Court Opinion

ID: 9522042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:17:15.647764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:14.006509
License: Public Domain

Burgess, J.,
¶23. concurring in part and dissenting in part. I agree that Miranda warnings were required when the detectives made it reasonably clear to defendant that he could be arrested and charged with armed robbery. I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority’s conclusion that the warnings were required at the outset of the questioning. Accordingly, I would reverse that portion of the trial court’s decision suppressing defendant’s earliest acknowledgment that a “fake” gun was used in connection with the robbery, together with whatever other admissions he may have made before the officers asserted he was subject to felony arrest.
¶ 24. Neither facts nor law support the trial court’s and majority’s view that custody occurred at the onset of questioning. Two plainclothes detectives arrived at defendant’s home in an unmarked car and told him that they would like to talk to him. The detectives were invited into the house, but asked defendant if he would mind talking to them “out here for a little bit, so we *159have a little privacy,” away from defendant’s mother. When defendant stepped outside, the officers asked if he would mind sitting in their car. Defendant agreed. At the start of the questioning, defendant professed not to know why the detectives wanted to talk to him. The detectives explained they were investigating a fight reported two nights earlier and wanted to give defendant an opportunity to give his side of the story. They told him that they had spoken to the putative victims, as well as neighbors and other witnesses about the incident.
¶ 25. At this point, there was no objective indication of custodial interrogation to trigger Miranda warnings. The subjective design of the detectives is irrelevant. State v. Willis, 145 Vt. 459, 475, 494 A.2d 108, 117 (1985). Defendant was not restrained. Assuming defendant could even be characterized as detained, police questioning during a brief investigative detention on a public roadway is not inherently “custodial” for Miranda purposes. State v. Boardman, 148 Vt. 229, 231-32, 531 A.2d 599, 601 (1987). Nothing in the record suggests that defendant was coerced to get into the detectives’ car, and it is long settled that questioning in a police car does not necessarily amount to custody. State v. Comes, 144 Vt. 103, 106-07, 472 A.2d 1253, 1255-56 (1984) (finding no custody when suspect voluntarily agreed to questioning in police car for privacy on cold day and without any physical restraint).
¶ 26. The detectives began questioning in the police car by asking defendant how he and one of the named victims had first come into contact with each other. When defendant gave vague and inconsistent answers, the detectives explained that they already had the answers to some of the questions they were asking and that they knew “for the most part what happened.” The detectives then asked defendant: “Where’s the gun?” When defendant professed not to know anything, the detectives noted that a gun can be dangerous and asked if the gun was real or a fake. Defendant told them that it was a fake. He explained that it was “plastic,” but that he did not know where it was.
¶ 27. As of the time defendant made these last statements, approximately five minutes into the questioning, there was still no basis upon which to conclude that he was under actual or de facto arrest. The majority adopts the trial court’s findings underlying its determination of police-dominated custody, but those findings are either unsupported by the evidence — at least prior to defendant’s admissions about the gun — or are legally irrelevant. *160The trial court relied on the detectives’ probable cause and undeclared intention to arrest defendant, when it is settled that the subjective knowledge and intent of police are irrelevant to a defendant’s perception of custody. Willis, 145 Vt. at 473, 494 A.2d at 115-16. The court cited defendant’s age of nineteen, but an adult’s age alone is not objectively determinative of a reasonable person’s perception of arrest. See State v. Oney, 2009 VT 116, ¶ 10, 187 Vt. 56, 989 A.2d 995 (requiring objective inquiry). The court found the detectives accused defendant of assault and robbery, but that did not actually occur until after his admissions about the gun. The trial court’s findings could be understood to state that the detectives confronted defendant with the fact that they had all the identifying information linking him to the robbery, but such a finding is unsupported by any evidence before defendant’s admissions about the gun. The court also found all of the evidence obtained against defendant was garnered over the course of an hour’s interrogation, when his gun admission occurred within his first few minutes in the car.
¶ 28. The majority adopts these findings, notwithstanding the undisputed contrary record evidence, and adds that the physical conditions of interrogation in a police car support the notion of custodial interrogation, even though it is equally settled that questioning in a police cruiser does not, in and of itself, amount to custodial interrogation. State v. Lancto, 155 Vt. 168, 171, 582 A.2d 448, 449 (1990); see State v. McElreavy, 157 Vt. 18, 24-25, 595 A.2d 1332, 1335-36 (1991) (refusing to suppress statements made to police during interview in police cruiser). Considered in the aggregate, up to when he was asked about and admitted knowledge of the gun, defendant agreed to enter the police car, was not yet accused, was not confronted with evidence, and was not told he could be arrested — all in the space of about five minutes. Nevertheless, the majority appears to hold that defendant perceived himself in custody the moment he entered the police car because the detectives told him that they already knew what had happened and did not affirmatively tell him that he was free to leave. This is not the test for custody under Miranda.
¶ 29. The majority makes much of the fact that the officers did not explicitly tell defendant that he was free to end the questioning and leave at any time, but neither did they tell him he was not free to end the questioning and leave. As noted in a recent Vermont federal case, the United States Court of Appeals for the *161Second Circuit has emphasized that, absent an actual arrest, an interrogation is not custodial “ ‘unless the authorities affirmatively convey the message that the defendant is not free to leave.’ ” United States v. Ramos, No. 1:11-cr-111, 2012 WL 1854747, at *13 (D. Vt. May 21, 2012) (quoting United States v. Mitchell, 966 F.2d 92, 98 (2d Cir. 1992) (emphasis added)). No such message was conveyed to defendant in this case before his admission about the gun.
¶ 30. In any event, feeling “free to leave” is not the ultimate standard for determining custody under Miranda. Persons temporarily detained for investigation, and who would not reasonably feel free to walk away from the police, “‘are not in custody for the purposes of Miranda absent some showing that they were subjected to restraints comparable to those associated with a formal arrest.’ ” State v. Gemler, 2004 VT 3, ¶ 8, 176 Vt. 257, 844 A.2d 757 (quoting Lancto, 155 Vt. at 171, 582 A.2d at 449).
¶ 31. The United States Supreme Court has never made “free-to-leave” the only factor in determining whether a person was in custody requiring Miranda warnings. “The free-to-leave inquiry constitutes a necessary, but not determinative, first step in establishing Miranda custody.” United States v. Newton, 369 F.3d 659, 670 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 947 (2004).2 “The ‘ultimate inquiry’ for determining Miranda custody ... is that articulated by the Supreme Court in California v. Beheler: ‘whether there is a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest.’ ” Id. (quoting California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125 (1983) (internal quotations omitted)); see Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495 (1977) (stating that Miranda warnings are not required merely because there are some coercive aspects to police questioning or because suspect is questioned at police station, but rather “only where there has been such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render him ‘in custody’ ”); Oney, 2009 VT 116, ¶ 16 (“Custody *162is not established simply because the questioning takes place in a police station or because the questioned person is one whom the police suspect.”).
¶ 32. “In such cases, a court must ask whether, in addition to not feeling free to leave, a reasonable person would have understood his freedom of action to have been curtailed to a degree associated with formal arrest.” Newton, 369 F.3d at 672. “Only .if the answer to this second question is yes was the person ‘in custody for practical purposes,’ and ‘entitled to the full panoply of protections prescribed by Miranda.’ ” Id. (quoting Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440 (1984) (internal quotations omitted)); Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112 (1995) (highlighting free-to-leave inquiry as essential component of “in custody” determination, but reiterating that “ultimate inquiry” is arrest or arrest-like restraint test established in Miranda and Beheler).3
¶ 33. The United States Supreme Court in Berkemer “identified two factors as particularly relevant to determining whether a lawful investigatory stop involves restraints generally associated with a formal arrest.” Newton, 369 F.3d at 675. The first is whether a reasonable person in the same situation as the defendant would have understood his detention to be “temporary and brief’ and the second is whether such a person would feel that he was “completely at the mercy of the police.” Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 437-38. Here, at least for the first few minutes of the police questioning, a person in defendant’s position would have no reason to believe that he was subject to constraints equivalent to a formal arrest or that his detention was not going to be temporary or that he was at the complete mercy of the detectives — at least according to our case law.
*163¶ 34. Perhaps the closest Vermont case is State v. Comes, 144 Vt. 103, 472 A.2d 1253, which the majority strains to distinguish, to no avail. In Comes, we rejected the defendant’s argument that Miranda warnings were required under remarkably similar facts where detectives investigating a reported burglary of a gas station noticed particular shoeprints on a door that had been kicked open. The detectives confronted their suspect, the defendant, at a restaurant, and he agreed to speak to them. The detectives and the defendant left the restaurant and, it being a cold day, entered the police cruiser. The officers told the defendant they were investigating a gas station burglary, and one of the officers commented that defendant’s shoe soles appeared to match footprints found at the burglary scene. The defendant then admitted involvement in the burglary. At that point, the officers advised the defendant of his Miranda rights.
¶ 35. Noting that the defendant voluntarily agreed to speak to the officers outside, that it was logical for them to talk in the police cruiser on a cold winter day, that the defendant was not handcuffed, and that only a few minutes had elapsed before the defendant’s admission of guilt, we held that “[t]he trial court could properly have found that until the defendant made his admission, the officers were merely questioning the defendant and the defendant’s freedom to leave was not restricted in any way.” Id. at 107, 472 A.2d at 1256. We emphasized in Comes that police officers are not required to give Miranda warnings to everyone they question, including those that they suspect of having committed a crime. Id.
¶ 36. The majority attempts to distinguish Comes by noting that while police in that case “merely commented on the fact that the suspect’s shoes were similar to footprints found at the scene, here defendant was confronted with existing evidence of his personal involvement in the crime, including eye witness identification and the fact that he could be arrested based on that evidence.” Ante, ¶ 19. The majority is incorrect. The interrogation transcript in the instant case reveals that before defendant indicated the gun used in the incident was fake, the officers told him only that they had spoken to the witnesses, were aware of the “fight,” and knew who was there, where it happened, and “how it went down.” In an obvious effort to get defendant to talk, the detectives expressed their interest in getting his side of the story, but advised him that they had the means to tell how honest he was being, that they *164wanted to see if he would accept “some responsibility,” and that they were seeking his “cooperation.” Defendant was confronted with no evidence of his involvement. Until the blunt question of “where’s the gun,” the officers’ patter was all general and open-ended cajolery. It was not until after defendant revealed his knowledge of the gun that the officers told him to stop playing with his cell phone and informed him that he could be arrested and charged. Comes is practically indistinguishable.
¶ 37. Nor were the initial circumstances of the questioning in this case any more accusatory or oppressive than the police car interrogation found to be noncustodial in Lancto, 155 Vt. 168, 582 A.2d 448. In Lancto, an injured suspect walking away from a crashed automobile was stopped by the responding trooper who questioned his veracity when he claimed to have been in a fight rather than an accident and told him to have a seat in the cruiser. Detecting the odor of intoxicants, the trooper questioned the suspect about drinking preliminary to DUI processing and without the benefit of Miranda warnings. We upheld the trial court’s refusal to find that those circumstances would lead a reasonable person to believe he or she was not “free to leave or to refuse to answer questions.” Id. at 171, 582 A.2d at 449.
¶ 38. The situation here is similar. There is no finding that defendant’s agreement to speak to the detectives in private in their unmarked car in a public place outside his home was involuntary. Within minutes of speaking to the officers, before they made it clear to him that they intended to arrest him, defendant made statements acknowledging his awareness of the gun, thus implying he was at the scene of the crime. The fact that the officers informed defendant at the outset of the questioning that they had spoken to witnesses and had a good idea of what happened did not amount to a. custodial situation requiring Miranda warnings. See State v. Pontbriand, 2005 VT 20, ¶ 18, 178 Vt. 120, 878 A.2d 227 (“The investigating officers undoubtedly made it clear to Pontbriand that they thought he had committed a crime, but this is not enough to establish custody for Miranda purposes.”).
¶ 39. I agree, however, that when the detectives asserted control by restricting defendant’s use of his cell phone and informing defendant that they had more than enough evidence to charge him, their continued questioning required Miranda warnings, particularly in light of defendant’s earlier admissions. Cf. Oney, *1652009 VT 116, ¶ 14 (acknowledging that “once a suspect confesses to committing a serious criminal act, this fact is significant” in evaluating whether Miranda warnings are required); State v. Sole, 2009 VT 24, ¶ 19, 185 Vt. 504, 974 A.2d 587 (concluding that Miranda warnings were required once conversation turned from traffic stop to trooper’s reasonable suspicion of drug use and trooper indicated that defendant was not leaving until drug issue was resolved). It was then reasonable for defendant to perceive himself as destined to remain in the company of the detectives after being told, essentially, that he could be arrested and charged for armed robbery.
¶ 40. Accordingly, Miranda warnings were necessary upon the detectives’ assertion of control over defendant by curtailing his cell phone and advising they could arrest him, so that his statements past that point must be suppressed. I must respectfully dissent, however, from the majority’s position that Miranda warnings were required before any facts objectively suggested that not only was defendant not immediately free to go, but that he was also likely to be kept under formal arrest.
¶ 41. I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Reiber joins this concurrence and dissent.

 “[A] free-to-leave inquiry reveals only whether the person questioned was seized.” Newton, 369 F.3d at 672. “Because seizure is a necessary prerequisite to Miranda, ... it makes sense for a court to begin any custody analysis by asking whether a reasonable person would have thought he was free to leave the police encounter at issue.” Id. If the answer to the “free-to-leave” inquiry is no, the analysis is not over because “not every seizure constitutes custody for purposes of Miranda!’ Id.; see Post v. Doherty, 944 F.2d 91, 98 (2d Cir. 1991) (“[I]t is not enough to say a person has been arrested simply because, due to police action, he reasonably believes he is not free to leave.”).

 Perhaps the best illustration of how the two questions differ is a situation where police restrict an individual’s movements while conducting a vehicle search or executing a search warrant. Reasonable people in such a situation would understand they were not at liberty to leave, but would have no reason to believe they were under actual arrest. Cf. United States v. Groezinger, 625 F. Supp. 2d 145, 158-59 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) (concluding that reasonable person whose movements in his home were restricted while police conducted search would not have felt free to leave but neither would have understood his freedom to be curtailed to degree associated with formal arrest); State v. Wilkins, No. 20152, 2004 WL 1662101, at *5 (Ohio Ct. App. July 23, 2004) (concluding that reasonable person invited to sit in police cruiser out of rain while police conducted canine search of his vehicle was not entitled to Miranda warnings).