Miranda Rights

[Samuel]

Miranda in its simplest is Custody + Interrogation = Miranda. That being said, new case laws seem to pop up every year which further define the different facets of Miranda such as Custody/detention, Interrogation/questioning, "contemporaneousness", waivers/invocations, exceptions, wording, etc. Search and seizure also changes.

As an author, the timing/setting of your story may be a factor as far as which Miranda case laws were already in effect or had yet to be heard/decided.

IMO, some good reading:

search "Devallis Rutledge miranda"
search "los angeles county district attorney one minute brief miranda"
search "alameda county district attorney point of view"

[scott715us]

I'm going to play devil's advocate a little with you scott715us. The back of the car custody depends on the circumstances. I totally agree.

Being handcuffed however, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a judge that would rule that someone in handcuffs could reasonably feel that they were not in custody. I fully realize you stated that the handcuffed subject would be a lot more difficult to explain why they weren't in custody. I'd go a step further though and say that I would always mirandize someone in handcuffs if I planned to question him/her

You and I both know it's an objectionable stance, but if I've got someone I've reminded numerous times to calm down, remove hands from pockets, quit pacing around, etc to the point there's a safety concern and I've put them in handcuffs during an investigatory stop, I will tell them they're not under arrest but merely being detained and let the courts deal with it on the far end. I agree with you. There's never a time where you can't be more safe than sorry and go ahead with Miranda, but I think it can be done with articulation and the way the stop is handled. The time the person is in handcuffs, the reason for the handcuffing, and the conversation that ensues between me and the suspect. We have video in all of our vehicles that shoots inside & outside the vehicle aso I think that would come into play significantly at a suppression motion.

[ChesCopPodz]

Oh I agree. It's all conditional with the handcuffing. And we know they're not necessarily under arrest. But in this day and age, I'd bet a weeks salary that it'd be all but impossible to convince a judge that they should have known they weren't in custody.

[retdetsgt]

Being handcuffed however, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a judge that would rule that someone in handcuffs could reasonably feel that they were not in custody. I fully realize you stated that the handcuffed subject would be a lot more difficult to explain why they weren't in custody. I'd go a step further though and say that I would always mirandize someone in handcuffs if I planned to question him/her

I agree. A lot of it has to do with the state of mind of the person being questioned. And we would be hard pressed to show that a handcuffed person in the back of a car can leave anytime they want to.

[anaserrata]

Ohhh! Wow! That's something new! Thank you for sharing that with me Scott.

[CPL1897]

I love the "voluntary excited utterance"...Its amazing how they just gotta have something to say...