Court Opinion

ID: 9685929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:09:10.001554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:11.524227
License: Public Domain

Hoover, EJ.
¶ 19. (dissenting). I conclude that reasonable people in Goetz's position would have believed they were in custody. I therefore would affirm.
¶ 20. It is first necessary to sample by way of illustration, rather than survey, some of the additional relevant facts. As the police were initially executing the warrant, an officer stood outside brandishing a firearm and threatening to shoot Goetz's dog, which had run out of the house in an attempt to attack a police dog at *388the scene.1 After the police entered Goetz's house, Goetz was given a copy of the search warrant, told to sit down and then interviewed for ten to fifteen minutes before she made the statements the circuit court suppressed. Goetz testified that she was told (1) where to sit, (2) where she was required to be, (3) when she could move and (4) where she could move.
¶ 21. It is well established that the police may constitutionally seize a person without transforming the seizure into custody for purposes of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). For example, in Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 439-40 (1984), the Supreme Court held that persons temporarily detained pursuant to a routine traffic stop are not "in custody" for the purposes of Miranda. Relying on Berkemer, the seventh circuit held that Miranda warnings are not required where a suspect has been detained pursuant to a Terry2 stop. See United States v. Boden, 854 F.2d 983, 995 (7th Cir. 1988).
¶ 22. But I cannot subscribe to the cases that hold that a person who is "detained" during the execution of a search warrant is not in custody for purposes of Miranda. See Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 702 (1981) (absent special circumstance or prolonged restraint, detention during search warrant execution not "custody" because it was "substantially less intrusive" than an arrest); accord, United States v. Burns, 37 F.3d 276, 281 (7th Cir. 1994). These cases represent an erosion of rights that were fragile from their inception.
*389It is well-established that state courts, under state law, are always free to take a more expansive view of individual rights than do federal courts under federal constitutional law. See e.g., Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980). See also Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714 (1975); Comment, Developments in the Law — The Interpretation of State Constitutional Rights, 95 Harv. L. Rev. 1324 (1982); Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Harv. L. Rev. 489 (1977); Comment, Rediscovering the Wisconsin Constitution: Presentation of Constitutional Questions in State Courts, 1983 Wis. L. Rev. 483 (1983).
State v. Kramsvogel, 124 Wis. 2d 101, 130, 369 N.W.2d 145 (1985) (Bablitch, J., dissenting).3
¶ 23. The majority has correctly recited the law applicable to custody determinations. But I view as the touchstone the rule that, in deciding whether a suspect is in custody, courts look at "how a reasonable man in the suspect's position would have understood his situa*390tion." Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 442. This determination is based on the "totality of the circumstances." United States v. Fazio, 914 F.2d 950, 954 (7th Cir. 1990). "The accused's freedom to leave the scene and the purpose, place and length of interrogation are all relevant factors in making this determination." United States v. Helmel, 769 F.2d 1306, 1320 (8th Cir. 1985).
¶ 24. The problem with Summers and Burns is that they depart from these very custody factors that they acknowledge, and replace them with such considerations as the comparatively nonthreatening nature of the detention, the intrusiveness relative to the search itself and minimal added public stigma. What do these have to do with how a reasonable person in the detainee's position would have understood his or her situation? I submit that these factors merely rationalize the fiction that reasonable people in Goetz's position would not perceive themselves to be in custody. We should be loath to indulge legal fictions to guide us to a result. They do not serve the law because they do not serve those who must abide by the law. Moreover, they compromise the rule of law because they are easily discerned as a lapse in analytical honesty, a legal shunt. We deceive ourselves if we believe that citizens will embrace our attempt to describe paste and declare it a diamond.
¶ 25. I would conclude that the invention I perceive in the Summers and Burns decisions compels their rejection under our state constitution's protection. I therefore respectfully dissent.

 The State throws this evidence into the irrelevancy bin evidently because in its view this incident could not possibly inform on how a reasonable person would view his or her situation based upon the circumstances as a whole.

 Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).

 See also, e.g., State v. Miller, 202 Wis. 2d 56, 65-66, 549 N.W.2d 235 (1996) (although First Amendment and art. I, § 18, serve same underlying purposes and are based on same precepts, Wisconsin's analysis of freedom of conscience as guaranteed by Wisconsin Constitution not constrained by boundaries of protection United States Supreme Court set for federal provision); State v. Mechtel, 176 Wis. 2d 87, 94, 499 N.W.2d 662 (1993) (Wisconsin courts bound only by United States Supreme Court on questions of federal law.); State v. Eason, 2001 WI 98 ¶ 22, 245 Wis. 2d 206, 629 N.W.2d 625 (United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), good faith exception recognized in Wisconsin, but only if State also demonstrates process used in obtaining search warrant included significant investigation and review by either police officer trained and knowledgeable in probable cause requirements or knowledgeable government attorney. This process, additional to that in Leon, required by art. I, § 11, of the Wisconsin Constitution.).