Court Opinion

ID: 9663845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:53:11.639377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:58.258285
License: Public Domain

LOMMEN, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent on the grounds that Lynch was not in custody when interrogated and, therefore, a Miranda warning was not required.
This encounter began when Lynch was stopped for running a stop sign. The only unusual feature was the emergence of Lynch’s passenger, screaming that Lynch *747would not let her out of his car. Prior to the stop, the police had no grounds to charge Lynch with engaging in prostitution.
There were two police officers present. One of them did a pat-down search of Lynch and the passenger, put the passenger in his squad car, and went to check Lynch’s car for contraband. The other confronted Lynch, who was standing between his car and the police car. The officer asked, “What’s your side of the story?” In response, Lynch made the incriminating statement and was arrested. The entire episode revolved around the investigation of the conduct of Lynch and the passenger at the scene of the stop. The questions were reasonably connected to determining what happened.
The traffic stop in this case, like an ordinary traffic stop, had two features that mitigated the danger that Lynch would have been induced “to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 467, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1624 (1966). First, Lynch’s detention pursuant to this traffic stop was temporary and brief. Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 437, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3149, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984). He was detained for approximately 15 minutes. Second, Lynch was not subjected to circumstances that made him feel completely at the mercy of the police. Id. at 438, 104 S.Ct. at 3149. The police officers allowed Lynch to stand on the street behind his car in public view. This reduced the ability of the police officers “to use illegitimate means to elicit self-incriminating statements” and diminished Lynch’s fear that, “if he [did] not cooperate, he [would] be subjected to abuse.” Id.
In State v. Herem, 384 N.W.2d 880, 883 (Minn.1986), the Minnesota Supreme Court held that a police officer’s brief interrogation of the defendant in his patrol car was not a custodial interrogation entitling the defendant to a Miranda warning. See also State v. Moffatt, 450 N.W.2d 116, 119 (Minn.1990) (placing of men in squad car did not convert detention into de facto arrest); State v. Clepper, 399 N.W.2d 574, 575 (Minn.App.1987) (detention of defendant in squad car did not require Miranda warning to render statements made by defendant to deputy admissible). In the cases cited above, the placing of a suspect in a police squad car out of public view did not convert the detention into custody. When Lynch was questioned, he was standing on a public street. He was under less constraints than the suspects in the above cases.
For these reasons, the traffic stop in this case was not custodial, and the police officers were not required to give a Miranda warning. The trial court clearly erred in suppressing Lynch’s statement.