On Monday, the Fifth Circuit decided an interesting Miranda case, allowing admission of a suspect's unwarned statements. And Judge Jones provided an even more interesting concurring opinion, suggesting that voluntary statements should be admitted in situations where it was debatable whether the Miranda rules were applicable. Judge Jones makes a compelling cost-benefit argument against suppressing statements in such circumstances, and I hope that her approach in followed in future cases.
Here are the facts, as recounted in the decision: A lone police officer performed a traffic stop on Braylon Coulter in the middle of the night. Having been given reason to suspect that Coulter, who revealed an aggravated robbery conviction, had a gun, the officer handcuffed him and asked where it was. Coulter answered, and the officer's partner arrived later to find a .40 caliber pistol and .37 ounces of marijuana in Coulter's backpack between the front seats of the van he drove. Before Coulter divulged that information, the officer did not provide Miranda warnings. The admissibility of Coulter's unwarned statements therefore depended on whether he was "in custody" as contemplated by Miranda at the time he offered them.
The Fifth Circuit held that a reasonable person in Coulter's position would not have thought that he was in custody for Miranda purposes. Moreover, the officer questioned Coulter in an environment that was not tantamount to a station house interrogation as contemplated by Miranda. As a result, the Fifth Circuit (in a 2-1 decision authored by Judge Jones) held that all of Coulter's unwarned statements were admissible.
