07-3641, 08-1361, 08-3888 & 09-3484 U.S. v. Vallar

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Criminal Procedure
Miranda warnings

It does not violate the right against self-incrimination to play audiotapes implicating a suspect in a conspiracy prior to reading him his Miranda warnings.

“Vallar argues that the agents should have known that playing the recordings was ‘reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response,’ and, thus, that it constituted an impermissible interrogation because Vallar had not received Miranda warnings before the tapes were played. See Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 301 (1980); see also Enoch v. Gramley, 70 F.3d 1490, 1500 (7th Cir. 1995) (‘We have stated that, under Innis, the issue is whether a reasonable objective observer would believe that the encounter was reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect and therefore constituted the functional equivalent of interrogation.’ (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). See generally Easley v. Frey, 433 F.3d 969, 973-74 (7th Cir. 2006). Vallar’s argument is unavailing. Merely apprising Vallar of the evidence against him by playing tapes implicating him in the conspiracy did not constitute interrogation. See Easley, 433 F.3d at 973-74 (7th Cir. 2006) (holding that an officer’s statement informing the defendant of the evidence against him and the possible consequences of the charges the defendant faced did not constitute interrogation, ‘even if its weight might move a suspect to speak’); United States v. Sutton, 77 Fed.Appx 892, 895 (7th Cir. 2003) (‘[M]erely reciting the evidence supporting an arrest is not the functional equivalent of an interrogation.’); Enoch, 70 F.3d at 1500 (holding that where ‘the police identif[ied] the victim to the suspect and briefly stat[ed] the evidence against him, followed by the suspect’s allegedly incriminating statements’ did not constitute interrogation because ‘[b]riefly reciting to a suspect in custody the basis for holding him, without more, cannot be the functional equivalent of interrogation’). But more critical to our analysis is the fact that Vallar made no statement in response to the tapes before he received and waived his Miranda rights. See United States v. Peterson, 414 F.3d 825, 827-28 (7th Cir. 2005) (writing that the problem with the defendant’s argument that his confession violated Miranda, where agents laid out the evidence against him, administered Miranda warnings, obtained a waiver, and secured a confession, was that none of the defendant’s statements preceded the warnings).”

Affirmed.

07-3641, 08-1361, 08-3888 & 09-3484 U.S. v. Vallar

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Darrah, J., Flaum, J.

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