Court Opinion

ID: 9522149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:18:37.815073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:20.720578
License: Public Domain

Reiber, C.J.,
¶ 33. dissenting. The issue before the Court today is whether defendant was “in custody” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment during an interview with police in which he made incriminating statements. The majority holds that defendant was in custody at the time he made the statements at issue. If defendant was in fact in custody, the Fifth Amendment requires these statements be suppressed at trial because defendant had not been read his Miranda warnings. Because the present case is, in my opinion, factually indistinguishable from State v. Oney, 2009 VT 116, 187 Vt. 56, 989 A.2d 995, which lays out the scope of “in custody” under our current jurisprudence, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 34. In determining whether the detective in this case violated defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights, the central question is whether the defendant was in custody at the time of the confession. Id. ¶ 10. Defendant does not claim the trial court’s findings of fact are erroneous. Thus, the sole issue concerns the trial court’s ultimate legal conclusion, that the totality of the circumstances would have led a reasonable person to believe that he or she was in custody. This legal conclusion is reviewed de novo. State v. Pontbriand, 2005 VT 20, ¶ 12, 178 Vt. 120, 878 A.2d 227.
¶ 35. Our decision in Oney explicitly delineates what it means to be “in custody” as it applies to Miranda warnings, but was decided five months after the trial court’s decision here on appeal. *68In Oney, this Court upheld the trial court’s ruling that the defendant was not in custody at the time he made incriminating statements, and therefore, any incriminating statements were admissible. The facts there were not disputed: a police officer approached the defendant at a convenience store and asked about three fires that had been set that evening; the officer asked the defendant if he would go to the police department to talk, and he agreed to do so. The officer put defendant’s bicycle in the police car and drove the defendant to the station with defendant sitting in the front seat. After entering the station, the defendant sat, unrestrained, in an unlocked interview room. The defendant was interviewed by two officers, who said that he was there of his own free will, and he could go at any time. The defendant admitted to setting the three fires that evening after which he said, “I still think I should have a lawyer here.” Oney, 2009 VT 116, ¶ 4. No answer was given, but in our decision we noted that the defendant never directly requested a lawyer. Id. ¶4. Subsequently, the officers said they had surveillance tapes of three other fires, and defendant confessed to them as well. Near the end of the interview, the defendant stated that he wanted to leave, but one of the officers said, We’re not done yet,” and prevented his departure. Id. The defendant was eventually cited and then permitted to depart.
¶ 36. On appeal, the defendant in Oney argued that after he confessed to setting the first three fires, if not sooner, he was in custody, and as he was never given any Miranda warnings, the confessions were inadmissible. He argued that he was deprived of his freedom of action because “a reasonable person in a small, windowless room at the police station, after having confessed to three crimes, would not believe that he was free to leave, despite the officer’s statements to the contrary.” Id. ¶ 12. We held otherwise.
¶ 37. We stated that “[a] noncustodial situation does not become custodial automatically because the interviewee has confessed to a crime.” Id. ¶ 14. We therefore held that the bare fact that the defendant had confessed to what he thought were three misdemeanors “would not necessarily lead a reasonable person in defendant’s circumstances to believe that he was not free to leave.” Id. ¶ 15. We ultimately concluded the defendant was not in custody because the police officers repeatedly told him that he was free to leave, the questioning was not coercive, he was *69unrestrained, and he had access to an unlocked door. Id. ¶ 16. As we observed, the defendant in Oney was not deprived of his freedom of action “in a significant way.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).
¶ 38. In the case we consider today, it is difficult to see how the trial court here would have arrived at the same conclusion had the Oney decision already issued. It appears that within four minutes of starting the interview defendant admitted touching two of his adult daughters when they were children. The majority attempts to distinguish Oney from the present case on two grounds: (1) the detective here never explicitly told defendant he was free to terminate the interview; and (2) defendant was accused of committing a “serious crime.” Ante, ¶¶ 27, 29. Neither is persuasive.
¶ 39. As the majority notes, the detective here told defendant that he was not under arrest, that he was going to go home that day, and that he was there of his own free will. Because the detective never explicitly told defendant he could leave anytime, however, the majority concludes that Oney is distinguishable. This is form over substance. The detective’s statements effectively informed defendant he was free to leave. Although the detective did not explicitly say, “you are free to leave at any time,” this is a distinction without a difference. The detective’s assurances, taken together, would have led a reasonable person in defendant’s position to believe that he or she was free to terminate the interview and leave.
¶ 40. Furthermore, the two cases cited by the majority for the proposition that a voluntary interview may transform into a custodial interrogation are inapposite. See State v. Brunell, 150 Vt. 388, 554 A.2d 242 (1988); State v. Hohman, 136 Vt. 341, 392 A.2d 935 (1978), partially abandoned as recognized by State v. Willis, 145 Vt. 459, 494 A.2d 108 (1985). In Brunell, we concluded that the defendant was in custody because the defendant’s mother was told, in his presence, that the defendant had to go to the police station that night. Further, the defendant was taken to the police station in a police cruiser during the late evening, his brother was not permitted to accompany him on the thirty-minute ride, and once at the station, the defendant was placed in a separate room where he was interrogated by two officers for a lengthy period of time. Brunell’s focus was on the “restriction placed upon defendant’s freedom.” 150 Vt. at 392, 554 A.2d at 244. Except for the small room, the present case is entirely distinguishable. Here, *70defendant was not forced to come' to the police station at any particular time, rather he was invited the day before; he was not taken to the station in a police cruiser, rather he drove down to the barracks in his own vehicle and at a time of his choosing; he was not interviewed by two police officers for a lengthy period, rather the interview was by only one officer and lasted approximately one hour.
¶ 41. The second case the majority relies upon is equally inapt. As the majority acknowledges, this Court has abrogated Hohman to the extent that the language implied that we look to the defendant’s subjective state of mind with regard to whether he believed himself free to leave. Willis, 145 Vt. at 474-75, 494 A.2d at 116 (abandoning language in Hohman stating that this Court looks at “whether the defendant could reasonably have believed he was not free to leave” (quotation omitted)). Thus, it is from the perspective of the objective, the reasonable person, that we must assess defendant’s state of mind. In Hohman, the defendant flagged down a police car in the middle of the night and proceeded to make spontaneous admissions about murdering a young girl the day before. The officer responded that the defendant should be quiet until he was read his rights, but at the station the defendant made another voluntary statement which tended to incriminate him. At the end of his statement the defendant said “End of statement.” Hohman, 136 Vt. at 347, 392 A.2d at 939. However, the officers continued to question him. This Court concluded that a finding of custody was compelled when probable cause to arrest was accompanied by other facts which would lead a reasonable person to believe he was not free to leave; in Hohman those facts included being interrogated in an interrogation room while an officer filled out an arrest form. Id. at 350, 392 A.2d at 940-41. Any reasonable person would feel he was not free to leave if he saw a police officer filling out his arrest form. Hohman may stand for the proposition that it is “presumed that the police will . . . arrest” on probable cause, id., but that presumption is obviously a rebuttable one. And that presumption is rebutted when the facts as known to the defendant point away from arrest. Id.
¶ 42. The majority also asserts that this case is distinguishable from Oney because defendant was accused of committing a “serious crime.” We have recognized that “once a suspect confesses to committing a serious criminal act, this fact is significant *71in this evaluation.” Oney, 2009 VT 116, ¶ 14. The defendant in Oney confessed to setting six fires, which the police told him were misdemeanors (four of which were later charged as felonies), and we held that a “mere confession to what defendant believed to be three misdemeanors would not necessarily lead a reasonable person in defendant’s circumstances to believe that he was not free to leave.” Id. ¶ 15.4 Here, defendant was accused of sexual abuse, and the majority assumes that a reasonable person in defendant’s shoes would not feel free to leave if accused of committing such a “sérious crime.”
¶ 43. Notably, the majority conflates mere accusations with confessions. Defendant only admitted that he had “touched” his daughters and adamantly denied the allegations involving his grandchildren. Thus, the logic of Oney, that a defendant who has confessed to a crime would assume that he is not free to leave, does not apply. Moreover, there is little reason to believe that a reasonable person accused of sexual abuse would feel any less free to leave than a person accused of setting multiple fires.
¶ 44. The majority also makes much of the fact that defendant was interrogated at the police station in a “small, windowless polygraph room within a secured area in the police barracks.” Ante, ¶¶ 15, 21, 24. As we stated in Oney, this in and of itself is meaningless. 2009 VT 116, ¶¶ 12, 16. It is the combination of factors that is important, see id., and the United States Supreme Court has previously stated that being interviewed in a police station is not enough to make an interview custodial. See Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495 (1977) (per curiam) (“[P]olice officers are not required to administer Miranda warnings to everyone whom they question. Nor is the requirement of warnings to be imposed simply because the questioning takes place in the station house, or because the questioned person is one whom the police suspect.”). Thus, the question is one of the degree of oppression a reasonable person would feel under the circumstances.
¶ 45. In State v. Lancto, 155 Vt. 168, 582 A.2d 448 (1990), the defendant was found on foot, near an accident scene, with a head injury. The defendant claimed the head injury was from a fight, *72and the trooper accused him of lying. The officer then directed the defendant to sit in the cruiser where he questioned the defendant. Statements made in this interrogation, along with the officer’s observations, ultimately led to a charge of driving under the influence, and we found this situation to be noncustodial. Id. at 171, 582 A.2d at 450. The circumstances here are no more oppressive than the interrogation found to be noncustodial in Lando. Here, defendant drove himself to the interview and was seated in a small room with the door closed, but not locked, and his access to the door was not blocked. The interview lasted only about one hour. Defendant was confronted with allegations of a crime, but it was by a plain-clothes officer with a badge and without a weapon, who told him that he was there of his own free will and that he was not under arrest.
¶ 46. The majority’s opinion reflects an erosion of the limits on Miranda expressed in Hohman and Brunell, cases that were intended to curtail incommunicado interrogation in a police-dominated atmosphere amounting to formal arrest. Ultimately, this case is indistinguishable from Oney and compels the same result. The grounds on which the majority distinguishes those cases are unpersuasive. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 47. I am authorized to state that Justice Burgess joins this dissent.

 The police officers told the defendant in Oney that setting the fires were misdemeanors. He confessed to setting six fires and was actually charged with two misdemeanors and four felonies.