Court Opinion

ID: 9649389
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:51:35.078617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:10.453547
License: Public Domain

KERN, Associate Judge
(concurring) :
I am constrained to concur in the af-firmance of the conviction solely upon the peculiar circumstances of this case which lead rúe to the conclusion that in-custody interrogation, as proscribed by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed.2d 694 (1966), did not occur here. The persuasive factors, which taken all together guide me to my conclusion, are:
The officer’s sole question of appellant, viz., “What are you doing here?”, when viewed in the context it was asked (late at night on a rooftop of a commercial establishment ringed by a 10' barbed wire fence in the front and a 6' wall in the rear and wired with a burglar alarm) may be construed as one of wonderment rather than accusation; and, appellant’s instantaneous response, viz., “Just getting tires, man”, to *825the single question addressed to him by the lone officer effecting the arrest seems more akin to a volunteered statement which Miranda (at 478, 86 S.Ct. 1602) deems admissible than an incriminatory statement wrung from an accused who is overborne by the inherently compelling atmosphere of in-custody interrogation.
I note that as soon as additional officers arrived on the scene they did interrogate1 appellant, i. e., pose a series of questions after giving the Miranda warning.
My reading of Brewster v. United States, D.C.App., 271 A.2d 409 (1970), cited in the dissent, is that the police there posed a number of questions to the defendant at the station house; his answer to one such question was received in evidence over his objection because the trial court concluded Miranda did not apply to “a routine question”; and, we rejected that reasoning since custodial interrogation had occurred, during which this “routine” question had been posed, and Miranda clearly applied. I deem the situation in the instant case to be quite different.
In sum, I cannot conclude that the one question asked reflexively by the single officer at the end of a swiftly-moving sequence of events occurring in the space of but several minutes constituted custodial interrogation which in the absence of the Miranda warning requires exclusion of the incriminating answer.2 Hence, the trial court in my view ruled correctly, and the conviction should stand.

. According to Merriam-Webster New International Dictionary (3d ed. 1969), the primary meanings of the word are:
to question typically with formality, command, and thoroughness for full information and circumstantial detail . . . ; to ask questions about; to examine in detail ....

. Our dissenting colleague suggests that the majority has engaged in factfinding in upholding the trial court’s ruling. With all deference it seems to me we may properly review the record on appeal and characterize what we find there in reaching our conclusions.