Here are the particulars. John J Fellars, of Lincoln, Nebraska was indicted for conspiring to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Law enforcement officials came to Fellars' home to arrest him on the indictment. He invited the officers in, but they weren't anxious to take him to jail right away. They felt like chatting.
The officers wanted to discuss the pending charges; as in, who were your hanging buddies you were using with? Evidently, Fellars was in a cooperative mood, and made several incriminating statements.
Satisfied with what the accused had told them, the officers finally took him off to the county jail. There, Fellars was read his Miranda rights and he signed a waiver of those rights, whereby he proceeded to talk all over again. Same information, different venue.
Before trial, the defendant's attorney filed a motion to suppress his client's statements -- those made at his home, and in jail. A magistrate recommended that the statements made at home, before the defendant was Mirandized, be suppressed, and as a consequence of the failure to read the defendant his rights, the magistrate also felt that parts of the jailhouse statement should be suppressed as "fruits of the poisonous tree." And perhaps as a punishment of sorts, for the officers not doing what they know they should have done.
A District Court found that the home statements were suppressed, but that the jailhouse statements were admissible, since they were made post-Miranda. Further, the Court held, the defendant "voluntarily and knowingly" waived his rights before statements were made.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Fellars' conviction in toto, because, it opined, he was Mirandized at jail and heck, that wasn't even an interrogation at the man's house.
The High Court, speaking through Justice O'Connor, found that the Eighth Circuit wrongly held that the officers didn't interrogate Fellars in his home. The Court went on to hold that the officers "deliberately elicited" the information. He was, after all, under indictment. And once an individual has been indicted, that triggers a whole new constitutional safeguard.
The Sixth Amendment right to counsel kicks in "at or after the time that judicial proceedings have been initiated...whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information or arraignment."
The Fifth Amendment, on the other hand, requires that a defendant be Mirandized once he's in custodial interrogation. Both are necessary to afford Fifth Amendment protections. So, if an accused is in custody, but isn't being interrogated, the right isn't necessarily required. Same with an interrogation. If an accused is being interrogated, under his own free will -- and he's free to leave at any time -- Miranda isn't necessary.
Go To Page: 1 2
