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State v. Garbutt12/29/2001
ic stop, finding the fact that the defendant was questioned in the customs office, and not the roadside, was not a material distinction under the circumstances. Id. The defendant was not under arrest, he was detained in a public area of the customs office without restraints, and the police were not overbearing in their questioning. The detention lasted more than an hour, but the court noted that it took the state police that long to get to the inspection station and that border inspectors, who do not investigate DUI cases, did not interrogate defendant during that period. Id. at 709-10.
In the cases before us, none of the defendants were under arrest before they were questioned. They were all detained in public areas of customs offices. There are no findings that any of the defendants were restrained in any way. Unlike the defendant in Estrada-Lucas, Garbutt was allowed to make several telephone calls; she was free to leave the secondary inspection office and go outside the office to smoke cigarettes; she even made a telephone call after she was questioned by the state police officer. Furthermore, there are no findings that the police officers in these cases were overbearing toward defendants.
Also unlike Estrada-Lucas, the border officials were not responsible for determining whether probable cause existed with respect to the state crime and did not propose to do so. Once the state police officers arrived, the questioning mirrored what would have occurred at the roadside. Again, unlike Estrada-Lucas, defendants here did not have evidence of their guilt laid out next to them while they were being questioned. Waite and DeMarchena were detained for less than an hour, while Garbutt was detained for seventy-five minutes. Garbutt's detention, although longer than the average roadside stop, was similar to that in Forster and is similarly explained by the time necessary for the state police officer to reach the border station.
We follow the holding of Forster. Under that holding, defendants were not in custody while in the border station, and, therefore, were not entitled to Miranda warnings at that time. The motions to suppress were properly denied.
Affirmed.
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