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Hughes v. State6/17/1997
terrogation for purposes of Miranda where the police officer knew that drugs earlier had been found at a particular address and where the inquiry was made at the scene of the arrest, not in a routine booking setting. The court explained:
"The facts here indicate that officer Zamora should have known that the question regarding Disla's residence was reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. Zamora knew that a large quantity of cocaine and cash had been found at the Anita Street apartment and that the resident(s) of the apartment had not been identified. After the cocaine and cash were discovered, Zamora asked neighbors for a description of the persons who lived at the apartment and observed Disla and his brother approach the apartment building. * The question as to where Disla lived was related to an element (possession) of the crime that Zamora had reason to suspect Disla committed."
Disla, 805 F.2d at 1347.
In United States v. Doe, supra, the court reached a similar conclusion with regard to a query as to the appellants' citizenship. After being rescued by the Coast Guard from a burning ship, the appellants in Doe were handcuffed and chained to the deck of the Coast Guard vessel. Doe, 878 F.2d at 1550. A Coast Guard officer then asked each appellant his or her name and citizenship; each individual responded that he or she was an American citizen. Id. Although a question about citizenship may be a permissible booking question in some contexts, the circumstances in that case were such that the exception did not apply. The appellants were convicted under a statute that "makes it a crime 'for a citizen of the United States on board any vessel' to possess drugs with intent to distribute them." Id. (quoting 21 U.S.C. § 955a(b)(1980)(emphasis in Doe)). The court thus concluded:
"Questions about citizenship, asked on the high seas, of a person present on a foreign vessel with drugs aboard, would (in our view) seem 'reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response.'" United States v. Mata-Abundiz, [717 F.2d 1277 (9th Cir. 1983)]. When, or whether, the United States can prosecute a person found on such a ship is not immediately obvious; and the possibility that prosecution will turn upon citizenship is great enough ... that Coast Guard officers ought to know that answers to such questions may incriminate." (Emphasis in original).
Doe, 878 F.2d 1546, 1551-52. The location of the questioning, along with the nature of the crime of which the arrestee is suspected, therefore, has some bearing on whether a particular question constitutes interrogation, for which Miranda warnings are a prerequisite.
IV.
Applying the above principles to the instant case, we conclude that the question as to the petitioner's "narcotics or drug use" does not fall within the routine booking question exception to Miranda. The State argues that the question qualifies as a routine booking question because it is contained on a standard booking form; it is asked of every arrestee, regardless of the charge; and it is asked for reasons "wholly apart from investigating crime."
The State's argument is flawed in several respects. First, the mere fact that a question is asked during booking does not mean that it necessarily falls within the booking question exception. The police may not use the booking process as a pretext for gathering incriminating information. Muniz, 496 U.S. at 602 n.14, 110 S. Ct. at 2650 n.14, 110 L. Ed. 2d at 552 n.14; see United States v. Hinckley, 217 U.S. App. D.C. 262, 672 F.2d 115, 125 (D.C. Cir. 1982)("Thus, where the mental state of an arrestee looms as a likely issue, we can only conclude that a systematic, 2
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