Court Opinion

ID: 9655605
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:17:39.166492+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:20.600401
License: Public Domain

PETERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
The essence of the majority decision is that the interrogation of the defendant/probationer by his probation officer, who failed to inform him of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), violated due process and mandates suppression of the resulting confession. The most recent case to consider this issue supports a contrary conclusion. In United States v. Rea, 678 F.2d 382 (2d Cir. 1982), a probation officer received information concerning possible violations of probation by a probationer. The officer went to the probationer’s home and questioned the probationer about the alleged violations. The probationer, after unsuccessfully requesting an attorney, gave incriminating responses. The probationer later sought to suppress these responses, contending that the interrogation was custodial and thus the admission of the statements violated Miranda. The court characterized this contention as “without merit” and stated:
The duty “to report” and to answer questions posed by a probation officer is an integral obligation of the probationary status. While a probationer is not deprived completely of his Fifth Amendment rights and may assert them, he runs the risk that his refusal to answer will lead to a charge of violation of probation. Any other rule would make a mockery of the supervision aspect of probation.
Id. at 390. While Rea is not foursquare with the facts in this case, I see little difference between imprisoning a defendant for violation of parole and imprisoning him for a new crime, based in either case on evidence obtained from his probation officer. There was no more coercion of defendant Murphy in this case than there was of the defendant in Rea, and hence, I cannot see that defendant Murphy was “compelled” to give evidence against himself. In this regard, I concur with the views of Chief Justice Weintraub contained in the last paragraph of the majority opinion.