Miranda on Your Motor Vehicle Stops V

Street Cop Podcast

Street Cop Training

Education

4.9 • 967 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2021

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

In this archive episode, Dennis clarifies Miranda situations as a follow-up to the previous episode. Recorded on 05/20/2018. State v Hickmann - A traffic stop is presumptively temporary and brief and thus questioning incident to an ordinary traffic stop is quite different from stationhouse interrogation. Miranda warnings may be needed, however, if the totality of the circumstances surrounding the stop "impose a restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest." The question posed in this case by the officer was “You look really nervous, do you have something on you that you should surrender right now? Any contraband, weapons, anything like that?’ Defendant admitted to it and handed over a bag of cocaine from his shoe. When the police lawfully conduct a motor vehicle stop they may question the occupants, even on a subject unrelated to the purpose of the stop, without violating the Fourth Amendment, so long as such questioning does not extend the duration of the stop. Roadside questioning of a motorist is not transformed into “custodial interrogation” that must be preceded by Miranda warnings simply because a police officer's questioning is accusatory in nature or designed to elicit incriminating evidence. According to the court the brief questioning of the defendant after the lawful motor vehicle stop of the car in which he was the passenger was perfectly valid. In Berkemer, the Court held that a police officer was not required to give Miranda warnings to a suspected drunk driver before asking him whether “he had been using intoxicants.” Similarly, in State v. Toro, 229 N.J.Super. 215, 551 A.2d 170 (App.Div.1988), we held that police officers who observed a package at the foot of a driver stopped for a motor vehicle offense, which they suspected was a container for drugs, could ask what was in the package without giving Miranda warnings. Although the police officers in Toro ordered the driver out of the car and frisked him for weapons before questioning him, we concluded that the questioning was not “custodial”:

Transcript

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0:00.0	One 11th, everybody
0:02.0	One day
0:03.0	You're trying to be a street cop
0:10.0	All right, happy Saturday, everybody.
0:13.0	Look, we have stuff on the wall here.
0:15.0	Live video street cop training headquarters here in Alabama, New Jersey.
0:19.0	I am sitting here reading case law. I had to go to a kid's birthday party today. No street cop t-shirt on my wife would not allow me wear a street cop t-shirt to my son's friend's birthday party. Thanks. But anyway, I want to take some time. I'm reading case law here today. I try to get 30 pages done a day. It sparked something that I think it's important for everybody to know. this applies to everybody across the country. This is not just a New Jersey thing. And I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as possible. When you don't know what you're talking about as a police officer and you're going through procedures that you think are correct, but they're in the correct, incorrect in the eyes of the law because you haven't educated yourself in what you can and can't do. And underwit, what circumstances is somebody arrested, you can screw things up. A lot of stuff that makes case law negatively for police, but it's never negatively because now we know what we can and can't do, and we just got to do what we're supposed to do in those circumstances. So there's really never any negative case law. I'd say to see people's cases get lost because of
1:15.4	misunderstanding or lack there of education regarding this stuff. Case law is probably the most
1:20.5	important subject that we have in law force. And obviously tactics and all that other stuff
1:26.5	comes to play. But it's extremely important that you guys understand the concepts of this. And that's why in law force. Obviously, tactics and all that other stuff comes into play. But it's extremely important.
1:28.9	You guys understand the concepts of this.
1:30.5	And that's why I have this whole, whole company in these courses that we do to try to
1:35.9	help you better understand how to apply these things.
1:39.2	So let me give you, so you don't lose cases in court so you know what you're doing.
1:43.8	And although there
1:44.4	might be some antagonistic positions on well that doesn't sound correct well you just got to read it
1:49.6	there's nothing to debate it's correct so let me just um let me emphasize a few things one
1:55.4	there's always a junction and it's some kind of incident whether it's a motor vehicle stop
2:00.1	or responding to a scene or investigation where if if you're arresting somebody, there's a nexus that happens between when the police were allowed to arrest the person or technically the person was under arrest and when the police officer actually thought that the person was under arrest. There may be times in your career where you are under the impression that you may not
2:19.3	have had enough at this junction, but you did. And technically, because you did, but you didn't
2:23.9	know it, that person's under arrest. So any questioning that you're giving to somebody
2:28.9	designed to elicit in a criminalist statement is going to inherently be suppressed. Let me
	...

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