duration of the Terry stop do not exceed the underlying justification. This would be true regardless of the fact that, ignoring momentarily the fourth amendment’s considerations of the reasonableness of the seizure, the nonconsensual detention in a private police room for purposes of interrogation might closely resemble the type of “custody” the Miranda court had in mind.
I recognize that this theory of the impact of Beheler on airport Terry stops is arguably supported by certain dicta in the Ber-kemer opinion. In that case, the Supreme Court analogized the noncustodial nature of an ordinary traffic stop to Terry stops. After outlining the constitutional rationale for allowing Terry seizures on less than probable cause, the Court stated:
[TJhis means that the officer may ask the detainee a moderate number of questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain information confirming or dispelling the officer’s suspicions. But the *297detainee is not obliged to respond. And, unless the detainee’s answers provide the officer with probable cause to arrest him, he must then be released. The comparatively nonthreatening character of detentions of this sort explains the absence of any suggestion in our opinions that Terry stops are subject to the dictates of Miranda.
Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 439-40, 104 S.Ct. at 3150 (footnotes omitted).1 Nevertheless, the Court declined to announce any new bright line rule tying a determination of fifth amendment custodial interrogation to any particular fourth amendment situation. Id. at 441, 104 S.Ct. at 3151. Instead, it reaffirmed the case-by-case approach: “fidelity to the doctrine announced in Miranda requires that it be enforced strictly, but only in those types of situations in which the concerns that powered the decision are implicated.” Id. at 437, 104 S.Ct. at 314&-49. I likewise am unable to recognize such a bright line rule in this case.
Further, I reject the argument that, in view of Beheler, custodial interrogation can never be found in a setting that, under a pure fourth amendment analysis, is a valid investigatory detention based upon reasonable and articulable suspicion. See United States v. Streifel, 781 F.2d 953, 958 (1st Cir.1986) (suggesting that it is only a general rule that Terry stops do not implicate Miranda). If it is true that custodial interrogations and brief investigatory detentions are mutually exclusive, it is because the Supreme Court has held that “detention for custodial interrogation — regardless of its label — intrudes so severely on interests protected by the fourth amendment as necessarily to trigger the traditional safeguards against illegal arrest.” Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 216, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 2258, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979). See also United States v. Manbeck, 744 F.2d 360, 379 n. 30 (4th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1217, 105 S.Ct. 1197, 84 L.Ed.2d 342 (1985). Accordingly, it is not impossible for investigative Terry stops to degenerate into custodial interrogation requiring Miranda warnings. But when they do, the holding of Dunaway requires that the seizure be justified by full probable cause as opposed to mere reasonable suspicion.2
Turning to the application of these principles to the case at bar, two questions must be addressed: (1) were defendants interrogated without the benefit of Miranda warnings while “in custody”; and, if not, (2) were their statements nonetheless involuntary? It should be observed that such an inquiry would have been assisted by specific findings of fact in the district court, but the existing record and the sub silentio denial of the motion to suppress provide a sufficient basis upon which to proceed. Notably, the defendants’ failure to testify at the suppression hearing leaves Agent Holmes’s version of the encounter uncontradicted and, perhaps not suprisingly, his testimony does not suggest that the defendants’ statements were coerced in any way.
Although defendants were technically seized at the time of their questioning in the airport security rooms, the record and recent Supreme Court decisions allow but one conclusion — that they went from the public concourse to the security rooms “voluntarily.” The conclusion that the defendants were seized is another way of *298saying that defendants reasonably realized that they were not free to leave the premises. Nonetheless, it does not necessarily follow that the defendants reasonably perceived that they were confined to the security rooms. Thus, I do not find the uncontested facts of this case to be materially distinguishable from those of Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) (per curiam) and United States v. Harris, 611 F.2d 170 (6th Cir.1979). See also Beheler, 463 U.S. at 1124 n. 2, 103 S.Ct. at 3519 n. 2; Sevier v. Turner, 742 F.2d 262, 268 (6th Cir.1984) (“the mere location of an interview and the fact that an investigation has focused upon a particular person, without more, will not support a finding of custody”). Under these holdings, the defendants were not in custody at the time of the interrogation in question and Miranda warnings were not required. As an intermediate appellate court we are bound to follow those holdings, even if they raise serious questions.
Even if Miranda warnings were not required, a finding that the statements were involuntarily made or coerced in violation of the fifth amendment would require their suppression. However, viewing the totality of the circumstances as set forth in the record, I find insufficient evidence to support such a conclusion and therefore I concur in the judgment of the majority.

. Of course, it must be observed that the detainee is not necessarily told that he need not respond to the officer's questions, and also need not be aware of the strict limitations on the scope and duration of the investigatory detention. If suspects were not routinely ignorant of their rights in this regard, the investigatory detention arguably would be a much less effective tool. The only thing that a reasonable person subjected to a Terry seizure must know is that he is not free to leave. This knowledge could certainly exacerbate the coercive atmosphere of the interrogation.

. If it comes to pass that law enforcement officers have difficulty understanding and applying this rule, it must be recognized that the uncertainty is due to the recent, unchecked expansion of the scope of permissible investigatory detentions under the Terry doctrine rather than any modification of the applicability of Miranda safeguards to custodial interrogation. As the Berkemer opinion made clear, ease of application alone can not outweigh the individual’s constitutional privilege against coerced self-incrimination and the need for prophylactic warnings to secure that privilege.