CA9: Applying Miranda to interrogations in the home

Interrogations in the home are not per se custodial, but they more likely may be. Here, it was. United States v. Craighead, 539 F.3d 1073 (9th Cir. 2008):

The home occupies a special place in the pantheon of constitutional rights. Under the First Amendment, the “State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.” Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 565 (1969). The Second Amendment prohibits a federal “ban on handgun possession in the home.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. , (2008), slip op. 64. The Third Amendment forbids quartering soldiers “in any house” in time of peace “without the consent of the Owner.” U.S. CONST. amend. III. The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches or seizures in our “persons, houses, papers, and effects.” Id. amend. IV. The question presented in this case is one of first impression in our court: under what circumstances under the Fifth Amendment does an interrogation by law enforcement officers in the suspect’s own home turn the home into such a police-dominated atmosphere that the interrogation becomes custodial in nature and requires Miranda warnings?

. . .

Applying this standard to an interrogation conducted within the home presents some analytical challenges, however, and presents an issue on which our court thus far has said little. The usual inquiry into whether the suspect reasonably believed he could “leave” the interrogation does not quite capture the uniqueness of an interrogation conducted within the suspect’s home. “Home,” said Robert Frost, “is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” Robert Frost, The Death of the Hired Man, in THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST 38 (Edward C. Latham ed., 1967). If a reasonable person is interrogated inside his own home and is told he is “free to leave,” where will he go? The library? The police station? He is already in the most constitutionally protected place on earth. To be “free” to leave is a hollow right if the one place the suspect cannot go is his own home. Cf. Crawford, 372 F.3d at 1060 (holding that an interrogation at an FBI office was not custodial because, inter alia, the defendant was told he was free to leave and “was, in fact, returned home at the end of the interview”). Similarly, a reasonable person interrogated inside his own home may have a different understanding of whether he is truly free “to terminate the interrogation” if his home is crawling with law enforcement agents conducting a warrant-approved search. He may not feel that he can successfully terminate the interrogation if he knows that he cannot empty his home of his interrogators until they have completed their search. We must, therefore, consider how to apply the traditional Miranda inquiry to an in-home interrogation.

An interrogation conducted within the suspect’s home is not per se custodial. See Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341, 342-43, 347 (1976). On the contrary, courts have generally been much less likely to find that an interrogation in the suspect’s home was custodial in nature. United States v. Ritchie, 35 F.3d 1477, 1485 (10th Cir. 1994); 2 WAYNE R. LAFAVE, CRIMINAL PROCEDURE § 6.6(e) (3d ed. 2007). The element of compulsion that concerned the Court in Miranda is less likely to be present where the suspect is in familiar surroundings. See Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 326 (1969). Nevertheless, an interrogation in the suspect’s home may be found to be custodial under certain circumstances. See id. at 325-26 (holding that an interrogation was custodial where four police officers arrived at the suspect’s home, entered the bedroom, and behaved as though the suspect was not free to leave while he was questioned).