People v. Alls

• Decision Date: 21 December 1993
• Citation: 83 N.Y.2d 94,608 N.Y.S.2d 139,629 N.E.2d 1018
• Parties: , 629 N.E.2d 1018 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Robert ALLS, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 139

608 N.Y.S.2d 139

83 N.Y.2d 94, 629 N.E.2d 1018

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Robert ALLS, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Dec. 21, 1993.

Certiorari Denied May 16, 1994.

See 114 S.Ct. 1850.

[83 N.Y.2d 96] Francis J. Constantine, Livonia, for appellant.

Thomas Moran, Dist. Atty. of Livingston County, Rochester (Melvin Bressler, of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

LEVINE, Judge.

Defendant, an inmate at the Groveland Correctional Facility in Livingston County (hereinafter the "facility"), was involved in an incident leading to his indictment for sodomy in the first degree and assault in the second degree committed against another inmate. After the alleged victim complained to facility staff concerning the incident, Correction Sergeant Michael Rhodes was directed by his watch commander to question defendant regarding "a fight or an assault between the two inmates" (emphasis supplied). Rhodes testified that he went to the building where defendant was housed and, "after finding out that the basement area was empty, I took him, Alls, down to the basement to interview him and I asked him about the incident last night". Defendant made certain admissions regarding assaulting the complainant.

Concededly, Rhodes questioned defendant without first administering Miranda warnings (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694). County Court held, however, that the questioning of defendant was not custodial interrogation so as to require advising him of his Miranda rights. The court concluded that Miranda warnings are only required, inter alia: "(1) [w]here an individual is questioned in 'custodial settings that have inherently coercive pressures which tend to undermine the individual's will to resist and compel him to speak' ". County Court then found that the specific circumstances of defendant's interrogation by Rhodes were not in an " 'inherently coercive atmosphere' ", because (1) he was not told that he was not free to leave or to break off the interview; and (2) he was only removed to an "office-like setting in the basement which could afford the parties privacy".

Accordingly, defendant's motion to suppress his admissions to Rhodes was denied, and his statement was introduced against him at the trial that followed. The jury acquitted defendant of the sodomy charge, but convicted him of the assault count of the indictment. The Appellate Division affirmed, indicating its agreement with County Court that defendant was not in custody when he gave his statement to Rhodes (170 A.D.2d 996, 566 N.Y.S.2d 151). Moreover, the Court held, there was overwhelming proof of guilt rendering harmless any error in admitting defendant's statement. A Judge of this Court granted leave to appeal. We now modify and remit for a de novo suppression hearing.

Relying on Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1503, 20 L.Ed.2d 381, defendant's primary contention on appeal is that, since an inmate in a correctional facility is clearly not permitted to leave the confines of the facility, any questioning of the prisoner is per se custodial interrogation, requiring Miranda warnings. We disagree.

First, reliance on Mathis must be tempered by the more recent decision of the United States Supreme Court on prison inmate interrogation, Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292, 110 S.Ct. 2394, 110 L.Ed.2d 243. Perkins was incarcerated on charges unrelated to the unsolved murder the police suspected him of committing. An undercover officer posing as another inmate was placed in his cell and, through subtle questioning, elicited incriminating statements from Perkins regarding the murder, of course, without prefacing his questions by Miranda warnings. Rejecting application of the syllogism suggested by defendant's reading of Mathis here, the Court in Perkins held that Miranda warnings were not required, despite the undisputed facts that Perkins was in custody and inculpated himself in response to questioning by a government agent.

Moreover, there is dictum in Illinois v. Perkins (supra) that, in our view, precludes reading it as representing only a narrow, undercover agent exception to the general rule that questioning an inmate is per se custodial interrogation for purposes of Miranda v. Arizona. The Court stated that "[t]he bare fact of custody may not in every instance require a warning even when the suspect is aware that he is speaking to an official, but we do not have occasion to explore that issue here" (Illinois v. Perkins, supra, at 299, 110 S.Ct. at 2398). The Court explained that, although the prisoner there was in detention and, thus, "in custody in a technical sense" (id., at 297, 110 S.Ct. at 2397), "[c]onversations between suspects and undercover agents do not implicate the concerns underlying Miranda" (id., at 296, 110 S.Ct. at 2397 [emphasis supplied]. Rejecting the argument that failure to follow a per se custody rule in prison settings would undercut the need for a "bright-line rule" for applying Miranda, the Court stated that "[t]he interests protected by Miranda are not implicated in these cases, and the warnings are not required to safeguard the constitutional rights of inmates who make voluntary statements to undercover agents" (id., at 300, 110 S.Ct. at 2399 [emphasis supplied].

Thus, in Illinois v. Perkins, the Supreme Court held that incarcerated persons are not entitled to Miranda warnings before being questioned by undercover agents, because in such "cases" the Fifth Amendment interests protected by the Miranda warnings are not implicated. As previously noted, the Court further suggested the existence of other kinds of cases involving prison inmates where the interests protected by Miranda are also not implicated.

The majority's dictum in Illinois v. Perkins, that there may be additional instances where the questioning of a prison inmate is not deemed custodial interrogation, is supported by other Supreme Court decisions holding that, despite the conceded existence of some form of detention of the person questioned during a confrontation with law enforcement authorities, the interrogation was not considered per se custodial for purposes of Miranda. In Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317), Justice Marshall writing for the majority candidly acknowledged "that a traffic stop significantly curtails the 'freedom of action' of the driver and the passengers, if any, of the detained vehicle" and "few motorists would feel free either to disobey a directive to pull over or to leave the scene of a traffic stop without being told they might do so" (id., at 436, 104 S.Ct. at 3148). Nevertheless, despite meeting the standard criteria for determining whether a suspect is in custody for Miranda purposes (see, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. at 1612, supra; People v. Rodney P., 21 N.Y.2d 1, 8-9, 286 N.Y.S.2d 225, 233 N.E.2d 255), the Court in Berkemer held that police roadside questioning of a motorist during a traffic stop does not by itself constitute custodial interrogation. Additionally, the Miranda opinion itself recognized that not all temporary detentions of witnesses for on-the-scene investigative questioning trigger Miranda warnings (Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. at 477-478, 86 S.Ct. at 1629-1630). Likewise, questioning of a suspect during a "Terry stop" (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889) does not per se constitute custodial interrogation (Berkemer v. McCarty, supra, 468 U.S. at 439-440, 104 S.Ct. at 3149-3150; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 880-881, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2579-2580, 45 L.Ed.2d 607).

The common elements of the foregoing situations where questioning during some measure of detention by law enforcement authorities is not considered custodial interrogation requiring Miranda warnings are twofold. First, they typically do not involve the kind of inherently coercive atmosphere with which Miranda was most concerned. Thus, in Berkemer v. McCarty, Justice Marshall pointed out that the detention in a traffic stop situation "is presumptively temporary and brief" (supra, 468 U.S. at 437, 104 S.Ct. at 3149), and that "the typical traffic stop is public" and "the detained motorist typically is confronted by only one or at most two policemen" (id., at 438, 104 S.Ct. at 3149 [emphasis supplied]. And, in sustaining Miranda-less questioning during investigative border patrol stops, the Supreme Court relied on the facts that such detention " 'usually consumes no more than a minute' * * * '[a]ll that is required of the vehicle's occupants is a response to a brief question or two and possibly the production of a document evidencing a right to be in the United States' " (United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, supra, 422 U.S. at 880, 95 S.Ct. at 2580 [emphasis supplied]. Also, it was pointed out in Berkemer v. McCarty (supra) that questioning in a "Terry stop" (Terry v. Ohio, supra) is not deemed custodial interrogation because "[t]ypically, this means that the officer may ask the detainee a moderate number of questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain information confirming or dispelling the officer's suspicions * * * And, unless the detainee's answers provide the officer with probable cause to arrest him, he must then be released" (Berkemer v. McCarty, supra, 468 U.S. at 439-440, 104 S.Ct. at 3150 [emphasis supplied].

The second common element in the foregoing cases is that, in each situation, requiring Miranda warnings would seriously undermine other important social values. As Justice Marshall explained in Berkemer v. McCarty (supra), a per se rule applying Miranda to all traffic stops "would substantially impede the enforcement of the Nation's traffic laws--by compelling the police either to take the time to warn all detained motorists of their constitutional rights or to forgo use of self-incriminating statements made by those motorists--while doing...