A recent Kansas Court of Appeals case provides a good review on roadside custody and interview requirements. In the fall of 2022, Cory Helmstead was a backseat passenger in a car from which the driver had just been arrested for DUI. When interviewed later after a search of the car, Helmstead had provided incriminating statements about his ownership of some THC evidence found near where Helmstead had been sitting. Some of his statements were made before his having been Mirandized, and some statements were made after. Helmstead was charged, lost his suppression motion before the trial court, and was convicted. He appealed arguing that because he had been in “arrest custody” during the entire traffic stop that all of the incriminating statements were illegally obtained.
The facts of the case are not important for this summary as its intent is to simply remind officers about some of the 4th and 5th Amendment law surrounding such an encounter. Here is what the judges had to say to Helmstead:
"[U]nder the Fourth Amendment, a person is protected from unreasonable searches and seizures. But the Fifth Amendment protects a person's privilege against self-incriminating statements.”
“For purposes of a Fourth Amendment analysis, encounters between law enforcement officers and the public are generally classified under one of these categories: (1) consensual encounters; (2) investigatory detentions, also known as Terry stops; (3) public safety stops; and (4) arrests . . . an investigatory detention or Terry stop allows an officer to detain any person in a public place if the officer reasonably suspects that the person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime. Although a person is seized when stopped by an officer and the freedom to walk away is restrained, a person can be seized without actually being under arrest. When a person is temporarily seized under Terry—but not under arrest—that encounter is an investigatory detention.”
"By contrast, under the Fifth Amendment, statements stemming from custodial interrogation must be excluded unless the State shows it used procedural safeguards, i.e., Miranda warnings, to secure the defendant's privilege against self-incrimination . . . 'The Miranda safeguards are triggered only when an accused is (1) in custody and (2) subject to interrogation.”
“A custodial interrogation is defined as questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his or her freedom in any significant way. A custodial interrogation is distinguished from an investigatory interrogation, which occurs as a routine part of the fact-finding process before the investigation reaches the accusatory stage . . . At the heart of the custody analysis, the court must ultimately determine as a matter of law whether, under the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person would have felt free to terminate the interrogation and disengage from the encounter.”
“Roadside questioning during a routine traffic stop does not necessarily constitute a 'custodial interrogation' for Miranda purposes . . . This is because an ordinary traffic stop is quite different from the atmosphere of being interrogated at a law enforcement station, and most people understand that a traffic stop is normally brief and they will be free to leave once the stop is concluded . . . As the Berkemer Court predicted, under this nuanced case-by-case rule, "the police and lower courts will continue occasionally to have difficulty deciding exactly when a suspect has been taken into custody . . . It is possible that an investigatory detention from a routine traffic stop can transform into a custodial interrogation under unusual circumstances . . . But additional factors showing that the person was "'in custody'" for practical purposes must be present to trigger the full panoply of protections under Miranda.”
“For instance, our Supreme Cout held that a person taken from a car at gunpoint, placed on the ground, and handcuffed was in custody for Miranda purposes. Yet as the record shows, that was not the case here.”
“Our Supreme Court established eight factors to consider when determining whether an interrogation is investigative or custodial in nature: (1) the place and time of the interrogation; (2) the duration of the interrogation; (3) the number of law enforcement officers present; (4) the conduct of the officer or officers and the person being questioned; (5) the presence or absence of actual physical restraint or its functional equivalent, such as drawn firearms or a stationed guard; (6) whether the person is being questioned as a suspect or a witness; (7) whether police escorted the person being questioned to the interrogation location or the person arrived under the person's own power; and (8) the result of the interrogation, for instance, whether the person was allowed to leave, was detained further, or was arrested after the interrogation. No one factor outweighs another, and the factors do not bear equal weight. A court must analyze every situation on its own particular facts.”
After analyzing the above factors in Helmstead’s event, the appellate panel agreed with the trial court that Helmstead’s pre-Miranda and post-Miranda statements were legally obtained.
~ Colin
