Court Opinion

ID: 9539148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:47:31.236899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:28.514127
License: Public Domain

Justice MULLARKEY
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
The majority holds that the trial court’s suppression of statements and evidence obtained as a result of the interview by the police of the defendant on April 10, 1992 is appropriate because the trial court correctly found that the defendant was subjected to a custodial interrogation without having been advised of his Miranda1 rights. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion. The trial court's excessive reliance on the “accusatory” state of mind of the interviewing officers in its determination that the defendant was in custody, combined with what the majority opinion accurately describes as the court’s “misleading” view of Miranda, demonstrate that the trial court did not correctly apply the appropriate legal standard to the findings of fact. I would reverse and remand with directions to apply the correct legal standard for determining when a police interrogation is custodial in nature.
I
The record in this case reveals that when officers Scott and Goeke asked the defendant if he would speak with them, the defendant agreed and stated that he wanted to “get the matter straightened out.” The officers then interviewed the defendant in the company president’s office for approximately thirty minutes. During that time, the defendant was not advised of his Miranda rights nor was he informed that he was either under arrest or free to leave. When the defendant asked the officers what would happen if the computer at his house was the one which was stolen, he was informed that he would not be taken into custody, but that a felony summons would be issued in about six weeks. The defendant later testified in the suppression hearing that he felt compelled to remain in the office with the police officers for two reasons: first, because of the general intimidation caused by the presence of two police officers, and second, because company management wanted him to speak with the officers.
The trial judge’s order describes the issue in this case as whether or not the defendant was in custody at the time of the interview. The order then lists several factors weighed by the court in deciding the custody issue, with special emphasis upon the fact that the officers spoke in an “accusatory” tone and that they repeatedly expressed to the defendant that they believed him to be lying. In the trial court’s view, it was “clear from the tone of the interrogation that they have already come to the conclusion that he is the person who did it.” After stating that “the purpose of the interview was to get the defendant to confess, that that is what custodial interrogation is about and that is what Miranda is about,” the court concluded that there was custodial interrogation and that the statements should be suppressed.
Contrary to the impression generated by the majority opinion, the trial court’s order does not end there. Rather, the order proceeds to discuss in detail the separate issue of whether the defendant's responses during the interview were voluntary, that is, whether they were the product of coercion or threats by the police. The trial court made several findings of fact on this issue:
The Court doesn’t believe that there were threats made in the sense of consequences that would occur to the defendant if he didn’t tell the officers what they wanted to hear. There were statements of truth made and the Court doesn’t believe that statements of truth create involuntary statements on behalf of the defendant. The officers are telling the truth when they say that, “it’s *709probably going to be easier on you if you admit....” There are certainly no overt threats or promises. The style used by the questioners was an approach which was low-keyed, in the Court’s view, in the sense of certainly there isn’t a beating or yelling or all of those kinds of things that could have happened_ The technique was a technique which was fairly low key and that is not going to be calculated to overfbear] somebody’s mil as well as there is no evidence before the Court that would indicate that the defendant’s physical or mental condition was utilized in any inappropriate manner.... All of those factors put together, the totality of the circumstances lead the Court to the conclusion that the statements are not involuntary ... and, therefore, the Court does not believe that the statements were the product of involuntary interrogation. (emphasis added)
The trial court order does not attempt to reconcile its apparently conflicting descriptions of the interview: on the one hand, the trial court found the conversation was highly “accusatory” when viewed as a custody question, yet, on the other hand, it found that the same conversation involved only true statements, was “low key” and was not “calculated to over[bear] somebody’s will” when viewed as a voluntariness question.
II
The test for determining whether a person is in a custodial setting is “whether a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would consider himself deprived of his freedom in a significant way” during a police interrogation in which the defendant was exposed to the risk of self-incrimination. People v. Probasco, 795 P.2d 1330, 1334 (Colo.1990); People v. Milhollin, 751 P.2d 43, 49 (Colo.1988). A court must examine the totality of the circumstances on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the Miranda protections apply. People v. Wallace, 724 P.2d 670, 673 (Colo.1986); People v. Thiret, 685 P.2d 193, 203 (Colo.1984). While courts are to consider factors such as the purpose of the encounter and the tone of voice and general demeanor of the interviewing officer, id. at 203, we have held that the police officer’s subjective state of mind is not an appropriate standard for determining whether an individual has been deprived of his freedom of movement in a significant way. Wallace, 724 P.2d at 674; People v. Black, 698 P.2d 766, 768 (Colo.1984); People v. Johnson, 671 P.2d 958, 961 (Colo.1983).
Although the trial court, at the outset of its order, correctly states this objective test for deciding whether the defendant was in custody, the remainder of the order raises serious doubts as to whether the court correctly applied that test in this case. First, the court was clearly laboring under the false assumption that custody is triggered for Miranda purposes whenever a police interview is designed to elicit a confession.2 The problem with such a view of Miranda is that it shifts the focus of the custody inquiry from the objective test of what a reasonable person in the defendant’s situation would believe, to a subjective inquiry, previously rejected by this court, into the state of mind of the interviewing officers. See, e.g., Black, 698 P.2d at 768; People v. Corley, 698 P.2d 1336, 1339 (Colo.1985) (finding no custodial interrogation despite the fact that the investigating officer “focused” on the defendant as a suspect).
The majority opinion finds the trial court’s “misleading” view of Miranda harmless in light of that court’s apparent *710reliance on other factors. The record reveals otherwise. The majority, for example, points out that the trial court clearly considered the “accusatory tone” of the interview as a key factor in its decision. The trial court order, when read in its entirety, reveals, however, that while the police officers communicated their belief that the defendant was lying to them, they did so in a “low-keyed” manner. Moreover, the officers followed such accusatory statements with what the trial court deemed to be “statements of truth,” such as that the defendant would benefit from being honest with the police. The trial court described the interview technique as a “soft approach” that was not “calculated to over[béar] sombody’s will.” Finally, un-iike in People v. Horn, 790 P.2d 816 (Colo.1990), where the interviewing officer informed the defendant that charges would be filed against him regardless of the defendant’s responses, the record here reveals that despite the police officers’ accusatory tone, LaFrankie was told that he would not be taken into custody “unless he committed a murder.”
The trial court’s focus on the “accusatory” tone and content of the interview in its analysis of the custody issue, when contrasted with its approval of the officers’ “soft approach” under its voluntariness analysis, suggests that the trial court’s misreading of Miranda fatally infected its reasoning in this case. That is, the trial court appears to have decided the custody issue based almost exclusively upon its conclusion that the police officers intended from the outset to procure a confession. The majority, however, cites several other “factors” mentioned in the order as examples of the trial court’s correct application of the objective custody test. For example, the majority points to the fact that the trial court described the interview as transpiring in the president’s office in a fifteen-by-fifteen foot room. While the majority chose to view that fact as highly relevant to the custody decision, finding “few places more intimidating or potentially coercive to an individual than one’s place of employment,” maj. op. at 706, n, 5, there is no indication anywhere in the record that the trial court placed a similar gloss on the office dimensions.3 Indeed, the majority’s assumption that one’s work place is somehow inherently “intimidating” and “potentially coercive” is a false generalization and not an accurate statement of the law.4
Moreover, the majority opinion omits to mention the fact that the defendant testified that he remained in the office with the police largely due to the fact that the company managers for whom he worked asked him to cooperate with the investigation. Where normal employment obligations give rise to restrictions on an employee’s freedom to move, such restrictions will not in themselves support a finding that the employee is in custody. Probasco, 795 P.2d at 1334-1335; accord Immigration & Naturalization Serv. v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, *711104 S.Ct. 1758, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984) (“Ordinarily, when people are at work their freedom to move about has been meaningfully restricted, not by the actions of law enforcement officials, but by the workers’ voluntary obligations to their employers.”); United States v. Dockery, 736 F.2d 1232 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 862, 105 S.Ct. 197, 83 L.Ed.2d 129 (1984) (finding a bank employee not in custody when ordered by her employer to accompany F.B.I. agents to an office as part of an investigation into bank embezzlement). In this case, the defendant consented to speaking with the police at the request of his employer, and a reasonable employee in the defendant’s situation would have believed that he was “simply following the orders of a superior in his place of employment.” Probasco, 795 P.2d at 1334. As such, he would not be in custody for Miranda purposes by virtue of his belief that his employer expected him to cooperate.
Finally, the majority cites other facts mentioned in the order, such as the thirty minute duration of the interview and that the only people present at the interview were the defendant and the two police officers, maj. op. at 707, to support its view that the trial court correctly applied the objective custody test. Unfortunately, however, such facts are not analyzed or commented upon in the trial court order as weighing either for or against a determination that the interrogation was custodial.5 Rather, the trial court’s only explicit analysis of specific facts for purposes of custody determination can be found in two instances: first, when the court explains that the police officers’ statement to the defendant that he would not be taken into custody unless he committed a murder “weighs against finding that he is in custody,” and second, when the court erroneously states that custodial interrogation is triggered by police intent to procure a confession.
Ill
In summary, the record fails to support the conclusion that the trial court applied the correct legal standard to the facts in this case. Because I believe the trial court did not apply the correct legal standard, it is not necessary to reach the issue of whether or not the trial court’s decision to suppress the relevant statements was “adequately supported by competent evidence.” People v. Trujillo, 784 P.2d 788, 792 (Colo.1990). The various “factors” cited by the majority as proof that the court correctly applied the appropriate test are overshadowed by the trial court’s erroneous view of Miranda. The record shows that the trial court was more concerned with the subjective state of mind of the police than what a reasonable person in the defendant’s situation would have believed. The only factors upon which the trial court undisputedly relied in making its custody determination were the facts that the police intended from the outset to procure a confession and that the police spoke to the defendant in an “accusatory tone.” Those two factors, by themselves, cannot support a finding that the interrogation was custodial in nature.
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to say that ROVIRA, C.J. and VOLLACK, J., join in this dissent.

. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

. The relevant passage of the trial court’s order reads as follows:
The Court has a transcript of the investigation and interrogation and the Court’s conclusion ... is that the officers were there to get the defendant to tell them that he stole this computer. That is what this is about_ The Court's view of the encounter indicates to the Court that since the purpose of the interview was to get the defendant to confess, that that is what custodial interrogation is about and that is what Miranda is about. If you are going to interview somebody who you are going to try to get a confession from, you at least have to advise them of their rights. That is what Miranda is about, otherwise, Miranda doesn’t mean anything.

. The majority emphasizes the factual similarities between this case and Horn, citing; among other things, the dimensions of the interview room in each case. Upon closer inspection, however, the two cases are distinguishable in important ways. For example, the majority cites the eight-by-twelve foot dimensions of the room in Horn as indicative of the fact that the trial court in this case must have found the fifteen-by-fifteen foot dimensions relevant in its analysis of the custody issue. The majority fails to mention, however, some key facts in Horn that distinguish it from the case at hand: in Horn, the trial court specifically pointed out that the eight-by-twelve foot room was “windowless" and “located in a secured area of the basement of the police station." Horn, 790 P.2d at 819. No such additional information is provided in the trial court order in this case.

. The relevant federal precedent rejects such a sweeping view of the employment context in custody analysis:
The place where an interrogation takes place does not conclusively establish the presence or absence of custody. A deprivation of freedom may take place at one's home as well as at the police station. Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 89 S.Ct. 1095, 22 L.Ed.2d 311 (1969). By the same token, an interrogation at the police station may be noncustodial. Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977)_ Determining if there has been a deprivation of freedom entails something more than simply identifying the place of interrogation. United States v. Jones, 630 F.2d 613, 615 (8th Cir.1980), quoted in United States v. Carter, 884 F.2d 368, 371 (8th Cir.1989).

. Once again, Horn provides an important contrast to this case. In Horn, for example, the trial court explained that the thirty-minute duration of the interview was significant "because of the highly confrontational nature of the encounter.” Horn, 790 P.2d at 819. In light of the "soft approach" taken by the police in the present case, the relevance of the thirty-minute duration is at best unclear.