Court Opinion

ID: 9465351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:44:11.442943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:08.436595
License: Public Domain

J. BLAINE ANDERSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
With the firm belief that the distinctions sought to be drawn by the majority are of no substance, I respectfully dissent. Even though in the prison setting everything done by the prison officers gives rise to an inescapable feeling that Cervantes knew, and any reasonable prisoner in a like situation would know, that his change of cells and being taken to the prison library for interview (interrogation), was a change in his custodial situation. When the officer entered the library with the match box for the purpose of asking Cervantes about it, the accusatory stage was reached. The new test constructed by the majority is, in my view, unrealistic and unworkable. Even if this new test should prove to be valid, the facts here bring Cervantes within the “additional imposition on his limited freedom of movement” and Miranda warnings were required.
In Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1503, 20 L.Ed.2d 381 (1968), the government sought to distinguish the application of Miranda in the prison setting by urging that it was merely a routine tax investigation and that Mathis was not put in jail by the officers questioning him. Mr. Justice Black, speaking for the majority, declared:
“These differences are too minor and shadowy to justify a departure from the well-considered conclusions of Miranda with reference to warnings to be given to a person held in custody.” 391 U.S. at 4, 88 S.Ct. at 1504.
So too are the distinctions sought to be drawn in this case by the majority opinion. I would reverse with directions to grant the writ.