Age, experience irrelevant to custody

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“The custody inquiry states an objective rule designed to give clear guidance to the police, while consideration of a suspect’s individual characteristics — including his age — could be viewed as creating a subjective inquiry.” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy U.S. Supreme Court

A juvenile suspect’s age and experience with law enforcement are irrelevant to the determination of whether he is in custody for Miranda purposes, the U.S. Supreme Court held on June 1.

Paul Soto and Michael Alvarado attempted to steal a truck in the parking lot of a shopping mall in California. Soto decided to steal the truck, and Alvarado agreed to help.

Soto pulled out a .357 Magnum and approached the driver, Francisco Castaneda, who was standing near the truck emptying trash into a dumpster. Soto demanded money and the ignition keys from Castaneda. Alvarado, then five months short of his 18th birthday, approached the passenger side door of the truck and crouched down. When Castaneda refused to comply with Soto’s demands, Soto shot Castaneda, killing him. Alvarado then helped hide Soto’s gun.

Detective Cheryl Comstock led the investigation into the circumstances of Castaneda’s death. About a month after the shooting, Comstock left word at Alvarado’s house and also contacted Alvarado’s mother at work with the message that she wished to speak with Alvarado.

Alvarado’s parents brought him to the sheriff’s station to be interviewed. They waited in the lobby while Alvarado went with Comstock to be interviewed. Alvarado contends that his parents asked to be present during the interview, but were rebuffed.

The interview lasted about two hours in a small interview room, and was recorded by Comstock, with Alvarado’s knowledge. Only Comstock and Alvarado were present. Alvarado was not given Miranda warnings.

Toward the end of the interview, Comstock twice asked Alvarado if he needed to take a break. Alvarado declined. When the interview was over, Comstock returned with Alvarado to the lobby of the sheriff’s station where his parents were waiting. Alvarado’s father drove him home.

During the interview, Alvarado admitted that he was present at the carjacking, that he knew Soto was armed, and that he helped hide the gun after the murder.

Alvarado said that he had expected Soto to scare the driver with the gun, but did not expect Soto to kill him.

Eventually, the State of California charged Soto and Alvarado with first-degree murder and attempted robbery. Alvarado moved to suppress his statements from the interview. The trial court denied the motion, and the jury found him guilty.

The trial judge reduced his conviction to second-degree murder for his comparatively minor role in the offense, and sentenced him to 15 years to life. The California appellate courts affirmed his convictions.

Alvarado petitioned for habeas corpus in federal court, but the district court denied the petition. The Ninth Circuit reversed. Alvarado v. Hickman, 316 F.3d 841 (2002).

The Ninth Circuit held that the state courts erred in failing to account for Alvarado’s youth and inexperience when evaluating whether a reasonable person in his position would have felt free to leave, and that the effect of Alvarado’s age and inexperience was so substantial that it turned the interview into a custodial interrogation.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted the state’s petition for review, and reversed the Ninth Circuit, in a decision written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, and joined by three other justices. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote a concurring opinion, and Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote a dissent, joined by three other justices.

“Common sense, and an understanding of the law’s basic purpose in this area, are enough to make clear that Alvarado’s age — an objective, widely shared characteristic about which the police plainly knew — is also relevant to the inquiry.” Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in dissent

Standard of Review

The lead opinion concluded that the California appellate courts did not unreasonably apply clearly established law in upholding the denial of Alvarado’s suppression motion.

The court stated, “Ignoring the deferential standard of [28 U.S.C. 2254(d)(1)] for the moment, it can be said that fair-minded jurists could disagree over whether Alvarado was in custody. On one hand, certain facts weigh against a finding that Alvarado was in custody. The police did not transport Alvarado to the station or require him to appear at a particular time. They did not threaten him or suggest he would be placed under arrest. Alvarado’s parents remained in the lobby during the interview, suggesting that the interview would be brief. In fact, according to trial counsel for Alvarado, he and his parents were told that the interview was ‘not going to be long.’ During the interview, Comstock focused on Soto’s crimes rather than Alvarado’s. Instead of pressuring Alvarado with the threat of arrest and prosecution, she appealed to his interest in telling the truth and being helpful to a police officer. In addition, Comstock twice asked Alvarado if he wanted to take a break. At the end of the interview, Alvarado went home. All of these objective facts are consistent with an interrogation environment in which a reasonable person would have felt free to terminate the interview and leave (cites
omitted).”

The court acknowledged that other facts suggest Alvarado was in custody: the interview occurred at the police station; it actually lasted two hours; Comstock never told Alvarado that he was free to leave; Alvarado was brought to the police station by his parents rather than arriving on his own accord; and according to Alvarado, his parents asked to be present at the interview but were rebuffed.

Nevertheless, the court concluded that these competing indicia of custodial status only mean that the state court’s application of the custody standard was reasonable.

The court stated, “The Court of Appeals was nowhere close to the mark when it concluded otherwise. Although the question of what an ‘unreasonable application’ of law might be difficult in some cases, it is not difficult here.”

The court added, “The custody test is general, and the state court’s application of our law fits within the matrix of our prior decisions. We cannot grant relief under AEDPA by conducting our own independent inquiry into whether the state court was correct as a de novo matter. Relief is available under sec. 2254(d)(1) only if the state court’s decision is objectively unreasonable. Under that standard, relief cannot be granted.”

Age and Experience

The court then held that the Ninth Circuit erred in placing emphasis on Alvarado’s age and inexperience with law enforcement.

The court noted, “Our Court has not stated that a suspect’s age or experience is relevant to the Miranda custody analysis.”

The court acknowledged that “the difference between applying a rule and extending it is not always clear.” Nevertheless, the court found that this was not such a case, stating, “[o]ur opinions applying the Miranda custody test have not mentioned the suspect’s age, much less mandated its consideration.”

The court emphasized the need for an objective test, as viewed from the officer’s perspective, distinguishing the test for voluntariness of the statement, which properly considers “the characteristics of the accused.”

The court stated, “In concluding that there was ‘no principled reason’ why such factors should not also apply to the Miranda custody inquiry, the Court of Appeals ignored the argument that the custody inquiry states an objective rule designed to give clear guidance to the police, while consideration of a suspect’s individual characteristics — including his age — could be viewed as creating a subjective inquiry.”

The court cited Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492 (1977) for the proposition that facts relevant to whether an environment is coercive may have “nothing to do with whether respondent was in custody for purposes of the Miranda rule.”

The court concluded, “For these reasons, the state court’s failure to consider Alvarado’s age does not provide a proper basis for finding that the state court’s decision was an unreasonable application of clearly established law.”

The court added that reliance on Alvarado’s prior history with law enforcement was “improper not only under the deferential standard of 28 U.S.C. sec. 2254(d)(1), but also as a de novo matter.”

Although acknowledging that suspects with prior law enforcement experience may understand police procedures better, the court stated, “We do not ask police officers to consider these contingent psychological factors when deciding when suspects should be advised of their Miranda rights.”

Accordingly, the court held that the state courts reached a proper conclusion, and reversed the Ninth Circuit.

The Concurrence

Justice O’Connor wrote separately, stating, “There may be cases in which a suspect’s age will be relevant to the Miranda ‘custody’ inquiry.”

Because Alvarado was almost 18 years of age at the time, however, O’Connor agreed that the state courts were not unreasonable in failing to account for the fact that he was legally a minor.

The Dissent

Justice Breyer penned a dissent for four members of the court, finding that Alvarado clearly was in custody when the police questioned him.

The dissent asked, “What reasonable person in the circumstances — brought to a police station by his parents at police request, put in a small interrogation room, questioned for a solid two hours, and confronted with claims that there is strong evidence that he participated in a serious crime, could have thought to himself, ‘Well, anytime I want to leave I can just get up and walk out’? If the person harbored any doubts, would he still think he might be free to leave once he recalls that the police officer has just refused to let his parents remain with him during questioning? Would he still think that he, rather than the officer, controls the situation?”

The dissent answered, “There is only one possible answer to these questions. A reasonable person would not have thought he was free simply to pick up and leave in the middle of the interrogation. I believe the California courts were clea
rly wrong to hold the contrary, and the Ninth Circuit was right in concluding that those state courts unreasonably applied clearly established federal law.”

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Addressing Alvarado’s youth, the dissent concluded that it is relevant, stating, “the ‘reasonable person’ standard does not require a court to pretend that Alvarado was a 35-year-old with aging parents whose middle-aged children do what their parents ask only out of respect. Nor does it say that a court should pretend that Alvarado was the statistically determined ‘average person’— a working, married, 35-year-old white female with a high school degree.”

The dissent argued, “In this case, Alvarado’s youth is an objective circumstance that was known to the police. It is not a special quality, but rather a widely shared characteristic that generates commonsense conclusions about behavior and perception. To focus on the circumstance of age in a case like this does not complicate the ‘in custody’ inquiry. And to say that courts should ignore widely shared, objective characteristics, like age, on the ground that only a (large) minority of the population possesses them would produce absurd results, the present instance being a case in point.”

The dissent concluded, “Common sense, and an understanding of the law’s basic purpose in this area, are enough to make clear that Alvarado’s age — an objective, widely shared characteristic about which the police plainly knew — is also relevant to the inquiry. Unless one is prepared to pretend that Alvarado is someone he is not, a middle-aged gentleman, well-versed in police practices, it seems to me clear that the California courts made a serious mistake. I agree with the Ninth Circuit’s similar conclusions (cite omitted).”

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David Ziemer can be reached by email.