Court Opinion

ID: 9480958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:03:48.732466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:01.243982
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Although I recognize the force of the majority’s harmless error analysis, I would not proceed so far, because I believe this case falls comfortably within the Quarles public safety exception to Miranda. I must therefore respectfully dissent from the majority’s contrary holding.
There are two reasons for my conclusion.
First, the facts seem to indicate that public safety was a serious concern for the arresting officers. They apparently knew that a bank robbery was attempted and that at least one suspect had escaped. They found Fleming, wounded and at the gunpoint of an unidentified individual, at some distance from the robbery. Several questions must have been running through the officers’ minds at the same time: was one of these men involved in the robbery? If so, which was the victim? Could they be involved in an altogether different altercation? Could Fleming, indeed, have been the hostage of the man who was holding the gun?
To answer these questions, the officer had to interrogate Fleming very quickly. In my view, it matters not that Fleming was not in possession of a gun. For all the officers knew, Don Adams (the gun-toting citizen) could have taken Fleming’s gun or could have been the criminal. Thus, on the facts, public safety dictated the officer’s getting to the bottom of this ambiguous situation as quickly as possible.
Second, Quarles lays heavy emphasis on the exigent circumstances that mandate a *858Miranda exception, while at the same time recognizing that police officers may have mixed motives in interrogating a suspect in such a position. The Court states:
In a kaleidoscopic situation such as the one confronting these officers, where spontaneity rather than adherence to a police manual is necessarily the order of the day, the application of the exception which we recognize today should not be made to depend on post hoc findings at a suppression hearing concerning the subjective motivation of the arresting officer. Undoubtedly most police officers, if placed in Officer Kraft’s position, would act out of a host of different, instinctive, and largely unverifiable motives — their own safety, the safety of others, and perhaps as well the desire to obtain incriminating evidence from the suspect. 467 U.S. at 656, 104 S.Ct. at 2631.
Further, Quarles suggests that parsing the precise contents of a conversation in these circumstances is dangerous, because at the point that the courts say that Miranda warnings were required, there is a threat that the dangerous situation will not have been resolved. Thus:
We decline to place officers such as Officer Kraft in the untenable position of having to consider, often in a matter of seconds, whether it best serves society for them to ask the necessary questions without the Miranda warnings and render whatever probative evidence they uncover inadmissible, or for them to give the warnings in order to preserve the admissibility of evidence they might uncover but possibly damage or destroy their ability to obtain that evidence and neutralize the volatile situation confronting them. 467 U.S. at 657, 104 S.Ct. at 2632.
This reasoning would seem to govern the entirety of a dangerous situation until the police have decided which suspect to arrest.
The majority essentially conclude that Miranda warnings had to be given in the midst of armed confrontation, when any unfortunate delay or misunderstanding could have provoked immediate bloodshed. Quarles, quite sensibly, compels the opposite conclusion. The police should be entitled to neutralize the danger before Miranda takes hold. I dissent.