Criminal Procedure — Miranda warnings

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Wisconsin Court of Appeals

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — Miranda warnings

Where a suspect volunteered that he had a gun, the gun recovered from a subsequent search was properly not suppressed.

“Miranda does not require suppression of voluntary statements made by a person in custody unless, as we have seen, those statements are elicited by the functional equivalent of interrogation. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 478 (‘Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence. The fundamental import of the privilege while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel, but whether he can be interrogated.’); Innis, 446 U.S. at 300–301. Significantly, as the trial court recognized, the only question that Robinson asked Douglas was in response to Douglas’s offer to help get marijuana dealers, and that question had nothing to do with guns. Thus, assuming without deciding that any further responses by Douglas in connection with the dealing of marijuana would have to be suppressed if offered at any trial on a marijuana charge to prove, for example, ‘knowledge,’ see WIS. STAT. RULE 904.04(2), Douglas’s change-of-subject offer to get a gun for Robinson was volunteered after what the trial court found was a ‘pause’ and while Robinson was continuing to fill out the required paperwork. This is what starkly distinguishes this case from State v. Martin, 2012 WI 96, 343 Wis. 2d 278, 816 N.W.2d 270, upon which Douglas relies.”

Affirmed.

Recommended for publication in the official reports.

2012AP1275-CR State v. Douglas

Dist. I, Milwaukee County, Dallet, J., Fine, J.

Attorneys: For Appellant: Christenson, Teirney, Milwaukee; For Respondent: Loebel, Karen A., Milwaukee; Remington, Christine A., Madison