State v. Wallace7/22/2004
nt along the spectrum "beyond which on-the-scene [questioning]" becomes "custodial," such that article I, section 10 precludes the prosecution from adducing a defendant's resulting statement at trial unless the question has been preceded by the requisite Miranda warnings. Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 210, 10 P.3d at 731; Patterson, 59 Haw. at 362, 581 P.2d at 755-56. On one side of that point is the situation in which a person subjected to lawful investigative detention, which is brief in duration and during which the officer poses questions that are designed to confirm or dispel the officer's reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot, has not had his or her liberty infringed to such a significant degree as to render the detainee "in custody" for purposes of triggering the prosecution's burden--under article I, section 10 of the Hawai'i Constitution--of establishing that the requisite Miranda warnings were first properly administered as an evidentiary precondition to the admissibility of the detainee's responses to the officer's questions at trial. See Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 212, 10 P.3d at 733; State v. Hoffman, 73 Haw. 41, 54, 828 P.2d 805, 813 (1992); Patterson, 59 Haw. at 362-63, 581 P.2d at 755-56.
....
.... In essence, ... Ah Loo reiterates the basic principle that when an officer lawfully conducting an investigative detention lacks probable cause to arrest the detainee and--so long as his or her questions remain brief and casual and do not become sustained and coercive--has not impliedly accused the detainee of committing a crime, the officer has not significantly infringed upon the detainee's liberty, such that the detainee is "in custody" and has thus been transformed into an "accused" to whom the protection against self-incrimination attaches.
But, under Ah Loo, once a detainee becomes expressly or impliedly accused of having committed a crime--because the totality of the circumstances reflects either that probable cause to arrest the detainee has developed or that the officer's questions have "become sustained and coercive," the officer's investigation having focused upon the detainee and the questions no longer being designed to dispel or confirm *1283 the officer's reasonable suspicion--, then Miranda warnings, as well as a valid waiver [of] the detainee's related constitutional rights, are required before the fruit of further questioning can be introduced in a subsequent criminal proceeding against the detainee. Id. at 212, 10 P.3d at 733.
Id. at 123-24, 34 P.3d at 1022-23 (emphases added).
Discussing "the other side of the 'point along the spectrum,' " the Ketchum court stated:
Accordingly, on the other side of the "point along the spectrum" stands the proposition, equally axiomatic, that a person whom an officer has formally and "physically" arrested is "in custody" for purposes of article I, section 10.... As this court acknowledged in [State v.] Wyatt, "[i]t is well settled that the safeguards prescribed by Miranda become applicable as soon as a suspect's freedom of action is curtailed to a 'degree associated with formal arrest.' " 67 Haw. [293,] 301 n. 6, 687 P.2d [544,] 550 n. 6 [ (1984) ] (quoting Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984) (quoting California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275 (1983) (per curiam))). Simply said, even without sustained and coercive questioning, if the "point of arrest ... has been reached," the prosecution must establish that Miranda warnings, as well as a valid waiver of the defendant's related constitutional rights, preceded any "interrogation" as a precondition to the admissibility at trial of any resulting statement made by the defendant. See Ah Loo, 94 Hawai'i at 210, 10 P.3d at 731 (citation
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