In re B.C.

• Decision Date: 29 January 2015
• Docket Number: No. 2013–542,2013–542
• Citation: 167 N.H. 338,111 A.3d 690
• Parties: IN RE B.C.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

167 N.H. 338

111 A.3d 690

IN RE B.C.

No. 2013–542

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

Argued: September 11, 2014

Opinion Issued: January 29, 2015

Joseph A. Foster, attorney general (Nicholas Cort, assistant attorney general, on the brief and orally), for the State.

B.C., for herself, filed no brief.

David M. Rothstein, deputy director, of Concord, on the brief and orally, for the New Hampshire Appellate Defender Program, as amicus curiae.

BASSETT, J.

The State appeals an order of the Circuit Court (Sullivan, J.) granting the motion of the juvenile, B.C., to suppress a statement obtained in violation of her rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and State v. Benoit, 126 N.H. 6, 490 A.2d 295 (1985). We affirm.

I. Factual Background

The trial court found, or the record establishes, the following facts. The merchandise from "Claire's," a discount jewelry store in the Rockingham Mall. She was transported, in handcuffs, to the Salem Police station. At the station, the handcuffs were removed, and the juvenile was taken to the booking room, which has a locked entry. The arresting officer telephoned the juvenile's mother to pick her up. While in the booking room, the juvenile asked if she could use the bathroom. An officer allowed her to use the bathroom in one of the holding cells. Another officer observed her via a closed circuit monitor in the supervisor's office. He saw the juvenile "just ... flush the toilet" and believed that "[i]t looked like she had flushed something down the toilet." The officer, who had observed the juvenile, spoke with the arresting officer, and the arresting officer asked the juvenile "what she had flushed down the toilet." The juvenile told the arresting officer "that it was a necklace that she had taken and ... had concealed in her pants." The officer did not inform the juvenile of her Miranda rights before questioning her or at any other time. The juvenile remained at the police station until her mother picked her up.

After she admitted to flushing the necklace down the toilet, the juvenile was charged with falsifying evidence. After a hearing in August 2011, she was found delinquent. During the merits hearing, she moved to suppress her admission on the ground that it was the product of custodial interrogation and that she was not advised of her Miranda rights before making it. The court denied her motion, and the juvenile appealed. We remanded the case for further fact finding.

On remand, the trial court conducted an evidentiary hearing at which the arresting officer was the only witness. At the hearing, the juvenile argued that suppression of her response to the officer's question was required by both Part I, Article 15 of the State Constitution and the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Following the hearing, the court granted the juvenile's motion to suppress her admission, and the State filed the instant appeal. The juvenile has not participated in this appeal. We have allowed the New Hampshire Appellate Defender Program to appear as amicus curiae.

II. Legal Background

The Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which applies to the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 6, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653, (1964), provides: "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." Part I, Article 15 of the State Constitution similarly provides: "No subject shall be ... compelled to accuse or furnish evidence against himself."

In Miranda, the Supreme Court "addressed the problem of how the privilege against compelled self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment could be protected from the coercive pressures that can be brought to bear upon a suspect in the context of a custodial interrogation." Berkemer v. McCarty , 468 U.S. 420, 428, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984). "[T]he Court saw as inherently coercive any police custodial interrogation conducted by isolating the suspect with police officers; therefore, the Court established a per se rule that all incriminating statements made during such interrogation are barred as ‘compelled.’ " United States v. Washington , 431 U.S. 181, 187 n. 5, 97 S.Ct. 1814, 52 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977). The Court stated that "[e]ven without employing brutality [or] the ‘third degree’ ..., the very fact of custodial interrogation exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals." Miranda , 384 U.S. at 455, 86 S.Ct. 1602. Consequently, the Court reasoned, "[u]nless adequate protective devices are employed to dispel the compulsion inherent in custodial surroundings, no statement obtained from the defendant can truly be the product of his free choice." Id. at 458, 86 S.Ct. 1602 ; see Maryland v. Shatzer , 559 U.S. 98, 103, 130 S.Ct. 1213, 175 L.Ed.2d 1045 (2010).

"To counteract the coercive pressure, Miranda announced that police officers must warn a suspect prior to questioning that he has a right to remain silent, and a right to the presence of an attorney." Shatzer, 559 U.S. at 103–04, 130 S.Ct. 1213 ; see Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444, 467–73, 86 S.Ct. 1602. The central principle of Miranda is that "if the police take a suspect into custody and then ask him questions without informing him of the rights enumerated above, his responses cannot be introduced into evidence to establish his guilt." Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 429, 104 S.Ct. 3138. In Benoit, we held that Part I, Article 15 of the State Constitution entitled a juvenile to be informed of her Miranda rights "in language understandable to a child." Benoit, 126 N.H. at 19, 490 A.2d 295.

Here, the trial court determined that the juvenile did not receive the procedural safeguards required by Miranda and Benoit before the officer questioned her regarding the object that she had flushed down the toilet. The trial court impliedly concluded that she was entitled to those safeguards because she was subject to custodial interrogation.

III. Analysis

As a general rule, two conditions must be met before Miranda and Benoit warnings are required: (1) the suspect must be "in custody"; and (2) she must be subject to "interrogation." See Miranda, 384 U.S. at 478, 86 S.Ct. 1602. The State appears to dispute that either condition was met in this case.

We first address the State's claims under the State Constitution and rely upon federal cases only to aid our analysis. State v. Ball, 124 N.H. 226, 471 A.2d 347, 23133 (1983). "Because the ultimate determination of custody requires an application of a legal standard to historical facts, it is not merely a factual question but a mixed question of law and fact." State v. Ford, 144 N.H. 57, 62, 738 A.2d 937 (1999). Thus, we review the ultimate determination of custody de novo. Id. at 63, 738 A.2d 937. "We will not overturn the trial court's factual findings relevant to the question of custody unless they are contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence." State v. Jennings, 155 N.H. 768, 772–73, 929 A.2d 982 (2007). The State has not challenged any of the trial court's factual findings on appeal.

A. Custody

"Custody entitling a defendant to Miranda protections requires formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement to the degree associated with formal arrest." Id. at 772, 929 A.2d 982 (quotation omitted). "Absent a formal arrest, the trial court must determine whether a suspect's freedom of movement was sufficiently curtailed by considering how a reasonable [person] in the suspect's position would have understood his situation." Ford, 144 N.H. at 63, 738 A.2d 937 (quotation omitted). To determine whether a reasonable person in a suspect's position would believe herself to be in custody, the trial court should consider the totality of the circumstances of the encounter, including: the suspect's familiarity with her surroundings, the number of officers present, the degree to which the suspect was physically restrained, and the interview's duration and character. State v. McKenna, 166 N.H. 671, 677, 103 A.3d 756 (2014). Like the analysis used by other courts, our custody analysis is binary: we determine whether the suspect either is under formal arrest or has had her freedom of movement restricted to the degree associated with formal arrest. See J.D.B. v. North Carolina, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 2394, 2402, 180 L.Ed.2d 310 (2011) (observing that to determine custody for Miranda purposes, "the ultimate inquiry" is "was there a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with formal arrest" (quotation omitted)); McKenna, 166 N.H. at 679, 103 A.3d 756 (observing that "[c]ustody for Miranda purposes can arise because of a formal arrest or the functional equivalent of arrest"); Jennings, 155 N.H. at 772, 929 A.2d 982 (noting that the court determines whether the suspect's freedom of movement has been sufficiently curtailed only "[i]n the absence of formal arrest").

Using our well-established custody analysis, there can be no question that the juvenile was in custody for Miranda and Benoit purposes. When she was interrogated, she was under formal arrest and had been taken to the police station. This is "the paradigmatic Miranda situation," in which a person has been "arrested ... and whisked to a police station for questioning." Howes v. Fields, ––– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 1181, 1190, 182 L.Ed.2d 17 (2012). She was subject to "incommunicado" interrogation in the very same "unfamiliar," "police-dominated atmosphere," as were the defendants in Miranda. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 456–57, 86 S.Ct. 1602. She was interrogated in the very environment that the Court in Miranda decided involved "inherently compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual's will to resist and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely." Id. at 467, 86 S.Ct. 1602.

The State contends, however, that we should not apply our traditional test for determining custody, but should apply a test that we have...