Miranda Misunderstandings

No question many of us would
like to be here right now

State v. Spencer, 2021 VT 5

By Elizabeth Kruska

Common occurrence: a person charged with an offense gets me on the blower and says something to the effect of, “well this needs to get dismissed on a technicality because the police didn’t read me my Miranda rights when they arrested me.” My response is frequently a gentle lawsplainer that can be pretty easily summed up as “depending on the situation, it might not matter.” This is rarely the answer they are seeking.

Why? Well, unfortunately, the so-called Miranda warnings are probably the best-known, yet most-misunderstood aspect of American criminal procedure. Thanks to Hollywood’s constant insistence that the American public wants endless police procedurals, it’s been drilled into all of us repeatedly that as soon as police handcuff a suspect, out come the familiar warnings. And by the way, do people still really watch these? I feel like the Big Four television network writers have legitimately run out of ideas. All they need to do to pitch a show is to state the name of an American city and add an emergency service to it. We’re to the point that “Omaha Snowplow” is probably going to turn up on CBS and then somehow run for 17 seasons with spinoffs such as “Baltimore Snowplow” and “D.C. Snowplow,” which will, of course, generate crossover episodes since Baltimore and D.C. are so close to one another. Those special crossover episodes will be submitted for Emmy consideration but will lose to a show called “Cardinals” on Netflix, which you’d think would be about either high-ranking church officials, or about birds but is actually about a group of women who get together on Thursday afternoons to do embroidery and the embroidery circle is actually a cover for a massive cocaine distribution operation. (Writer’s note: I thought I was making up something silly but this might have legs and Netflix will make just about anything, so maybe I’m onto something here.)

Anyway, people also sort of know the “script” for the Miranda warnings because they’ve heard them so many times. And although they know the words, they don’t necessarily seem to know what the words mean or the reason for the words – just that the words are associated with someone being arrested. And for that, we need to take a little trip back to the 1960s – 1966, to be exact, to take a peek at Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436) and look at Chief Justice Warren’s actual written opinion to find out when the warnings are necessary, and why someone would need these warnings.

 The warnings are meant to tell an arrestee that he or she is not required to incriminate him or herself with his or her own statements at or after arrest. Look at the actual words of the warnings. They tell the suspect the following things. 

1. They have the right to remain silent
2. Anything they say will be used against them in court
3. They have the right to have an attorney with them during questioning
4. If they can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed for them during questioning.

The trigger for the need for the warnings isn’t the fact of an arrest alone, but the fact of police seeking to interrogate the suspect after arrest. The warnings are needed only if the person is both in custody and subject to interrogation or its functional equivalent. If police already have all the information they think they need, or if they aren’t looking to interrogate the person, there is no need for these warnings.

And because the warnings have to do with the right to remain silent with respect to post-arrest statements, it doesn’t follow that they would serve, in any way, to invalidate a lawful arrest. If anything, the issue has to do with statements made by the defendant post-arrest but in the absence of warnings (or other issues relative to the warnings themselves).

Now, because lawyers are never satisfied, we’ve been fighting over Miranda issues since the minute the ink was dry on the original opinion in 1966. There are multiple lovely lines of cases about whether someone is in custody, about what “interrogation” actually means, about invocation of the right to counsel, and all sorts of other things. We need not talk about those things right now because (a) it’s taken 60ish years to get to this point and we don’t have time and (b) I have to write a Netflix pitch.

Here’s what happened in this case. Mr. Spencer was home one day and got a visit from the Vermont State Police, who were there to serve him with a Relief From Abuse Order. He invited them in, and when they started telling him why they were there, he became upset. One Trooper believed Mr. Spencer was trying to assault him. The troopers arrested Mr. Spencer, who, in their estimation, resisted. He was charged with resisting arrest.

Mr. Spencer had a trial in the matter. While the jury was deliberating they sent some questions to the court. They asked whether police were required to tell Mr. Spencer he was under arrest, and whether he had been told he was under arrest. They also asked whether Mr. Spencer had been read been read Miranda warnings.

With respect to the first two questions, everyone agreed that a suspect need not be told he’s under arrest, and whether the officers did that or not in this particular case was a factual determination for the jury to consider. With respect to Miranda question, the court said this issue was irrelevant for the jury’s consideration.

While that is true (and which SCOV here agreed was true), Mr. Spencer disagreed and this was also a factual determination for the jury. He rightly pointed out that the court didn’t know the reason the jury wanted to know about the Miranda warnings, and thought it may be relevant to their consideration of the case. The court decided it wasn’t relevant, and told the jurors, “this question is not relevant to the issues for you to decide in this case.” Mr. Spencer didn’t object to this instruction. The jury came back and found Mr. Spencer guilty. He appeals, and SCOV affirms.

And here’s where the interesting argument is. Although the Miranda warnings probably weren’t needed (indeed, there were multiple witnesses to the incident, so it’s not as if police needed to ask Mr. Spencer questions), the fact of arrest and Miranda are very intertwined in the collective knowledge of the general public. Based on the juror’s questions, it’s not a stretch to conclude that they wanted an additional data point to help them determine if Mr. Spencer knew he was being arrested. If he didn’t know, it would have been hard for them to determine whether he had intentionally resisted an arrest he didn’t know was happening.

An arrest happens if there’s some sort of restraint by law enforcement, and if a reasonable person would not feel he or she was free to leave the situation. Certainly, if Miranda warnings are recited as part of a restraint, that can be used as a factor in finding that there was an arrest made. But since the fact of an arrest doesn’t turn on the recitation of the well-known Miranda warnings, the omission of the warnings doesn’t invalidate the arrest.

Here, SCOV decides the matter not on all this Miranda business, but on the fact Mr. Spencer didn’t object to the jury instruction. Since there wasn’t an objection, it was waived, and SCOV reviews only for plain error. SCOV says no plain error, and so, affirms.