Court Opinion

ID: 9698259
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:45:54.341905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:39.744871
License: Public Domain

Billings, J.,
concurring. Although I concur in the result reached by the majority, I believe that defendant should have been given the Miranda warnings and that the statements given at the police station between 1:30 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. should have been suppressed. The defendant, upon direction of a senior officer at the scene of the crime, was taken to the police station by cruiser at 1:30 a.m., at which time the statements in issue were first taped and then written down in *69longhand by the defendant. The defendant remained inside the police station at the request of the police until 4:00 a.m., when the Miranda warnings were given, with the exception of one brief moment when he was permitted to go outside onto the porch adjacent to the police station for a breath of air. Even if defendant was not “in custody” during the 1:30 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. period, it is my view that when he was detained at the station where the questioning occurred and the resulting statement came forth he was in a coercive environment and could have reasonably believed he was not free to leave. It is just this situation where Miranda warnings are necessary to combat the “inherently compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual’s will to resist and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 497-98 (1977) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (quoting Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 467 (1966)). The privilege against self-incrimination is guaranteed by both the United States and the Vermont Constitutions, U.S. Const., amendments V, XIV; Vt. Const., ch. I, art. 10. I would hold that the Vermont Constitution requires Miranda warnings where, as here, coercive elements are compellingly present. I would affirm the conviction, however, on the ground that the constitutional error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because of the “overwhelming evidence of guilt” presented by the State. See Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250 (1969); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). The jury verdict would have been no different had the statements been suppressed.
Mr. Justice Larrow joins in the foregoing concurrence.