In Morton v. U.S., the DC Court of Appeals recently reversed defendant’s conviction for one count of felony and one count of misdemeanor Receiving Stolen Property (RSP), due to Miranda violations denial of motion to suppress at the trial level.
Officers had approached three individuals engaged in suspicious activity with their hands, appeared to be a drug transaction, Morton, one of three, began running as officers questioned the group – chase ensued and Morton dropped a wallet during chase which was later recovered.
Morton was apprehended, chuffed and questioned about the wallet, why he had ran from the officers, questioned about his identity and his correct name – all of which gathered enough information to discover Morton’s true name, and to arrest him on a open warrant and later connect him by the wallet recovered to a burglary and slew of other related charges.
A motion to suppress statements made by Morton to the Officers was denied at the trial, on appeal the Court of Appeal in short determined that because Mr. Morton was in Miranda custody during the police questioning, he was entitled to Fifth Amendment protections before the officers questioned him, and therefore, the trial court erred in denying Morton’s motion to suppress his incriminating statements.
Specifically the Court outlined the Constitutional construction in such cases as: The Fifth Amendment provides that “[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U.S. CONST. amend. V. 8 Under Miranda v. Arizona, this constitutional rule precludes the prosecution’s use in its case-in-chief of statements that have been elicited during custodial interrogation without the benefit of “prophylactic warnings . . . which inform criminal defendants of various constitutional rights,” regardless of whether those unwarned statements would otherwise be considered “compelled.”
Miranda rights are required whenever a suspect is either in custody or/and under interrogation.
The government on appeal argued that Morton was not under custody even though he was cuffed. He was told he is not under the arrest. The Officers had not brandished weapons, Morton was being questioned in public place and only inquisitorially and not confrontationally or in a fashion to rise to the level of interrogation while in custody.
The “totality of the circumstances” determine whether a person is in custody for Miranda purposes. The test is an objective analysis — whether a reasonable person in those circumstances would have felt he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave –.
The totality of circumstances dictate assessment of: the degree to which police physically restrain the suspect, cuffs or no cuffs, communications from the police to the suspect, public interrogation or in questioning in a secluded/secured area, length of the detention and questioning, whether the questioning and the tone was “inquisitorial” or “accusatory”, the show of force or brandishing of weapons, and whether “the suspect is confronted with obvious evidence of [his] guilt or the police “already have sufficient cause to arrest, and this is known to the suspect.”
Here, despite government’s persuasive arguments, the Court held that the totality of the circumstances tipped the balance in favor of administering Miranda warning.
Morton was in fact in custody even when told he is not under arrest, interrogated in public streets with no brandishing of weapons – it was clear here the Morton was in custody to be arrested while questioned and such required the Constitutional protection bestowed by the Fifth Amendment and the Miranda warning.
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