U.S. v. Panak

• Citation: 552 F.3d 462
• Decision Date: 09 January 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-4476.,07-4476.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jean F. PANAK, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

552 F.3d 462

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jean F. PANAK, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 07-4476.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 12, 2008.

Decided and Filed: January 9, 2009.

ARGUED:

Michael L. Collyer, Assistant United States Attorney, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. William Lawrence Summers, Summers & Vargas, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Thomas J. Gruscinski, Assistant United States Attorney, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. William Lawrence Summers, Law Offices, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before ROGERS, SUTTON and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

At issue in this appeal is whether the district court properly granted Jean Panak's motion to suppress incriminatory statements she gave to two Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigators during an un-Mirandized interview, lasting 45 minutes to an hour, at her home. Because she was not in "custody" during the interview, we reverse.

I.

In the winter of 2006, DEA investigators became aware that Dr. Donald Chionchio, a dentist in Kinsman, Ohio, had purchased unusually large amounts of hydrocodone — a schedule-three controlled substance — in 2004 and 2005. Suspicious of the purchases, two investigators visited Chionchio's office on February 8, 2006, where Chionchio admitted that he was abusing hydrocodone and that he was illegally distributing the drug. The investigators seized Chionchio's license as well as his log books detailing the recipients, frequency and amounts of his hydrocodone distributions. Jean Panak, Chionchio's 76-year-old receptionist and sole employee, witnessed the inspection, heard "most or all" of the conversation between Chionchio and the investigators, JA 39, answered some questions from the investigators and saw the investigators seize the license and log books.

One week later, the same two investigators visited Panak's residence, where they questioned her about Chionchio's dental practice and his abuse and illegal distribution of hydrocodone. Panak told the investigators about her role in the office and what she knew about Chionchio's dental practice — including the high volume of hydrocodone prescriptions he filled without any apparent connection to dental work. At the conclusion of the 45-to-60-minute interview, the investigators thanked Panak, left her house and did not contact her again for some time.

Several months later, one of the investigators called Panak and asked her what the codes in Chionchio's log books meant. Panak answered his questions and confirmed that her handwriting appeared in the log books.

Over a year after the February 15 interview, Panak was indicted for (1) conspiring to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute hydrocodone, see 21 U.S.C. § § 841(a)(1), 846; (2) possessing hydrocodone with intent to distribute it, id. § 841(a)(1); and (3) distributing hydrocodone, id. § 841(a)(1). Panak moved to suppress her statements from the February 15 interview, arguing that they were given without any warning of her Sixth and Fifth Amendment rights, see Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and were involuntary. The district court granted her motion on the Miranda claim and found it unnecessary to rule on her involuntary-statement claim.

II.

The United States filed this appeal, which we have jurisdiction to address on an interlocutory basis. See 18 U.S.C. § 3731. In doing so, "we review the district court's findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo," United States v. Ellis, 497 F.3d 606, 611 (6th Cir.2007), and draw all factual inferences in favor of upholding the district court's suppression ruling, see United States v. Dillard, 438 F.3d 675, 680 (6th Cir.2006).

III.

The Fifth Amendment says that an individual may not be "compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." U.S. Const. amend. V. To the ends of protecting that right, Miranda requires law-enforcement officers to give warnings, including the right to remain silent, before interrogating individuals whom the officers have placed "in custody." Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 322, 114 S.Ct. 1526, 128 L.Ed.2d 293 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). In drawing the line between a non-custodial encounter between a citizen and the police (where Miranda does not apply) and a custodial encounter (where it does), courts consider "all of the circumstances" surrounding the encounter, with "the ultimate inquiry" turning on whether "a formal arrest" occurred or whether there was a "restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). To answer this question, courts focus on the "objective circumstances of the interrogation," id. at 323, 114 S.Ct. 1526, to determine "how a reasonable person in the position of the individual being questioned would gauge the breadth of his or her freedom of action," id. at 325, 114 S.Ct. 1526 (internal quotation marks omitted). Several factors guide the inquiry: the location of the interview; the length and manner of questioning; whether the individual possessed unrestrained freedom of movement during the interview; and whether the individual was told she need not answer the questions. See United States v. Swanson, 341 F.3d 524, 529 (6th Cir.2003).

Measured by these considerations, the February 15 encounter did not rise to the level of a custodial interrogation. Start with the location of the encounter: Panak's residence. If a home is a "castle," 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 288 (1768), a secure redoubt from the cares of the world, it presumably is the one place where individuals will feel most unrestrained in deciding whether to permit strangers into the house, in moving about once the police are there, in speaking as little or as much as they want, in curbing the scope of the interview or in simply asking the officers to leave. It is the rare homeowner who has not exercised these types of control at some point in encountering uninvited visitors. No doubt, some individuals may find it more difficult to do these things during a visit by the police. But all individuals, the meek and the brazen alike, generally will find it easier to exercise such control on their home turf than at the station house.

Recognizing the differences between these settings, we have noted that, "when police question a suspect in a residence," the encounter "often" will "not rise to the kind of custodial situation that necessitates Miranda warnings." United States v. Salvo, 133 F.3d 943, 950 (6th Cir.1998); accord Coomer v. Yukins, 533 F.3d 477, 486 (6th Cir.2008); cf. United States v. Griffin, 922 F.2d 1343, 1355 n. 15 (8th Cir. 1990); 2 Wayne R. LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure § 6.6(e) (3d ed.2007). In Miranda itself, the Court quoted from a police manual that contrasted the differences between interrogations at a station house and the individual's home and emphasized the psychological advantages of station-house interrogations:

If at all practicable, the interrogation should take place in the investigator's office or at least in a room of his own choice. The subject should be deprived of every psychological advantage. In his own home he may be confident, indignant, or recalcitrant. He is more keenly aware of his rights and more reluctant to tell of his indiscretions of criminal behavior within the walls of his home. Moreover, his family and other friends are nearby, their presence lending moral support. In his office, the investigator possesses all the advantages.

Miranda, 384 U.S. at 449-50, 86 S.Ct. 1602 (internal quotation marks omitted). In later explaining that the Miranda requirements do not apply to a non-custodial interview in a person's home, even though the individual has become the focus of an investigation, the Court reasoned that an important factor underlying Miranda was the interrogator's goal of "isolating the suspect in unfamiliar surroundings `for no purpose other than to subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner.'" Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341, 346 & n. 7, 96 S.Ct. 1612, 48 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976) (quoting Miranda, 384 U.S. at 457, 86 S.Ct. 1602). These concerns simply do not apply to most in-home interrogations, and both parties to this case as a result agree that an in-home encounter between the police and a citizen generally will be non-custodial.

But both parties also agree that all generalizations, including this one, have exceptions. Even when an interrogation takes place in the familiar surroundings of a home, it still may become custodial without the officer having to place handcuffs on the individual. See, e.g., Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 325-26, 89 S.Ct. 1095, 22 L.Ed.2d 311 (1969). The number of officers, the show of authority, the conspicuous display of drawn weapons, the nature of the questioning all may transform one's castle into an interrogation cell — turning an inherently comfortable and familiar environment into one that a reasonable person would perceive as unduly hostile, coercive and freedom-restraining. See United States v. Craighead, 539 F.3d 1073, 1083 (9th Cir.2008).

This interrogation, however, did not cross that line and retained a non-custodial hue throughout. The encounter began when the investigators knocked on Panak's door, Panak answered and the investigators told her that they wanted to ask her a few questions about Chionchio. Recognizing the two men from the prior week's inspection, Panak "let them in." JA 104. During the interview, Panak sat on her living-room couch, while the investigators sat in chairs. The interview lasted "[b]etween 45 minutes and an hour," JA 107, a length of time that compares favorably with other encounters we have deemed non-custodial. See United States v. Crossley, 224 F.3d 847, 862 (6th Cir.2000) (less-than-an-hour interview); United States v. Mohan, 190 F.3d 416, 420, 422 ...