USA. v. Gupta, 98-3843

• Citation: 183 F.3d 615
• Decision Date: 29 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-3843,98-3843
• Parties: (7th Cir. 1999) United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sanjeev Kumar Gupta, Defendant-Appellant
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 615

183 F.3d 615 (7th Cir. 1999)

United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sanjeev Kumar Gupta, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 98-3843

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

Argued April 27, 1999

Decided June 29, 1999

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 97 CR 611--John F. Grady, Judge.

Before Eschbach, Easterbrook, and Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judges.

Easterbrook, Circuit Judge.

Arriving at O'Hare Airport from abroad, Sanjeev Gupta gave the immigration inspector three passports: his own and those of his wife and son. Gupta told the inspector that the people accompanying him were his wife and child. The INS computer flagged Gupta for secondary inspection, and in an interview room Gupta repeated his assertion that the woman and child were his relatives. Inspector Werderitch did not believe this (the pictures on the passports did not quite match the travelers), and Gupta soon confessed that he had been paid $8,000 to smuggle the woman and boy into the United States. Gupta next made a sworn statement embodying this admission. At this point criminal investigators arrived, gave Miranda warnings, obtained from Gupta a written waiver of his rights, and took a new statement in which Gupta repeated almost verbatim what he had told Inspector Werderitch. The criminal investigators read Gupta the questions Werderitch had asked and the answers Gupta had given, asking if he still wanted to make the same statement. In most cases Gupta did, although he modified a few of the answers. An indictment charging Gupta with smuggling aliens into the United States for financial gain, in violation of 8 U.S.C. sec.1324(a) (2)(B)(ii), has been followed by a conviction and a sentence of three years' imprisonment.

The only question on appeal is whether the district judge should have suppressed Gupta's confession to the criminal investigators. The district judge suppressed all statements he made to Inspector Werderitch, ruling that Gupta was "in custody" and therefore should have received Miranda warnings before Werderitch began asking questions. Because the criminal investigators delivered the necessary warnings and obtained a formal waiver, however, the district judge applied Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298 (1985), which holds that Miranda warnings break the causal chain and permit a later confession to be used, provided that the earlier statements were voluntary. The judge found that Gupta's statements to Werderitch were voluntary and that Gupta knowingly waived the constitutional rights explained in the Miranda warnings. Gupta does not challenge either of these conclusions. Nonetheless, he insists, Elstad does not govern because the interval between the confessions was so short, and the statements to the criminal investigators were so closely based on the statements to Werderitch.

Defending the judgment, the United States advances an argument that would support the use of all three confessions: that Gupta was not "in custody" because no one brandished a weapon or told him that he was not free to leave. The two factual statements are true, but the conclusion does not necessarily follow. Gupta certainly was not free to leave. He was at an immigration checkpoint in an international airport, the functional equivalent of the border, Almeida- Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 273 (1973), seeking entry into the United States. He could not enter the United States without permission from the INS. And he could not go back the way he had come. Planes do not depart from the international-arrivals section of O'Hare. In order to leave the United States, Gupta had to reach the departures section of the airport, something he could do only if the INS admitted him, or if he remained in the custody of the INS during the transit.

A different, and more difficult, question is whether these restraints are the sort of "custody" that require Miranda warnings. Not all custody qualifies. A prisoner may testify in court without a recitation of Miranda warnings. Cf. United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 186 (1977) (reserving the question whether warnings are required before grand jury testimony). Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), used the word "custody" to denote the kind of surroundings that can have a coercive effect. See, e.g., Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112 (1995); Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420 (1984); Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492 (1977); Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341 (1976). Potential coercion or compulsion is vital to Miranda's application, because the clause underlying its framework is the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. Counsel is provided only to help the suspect understand his privilege; Miranda does not rest on the counsel clause of the sixth amendment. See Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412 (1986). Thus Miranda warnings are unnecessary either when there is little risk of compulsory self-incrimination, see Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984) (for purposes of Miranda, "custody" does not begin during a traffic stop until formal arrest, even if the driver's freedom had been restrained earlier in the process), or when the privilege itself does not apply.

Miranda therefore is a mismatch for the immigration process, at least at the outset. No one believes that the Constitution requires the immigration inspector to greet new arrivals by saying: "Welcome to the United States. You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you. You have a right to counsel and, if you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you. Now, please let me see your passport." A person seeking entry into the United States does not have a right to remain silent; the immigrant must honestly describe his identity, nationality, business, and claim of entitlement to enter, and must do this without the aid of counsel. The United States is entitled to condition entry on willingness to provide essential information. No information, no entry. Refusing to extend the boon of entry to those who remain silent can be seen as "compulsion"...