Court Opinion

ID: 9499211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:41:06.16061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:21.100479
License: Public Domain

LOKEN, Chief Judge,
dissenting in part and concurring in the judgment.
I respectfully dissent from the conclusion in Part II.B. of the court’s opinion that Officer David Missell violated Edwin Martinez’s Fifth Amendment rights by failing to give Miranda warnings before asking Martinez to explain the “wad of cash” found in his pocket shortly after an armed bank robbery. I agree that the district court’s suppression error, if any, was harmless, and with the remainder of the court’s opinion. Therefore, I concur in the decision to affirm.
Miranda warnings are required before the police engage in “custodial interrogation,” which the Supreme Court defined in Miranda as whenever “a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.” Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) (emphasis added). Later, the Court decided in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and cases applying Terry, that the Fourth Amendment is not violated when a police officer with reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot briefly detains (seizes) a suspect while making a reasonable investigation to confirm or dispel the officer’s suspicion. The investigation normally includes brief questioning “reasonably related in scope to the justification” for the stop. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 881, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975). The apparent overlap of the broad definition of custody in Miranda and the detention inherent in a Terry stop inevitably raised the question whether a Terry stop is a significant deprivation of the suspect’s freedom of action so that Miranda warnings are required before any questioning. An affirmative answer to this question *912would have undermined both the practical and the constitutional underpinnings of the Court’s 8-1 decision in Terry: “if the investigative stop is sustainable at all, constitutional rights are not necessarily-violated if pertinent questions are asked and the person is restrained briefly in the process.” 392 U.S. at 35, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (White, J., concurring).
Not surprisingly, the Court declined to make Miranda warnings mandatory during Terry stops. In Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 441, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984), the Court held that a motorist stopped and questioned for a routine traffic offense was not in custody for Miranda purposes until he was later arrested for driving while intoxicated. In explaining its decision, the Court expressly equated traffic stops and Terry stops and observed that the nonthreatening and non-coercive nature of both “explains the absence of any suggestion in our opinions that Terry stops are subject to the dictates of Miranda.” Then, reiterating the test it had articulated in post -Miranda cases, the Court cautioned that Miranda warnings are required if, at any point during a Terry stop, “a suspect’s freedom of action is curtailed to a degree associated with formal arrest.” Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 440, 104 S.Ct. 3138. The Court acknowledged that “the doctrine just recounted will mean that the police and lower courts will continue occasionally to have difficulty deciding exactly when a suspect has been taken into custody [for Miranda purposes].” Id. at 441, 86 S.Ct. 1602. We have construed Berkemer to mean that “most Terry stops do not trigger the detainee’s Miranda rights.” United States v. Pelayo-Ruelas, 345 F.3d 589, 592 (8th Cir.2003). But this is one of those difficult cases.
In my view, the court’s opinion errs by relying heavily on two station-house questioning cases — United States v. LeBrun 363 F.3d 715 (8th Cir.2004), and Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 116 S.Ct. 457, 133 L.Ed.2d 383 (1995). In such cases, the dominant inquiry is whether a suspect who agreed to be questioned was still free to leave when he made incriminating statements. By contrast, during a Terry non-consensual stop, “[o]ne is not free to leave ... until the completion of a reasonably brief investigation, which may include limited questioning.” Pelayo-Ruelas, 345 F.3d at 592. Thus, it is contrary to Berkemer for the court to frame the Miranda custody question as being whether a reasonable person would “feel he was at liberty to stop the questioning and leave,” supra at p. 909, because that framing compels the conclusion that all questioning during lawful Terry stops must be preceded by Miranda warnings.
Applying Terry, the court concludes— correctly, in my view — that Officers Mis-sell and Jeff Atkinson acted reasonably when they stopped Martinez, a bank robbery suspect; frisked and handcuffed him in the interest of officer safety and to prevent flight; took a quick look at a wad of cash in his pants that might be contraband; did not seize the cash; placed Martinez in the patrol car and gave him Miranda warnings; and then took him some distance for a show-up before the bank teller victim. In the midst of this relatively coercive Terry stop, justified by the violent crime that had just occurred, Mis-sell asked Martinez to explain how a suspicious wad of cash came to be in his pocket soon after an armed bank robbery.
In my view, the critical fact for Miranda purposes is that the questions were entirely consistent with the proper scope and purpose of a reasonable Terry stop. To be sure, handcuffing is an additional restraint on the suspect’s freedom of action, a restraint that often accompanies formal arrests. But in a Terry stop, handcuffing may signal that a formal arrest is immi*913nent, or it may be an action reasonably limited to officer safety concerns or the risk of flight while the officers attempt to quickly confirm or dispel their suspicions. In distinguishing the two situations, I consider the nature of the questioning critical. If Missell had interrogated the handcuffed Martinez about his actions earlier that day, or the details of the robbery, or other crimes under investigation, that would be custodial interrogation consistent with a formal arrest, and Miranda warnings would be required. But brief questioning consistent with the limited purpose of the Terry stop did not require such warnings, even though the suspect was (reasonably) handcuffed. This distinction is consistent with cases holding that a Terry stop that includes handcuffing followed by brief questioning related to the purpose of the stop does not violate the suspect’s Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights. See United States v. Cervantes-Flores, 421 F.3d 825, 829-30 (9th Cir.2005), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 126 S.Ct. 1911, 164 L.Ed.2d 668 (2006); United States v. Fomiar-Castillo, 408 F.3d 52, 63-65 (1st Cir.2005); United States v. Miller, 974 F.2d 953, 956-57 (8th Cir.1992); United States v. Bautista, 684 F.2d 1286, 1292 (9th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1211, 103 S.Ct. 1206, 75 L.Ed.2d 447 (1983). The court cites no factually similar case to the contrary.
“Fidelity to the doctrine announced in Miranda requires that it be enforced strictly, but only in those types of situations in which the concerns that powered the decision are implicated.” Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 437, 104 S.Ct. 3138. I conclude that Martinez was not in custody for Miranda purposes when he gave inconsistent and therefore incriminating answers to questions that were consistent with a lawful Terry stop.