Court Opinion

ID: 9478881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:01:26.460147+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:40.676931
License: Public Domain

*731HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent. I would reverse and remand this case because the district court’s opinion does not reveal whether the appropriate legal standards under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), were applied.
I. The Test for Custody
The ultimate test for whether someone is in custody is whether their freedom of action is deprived in any significant way. Id. at 444, 86 S.Ct. at 1612. In some post-Miranda cases, the Court has reached its ultimate conclusion with respect to custody by close attention to the facts accompanied by inferential conclusions, without articulating clear and more general guides for other courts to use in different cases. See, e.g., Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) (per curiam), upon which the majority relies; see also California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275 (1983) (per curiam).1
The Supreme Court’s recent discussion of custody in Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984), has helped clarify the inquiry. Because Miranda jurisprudence had long focused on the pressures felt by the individual being questioned, the Court declared “the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect’s position would have understood his situation.” Id. at 442, 104 S.Ct. at 3151 (emphasis added) (adopting the view Justice Marshall had urged in dissent in Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. at 496, 97 S.Ct. at 714).
Berkemer has changed how courts approach their case-by-case determination of whether the Miranda warnings were required.2 Our Circuit’s reaction to Berkemer, however, has been less clear. In United States v. Helmel, 769 F.2d 1306, 1320 (8th Cir.1985), we simply indicated that a “court should consider the totality of circumstances. The accused’s freedom to leave the scene and the purpose, place and length of interrogation are all relevant factors in making this determination. Ber-kemer * * We never indicated that the circumstances were to be viewed from the citizen’s perspective. See also, United States v. Richmann, 860 F.2d 837 (8th Cir.1988); United States v. Venerable, 807 F.2d 745 (8th Cir.1986); United States v. Baswell, 792 F.2d 755 (8th Cir.1986). In Wilson v. Coon, 808 F.2d 688, 689 (8th Cir.1987), however, though we did not announce any change in our approach, we did use the reasonable person perspective. Similarly, in Leviston v. Black, supra note 2, in light of Berkemer, we analyzed the interrogation from the perspective of a reasonable person in the defendant’s position. Four months later, however, we seemingly diluted the importance of Leviston by treating the reasonable person perspective as just another factor to be considered in conjunction with the purpose, place and length analysis advocated by Helmel. United States v. Goudreau, 854 F.2d 1097, 1098 (8th Cir.1988).
*732Our opinions have lacked both the clear statement that under Berkemer custody is to be judged from the perspective of the reasonable citizen, and a discussion of how such an inquiry should proceed. Other courts have been more helpful in explaining how the situation may be evaluated from the citizen’s perspective. The Ninth Circuit has used a form of the reasonable person test for many years. See, e.g., United States v. Booth, 669 F.2d 1231, 1235 (9th Cir.1981); Lowe v. United States, 407 F.2d 1391, 1396-97 (9th Cir.1969). Over the years, that circuit has come to focus on five factors in determining whether a reasonable person would believe that they were in custody:
One. The language used by the officers in summoning the person interviewed.
Two. The physical characteristics of the place where the interrogation occurred.
Three. The degree of pressure applied to detain the individual.
Four. The duration of the detention.
Five. The extent to which the person was confronted with evidence of his guilt.
United States v. Hudgens, 798 F.2d 1234, 1236 (9th Cir.1986).
The benefit of such an approach is that it gets the parties and the district courts to focus on, and to analyze, specific facts in determining whether the individual was in custody. While a focus on specific factors may not completely eliminate the often con-clusionary nature of the inquiry, it is far preferable to a less structured and more idiosyncratic style of decision-making.
II. The District Court Opinion
The district court’s entire consideration of whether Jorgenson was in custody was as follows:
Defendant’s statements were made in an interview of him by Agent Oxler and Officer Streeter in the FBI’s offices in West Des Moines, Iowa, on July 19,1985. Defendant and his brother, Garry, in their testimony on behalf of defendant, recalled the events of that day over two years ago somewhat differently than the events were recalled by Agent Oxler and Officer Streeter in their testimony. THE COURT FINDS THAT AGENT OXLER AND OFFICER STREETER ARE THE MORE CREDIBLE WITNESSES, AND FINDS THE EVIDENTIARY FACTS TO BE AS TESTIFIED TO BY AGENT OX-LER AND OFFICER STREETER. In respect to the question of whether any promises were made by the officers to defendant, the court finds that Agent Oxler told defendant, before defendant made any substantive statements, that “his cooperation would be made known and it would probably help him.”
The Miranda rights were not given to defendant, but the court finds as an ultimate fact amply supported by the evidence that defendant was not in custody or the functional equivalent of custody, so giving of the Miranda rights was not required.
Ruling Denying Motion to Suppress at 1 (Aug. 26, 1987) (capitalization added).
As is apparent, the district court did not in its decision (or in any remarks on the record) specify what facts it found or how it used those facts to reach its legal conclusion. The district court only indicated that it credited the officers on every disputed point.
The district court’s decision is inadequate for several reasons. First, there is no indication that the district court understood what standards were to be applied in evaluating the evidence. Given the condition of the district court’s opinion, this is an appropriate case for illuminating those standards. Second, the district court may in this case have been too deferential to the officers’ impressions of the situation. Because the district court did not discuss any of the evidentiary disputes between the parties, it is not apparent whether the district court separated the officers’ statements of fact from the officers’ impressions. Finally, there is no indication that the facts were analyzed from the citizen’s perspective. In fact, the majority opinion includes in its factual summary circum*733stances that would arguably have not been apparent to anyone in Jorgenson’s position.
The majority presumably derived its factual presentation from reading the transcript of the suppression hearing and resolving disputed facts in the government’s favor. Assuming without deciding that the district court’s one-sentence fact-finding should make us operate in this way, I still take exception to the majority’s presentation of the historic facts.
First, while the majority says that Jor-genson was told that he could choose where the interview would take place, his choices may have only been between the Altoona Police Station or the FBI office. Agent Oxler could only recall his standard policy; Officer Streeter and Jorgenson believed there were only two “choices.” Transcript of the Hearing on the Motion to Suppress at 7, 49 and 56 (August 24, 1987). Thus, crediting both the officers either leads to an inconsistency or to the conclusion that Oxler did tell Jorgenson that he had to come to the FBI offices or the police station. The majority simply elects which officer to credit. Second, Jorgenson did not suspect that Agent Oxler’s wording was merely euphemistic and only tacitly compelling; Jorgenson testified that Oxler said that he had to come in for questioning “or we will come and get you.” Id. at 57. Nor would characterizing Oxler’s desire to question Jorgenson as somehow ambivalent make any sense if Oxler’s testimony is to be credited — “we had him identified through a photographic display as being involved in the theft, that I had no question at all that he was one of the people involved in the theft, and that I felt we could prove it from our investigation * * *.” Id. at 11. Therefore, because — rather “than despite” his understanding of Oxler’s request; Jorgenson went to the FBI office, unaware, as a reasonable person might be unaware, that others allegedly sometimes refused similar requests.
Third, there is no evidence in the record that Jorgenson or any reasonable person would think that the police-dominated aspects of the office were merely “tacit,” unspoken or silent. Jorgenson was probably unaware that the office had no holding cells or other detention facilities. A reasonable person might have assumed that they did. It is undisputed that the agents in the outer office were armed, and that the office was replete with security devices and locking doors that closed behind Jor-genson as he entered. That Oxler may have thought from his perspective that the interrogation was “informal, routine” and “fairly friendly” is irrelevant. As the majority concedes without even analyzing the situation from Jorgenson’s perspective, “there does appear to have been a mildly coercive atmosphere at the FBI offices during Jorgenson’s interview * * *.” Ante at 729.
CONCLUSION
Today, Miranda and its progeny represent a still maturing area of law. As a result, we must from time to time clarify the existing state of that law. Accordingly, I would remand this case to the district court for consideration in light of Berkemer and the five factors outlined in Hud-gens. I am convinced that the district court did not analyze the setting in the FBI’s office and the statements of Agent Oxler from the perspective of the citizen being questioned. Quite frankly, the dispute in this case between the government and Jorgenson really is not over physical facts, such as the layout of the office. What the parties really disagree over is the impression created by that setting and Ox-ler’s ambiguous statements about “coming to get you” and telling the brother “don’t leave.” Deciding that the officers are credible does not generate a conclusion about what impression was created. Oxler’s intentions and impressions are irrelevant, except as they may have been communicated to Jorgenson and affected the view of a reasonable person in Jorgenson’s position. Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. at 431, 104 S.Ct. at 1144. Whether someone is in custody is to be judged from the perspective of the least informed party about the nature of the police’s control, intentions or layout *734of the office — the person being questioned.3

. At the same time, various circuit courts adopted their own general set of standards for determining when the right to the Miranda warnings attached. See, e.g., United States v. Lueck, 678 F.2d 895, 900, reh'g denied 695 F.2d 566 (11th Cir.1982); United States v. Warren, 578 F.2d 1058, 1071 (5th Cir.1978) (en banc), cert. denied 446 U.S. 956, 100 S.Ct. 2928, 64 L.Ed.2d 815 (1980). We have also on occasion parsed our inquiry into similar elements. United States v. Rorex, 737 F.2d 753, 755-56 (8th Cir.1984). In other cases, we have applied Miranda through a process of factual analogy. See, e.g., United States v. Dockery, 736 F.2d 1232 (8th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 862, 105 S.Ct. 197, 83 L.Ed.2d 129 (1984), comparing the facts to those in United States v. Jones, 630 F.2d 613 (8th Cir.1980) (per curiam).

. The Fifth Circuit has completely abandoned its former test in light of Berkemer and Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420, 104 S.Ct. 1136, 79 L.Ed.2d 409 (1984). United States v. Bengivenga, 845 F.2d 593, 596-97 (5th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 306, 102 L.Ed.2d 325 (1988). The Eleventh Circuit has also changed its approach, recognizing that the "Supreme Court has recently narrowed the focus of analysis * * *.” United States v. Phillips, 812 F.2d 1355, 1359 (11th Cir.1987) (per curiam). Our decision in Rorex is now similarly outmoded. See Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. at 431, 104 S.Ct. at 1144; Leviston v. Black, 843 F.2d 302, 304 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 168, 102 L.Ed.2d 138 (1988).

. Similarly, I disagree with the majority’s application of a clearly erroneous standard to our review. Ante, at 728 (relying on suppression cases involving wiretaps and searches and seizures). There is a split in the federal circuit courts over whether "custody” is a mixed question of law and fact. See, e.g., United States v. Hocking, 860 F.2d 769, 772 (7th Cir.1988) (mixed question, affirming); United States v. Calisto, 838 F.2d 711, 717-18 (3rd Cir.1988) (same, affirming); United States v. Jimenez, 602 F.2d 139, 142-43 (7th Cir.1979). But see, United States v. Poole, 806 F.2d 853, amending, 794 F.2d 462 (9th Cir.1986) (fact question, reversing); United States v. Mahar, 801 F.2d 1477, 1500, n. 38 (6th Cir.1986) (same); United States v. Charles, 738 F.2d 686, 688 (5th Cir.1984) (same, reversing). In Leviston, we may have treated custody as a legal conclusion. 843 F.2d at 304-05. But see, Venerable, 807 F.2d at 747; Helmel, 769 F.2d at 1321.
A final conclusion in this circuit over which path to follow should await an appeal where the issue is subject to consideration and discussion. When we do face the issue, we must decide it in light of the precedent pertinent to Miranda jurisprudence, rather than suppression law generally.
"Custodial interrogation” is a legal term of art central to Miranda jurisprudence, and a decision whether or not “custodial interrogation" occurred is a matter of law to be determined in accordance with the policies underlying the Miranda rule. The legal nature of the determination is evidenced by the numerous Supreme Court decisions deciding whether certain facts constitute "custody" or “interrogation.” See, e.g., Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980); Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977); Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 89 S.Ct. 1095, 22 L.Ed.2d 311 (1969). Accordingly, an appellate court is free to re-examine the trial court’s legal conclusion as to the applicability of the Miranda rule. The standard of appellate review does not change simply because the legal determination in a Miranda situation depends on the particular facts of each case.
United States v. Mesa, 638 F.2d 582, 591 n. 3 (3rd Cir.1980) (Adams, J., concurring). Compare United States v. Booth, 669 F.2d at 1235-36.
In my view, it is especially inappropriate to accord such deference to a district court’s conclusion where the district court did not apply relevant standards and where its method of fact-finding leaves us with a confusing muddle on appeal.