Court Opinion

ID: 9426367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:41.628916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.558890
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In my view the District Court should have granted petitioner’s motion to suppress all statements made by him to the agents because the agents did not give petitioner the warnings mandated by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). The Court affirms the conviction on the ground that “[a]lthough the ‘focus’ of an investigation may indeed have been on Beckwith at the time of the interview in the sense that it was his tax liability which was under scrutiny, he hardly found himself in the custodial situation described by the Miranda Court as the basis for its holding.” Ante, at 347 (emphasis supplied). But the fact that Beckwith had not been taken into formal “custody” is not. determinative of the question whether the agents were required to give him the Miranda warnings. I agree with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that the warnings are also mandated when the taxpayer is, as here, interrogated by Intelligence Division agents of the Internal Revenue Service in surroundings where, as in the case of the subject in “custody,” the practical com*350pulsion to respond to questions about his tax returns is comparable to the psychological pressures described in Miranda. United States v. Dickerson, 413 F. 2d 1111 (1969); United States v. Oliver, 505 F. 2d 301 (1974). Interrogation under conditions that have the practical consequence of compelling the taxpayer to make disclosures, and interrogation in “custody” having the same consequence, are in my view peas from the same pod. Oliver states the analysis with which I agree and which requires suppression of Beckwith's statements:
“The application of Miranda does not turn on such a simple axis as whether or not the suspect is in custody when he is being questioned. As the Court repeatedly indicated, the prescribed warnings are required if the defendant is in custody ‘or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.’ The fact of custody is emphasized in the [Miranda] opinion as having the practical consequence of compelling the accused to make disclosures. But the test also differentiates between the questioning of a mere witness and the interrogation of an accused for the purpose of securirig his conviction; the test serves the purpose ‘of determining when the adversary process has begun, i. e., when the investigative machinery of the government is directed toward the ultimate conviction of a particular individual and when, therefore, a suspect should be advised of his rights.’
“Since the constitutional protection is expressly applicable to testimony in the criminal case itself, for the purpose of determining when warnings are required, the Miranda analysis treats the adversary proceeding as though it commences when a prospective defendant is taken into custody or otherwise significantly restrained. After that point is reached, it is not unreasonable to treat any compelled disclos*351ure as protected by the Fifth Amendment unless, of course, the constitutional protection has been waived. Adequate warnings, or the advise [sic] of counsel, are essential if such a waiver is to be effective.
“The requirement of warnings set forth in Dickerson rests on the same underlying rationale. While the commencement of adversary proceedings against Dickerson had not been marked by taking him into custody, the I.R.S., by assigning the matter to the Intelligence Division, had commenced the preparation of its criminal case. When the agents questioned him about his tax return, without clearly explaining their mission, the dual criminal-civil nature of an I.R.S. interrogation created three key misapprehensions for the taxpayer.
“ ‘Incriminating statements elicited in reliance upon the taxpayer’s misapprehension as to the nar ture of the inquiry, his obligation to respond, and the possible consequences of doing so must be regarded as equally violative of constitutional protections as a custodial confession extracted without proper warnings.’ 413 F. 2d, at 1116 (emphasis added).
“The practical effect of these misapprehensions during questioning of a taxpayer was to ‘compel’ him to provide information that could be used to obtain his conviction in a criminal tax fraud proceeding, in much the same way that placing a suspect under physical restraint leads to psychological compulsion. Thus, the misapprehensions are tantamount to the deprivation of the suspect’s ‘freedom of action in any significant way,’ repeatedly referred to in Miranda.” 505 F. 2d, at 304-305. (Footnotes omitted.)
I would reverse the judgment of conviction and remand to the District Court for a new trial.