Court Opinion

ID: 9455300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:17:57.137342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:32.637215
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I would go further than the majority.
Appellant argues “fruit of poisoned tree” because of an absence of a Miranda warning midway in the investigation.
At the very beginning, the circumstances of the investigation showed something very “fishy” about appellant’s occupancy of the stolen automobile.
I take judicial notice of the existence of the National Automobile Theft Bureau, with offices in principal cities of the United States and Mexico, with 24 hour a day service. The F.B.I., police and sheriffs constantly query them. To assume that the Las Vegas police would be so incompetent that they would not query the Bureau is to flout reality. While I agree with the majority that appellant shakes himself out of the poisoned tree, yet we ought to say the point is no.t valid in any way in a situation such as we have here.
If, in the course of the investigation, something rolls out (without a precedent Miranda warning) that enables the officers to take a short cut to something they would have doubtless found out anyway, we should not worry about the poisoned tree and its fruit.
Miranda was written to protect one’s right to silence when one’s talking really hurts. Its purpose was not ritualistic.