Hughes v. State6/17/1997
e and Propst to uphold question about name), rev'd on other grounds, 290 Md. 236, 429 A.2d 228 (1981); Ferrell v. State, 73 Md. App. 627, 640, 536 A.2d 99, 105 (1988)(relying on Grimes and stating that "routine questions seeking a person's name and address are not proscribed by Miranda...."), rev'd on other grounds, 318 Md. 235, 567 A.2d 937 (1990).
The Supreme Court's decision in 1980 in Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 100 S. Ct. 1682, 64 L. Ed. 2d 297 (1980), however, prompted a subtle change in the application of the booking question exception. In Innis, the Supreme Court held that "interrogation" for purposes of Miranda is "any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect." Innis, 446 U.S. at 301, 100 S. Ct. at 1689-90, 64 L. Ed. 2d at 308 (emphasis added)(footnote omitted). The notion that a question "normally attendant to arrest and custody" may also be "reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response" appears not to have been contemplated by the Innis Court. Lower courts, nevertheless, have interpreted Innis to mean that the routine booking question exception does not apply if a police officer knows, or should know, that a routine booking question, although innocuous on its face, is reasonably likely to evoke an incriminating answer. See, e.g., Disla, 805 F.2d at 1347 (stating that the "officer ... should have known that the question regarding [the suspect's] residence was reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response" and "in light of both the context of the questioning and the content of the question ... Disla was subjected to interrogation"); United States v. Mata-Abundiz, 717 F.2d 1277, 1280 (9th Cir. 1983)(stating that "if ... the questions are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response in a particular situation, the exception does not apply"). Under this standard, courts have held that Miranda warnings should have preceded questions concerning such topics as an arrestee's citizenship, see Mata-Abundiz, 717 F.2d at 1280 and Doe, 878 F.2d at 1551; residence, see Disla, 805 F.2d at 1347 (but failure to suppress held to be harmless error); and name, see U.S. v. Parra, 2 F.3d 1058, 1068 (10th Cir.)(but failure to suppress held to be harmless error), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1026, 114 S. Ct. 639, 126 L. Ed. 2d 597 (1993). But see U.S. v. Broadus, 7 F.3d 460, 464 (6th Cir. 1993)(no indication that police should have known that routine question about telephone number was likely to elicit incriminating information); People v. Rodney, 85 N.Y.2d 289, 648 N.E.2d 471, 474, 624 N.Y.S.2d 95 (N.Y. 1995)(question about occupation not reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response).
C.
Interestingly, the Muniz plurality did not acknowledge, in its discussion of the routine booking question exception, the limitation derived from Innis that lower courts had adopted. The standard set forth by the plurality, rather, was that questions asked during booking that are aimed at gathering biographical information for record-keeping purposes are exempt from Miranda; the express limitation on this rule is that the police may not ask questions, under the guise of routine booking questions, that are "designed to elicit incriminating admissions." The Innis-based formulation, in contrast, recognizes an exemption for routine booking questions, but prohibits police from posing, absent Miranda warnings, any questions that the police know or should know are "reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response." The difference between the two standards is that the former limits the scope of the booking question excep
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