United States v. Revels

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit

December 20, 2007
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
PUBLISH Clerk of Court

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

TENTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellant,
No. 06-5223
v.

SHEQUITA REVELS,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Oklahoma
(D.C. No. 06-CR-159-HDC-2)

Richard A. Friedman, Appellate Section, Criminal Division, United States
Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (David E. O’Meilia, United States
Attorney; Janet S. Reincke, Assistant United States Attorney, Tulsa, Oklahoma,
with him on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellant.

J. Lance Hopkins, CJA Panel Member, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, for Defendant-
Appellee.

Before LUCERO, BALDOCK, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.

LUCERO, Circuit Judge.

In this interlocutory appeal, the United States seeks review of a district

court’s pretrial order suppressing several incriminating statements made by
Shequita Revels as having been obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384

U.S. 436 (1966). The sole issue before us is whether Revels was “in custody” at

the time she made the statements at issue. Because we conclude that a reasonable

person in Revels’ position would have considered her freedom of movement to be

restricted to a degree consistent with formal arrest, we hold that Revels was in

custody for Fifth Amendment purposes and that she should have been advised of

her Miranda rights. Exercising jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3731, we take the

district court’s view of the matter and AFFIRM its decision to suppress the

incriminating statements.

I

A

Based on information provided by a confidential informant, officers from

the Tulsa, Oklahoma Police Department (“TPD”) and the Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”) obtained a warrant to search a

residence belonging to Marco Dewon Murphy and his girlfriend, Shequita Revels.

The informant indicated that Murphy possessed a large amount of cocaine and

that he was selling the drug from the joint residence. 1 On August 2, 2006, at

approximately 6:00 a.m., seven officers from TPD and ATF gathered to execute

the search warrant at the couple’s home. When no one answered the door after

1
Murphy was the only individual identified as a target in the search
warrant.

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officers knocked and announced their presence, the police forcibly entered the

residence. Once inside, the officers encountered Murphy and Revels, whom they

immediately handcuffed and placed face down on the floor in the hall near the

main living room. The officers then found a young girl and a small infant in

separate bedrooms in the house. As soon as the officers had located all of the

occupants of the home and otherwise secured the scene, they began their search

for contraband.

Having been roused from her bedroom in the early hours of the morning,

Revels was dressed only in her underwear when officers first detained her. After

approximately ten minutes of searching the home, however, the police removed

Revels’ handcuffs and escorted her to a rear bedroom where they permitted her to

dress. They also allowed Revels to care temporarily for her infant, who required

feeding through a tube inserted into his stomach. Once Revels had dressed

herself and cared for the child, an officer escorted her back to the living room,

where she remained with Murphy and the two children for a short time while the

officers continued their search of the residence. Revels was not again placed in

handcuffs at this point in time.

During the course of the search, officers seized several items of potential

evidence. They found 251 grams of cocaine powder and $6,014 in cash in an

open safe located in one of the rooms. They also discovered approximately 45

grams of crack cocaine hidden in a coffee can with a false bottom, as well as

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paraphernalia used in manufacturing crack cocaine. Finally, officers found a

loaded semiautomatic handgun “lying on the headboard” of the bed that Revels

and Murphy shared.

After approximately 30 minutes, the officers had substantially completed

their search efforts and uncovered all of the material evidence. At that time, the

officers decided to separate the two adults in order to interview each. According

to ATF Special Agent McFadden, the police intended to interview Revels and

Murphy to determine whether they “would be willing to cooperate with the

investigation.” Revels was interviewed first. Agent McFadden and TPD

Detectives Hickey and Henderson escorted her to a bedroom in the rear of the

home, and closed the door behind them. Murphy and the two children remained

in the main living room under the supervision of the other officers. Revels was

free from handcuffs at this time, and had not been told by any of the officers

whether she was under arrest. Each of three officers who took Revels to the back

bedroom was armed, but none had a weapon drawn. Inside the bedroom, there

were no chairs or other places to sit; Revels and the officers stood during the ten

to twelve minutes of questioning.

Revels’ questioning began with Agent McFadden’s explanation that the

police were executing a state search warrant at the residence and that, during their

search, they had discovered narcotics and a loaded firearm. Agent McFadden

then asked Revels whether she “would be willing to cooperate” with their

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investigation. Revels answered the agent’s question with several incriminating

statements. She stated that she knew Murphy was selling drugs from the

residence and that Murphy had recently obtained the handgun to protect her and

the children from the threat of robbery. 2 After Revels offered these initial

responses to the officer’s question, Agent McFadden and Detective Henderson

left the rear bedroom for a short time; both Revels and Detective Hickey remained

behind. Detective Henderson then returned to the room a few moments later,

conspicuously carrying a bag of cocaine that had been seized during the officers’

search of the residence. According to Detective Henderson, Revels responded to

this action by making another incriminating statement. She stated: “Oh, my god

I didn’t know he had that much.” 3 Indisputably, the officers did not advise Revels

of her Miranda rights at any time before or during this questioning.

Once the officers had completed their interview with Revels, they escorted

her back to the main living room and took Murphy to the bedroom for a similar

interview. Around that same time, a family member arrived and was asked to

care for the two young children. The officers then told Revels that she was under

arrest, handcuffed her, and transported her, along with Murphy, to the police

2
For purposes of this appeal, the government agrees that Revels’ response
to Agent McFadden’s question consisted of incriminating statements.
3
The government also admits that Revels’ response to Detective
Henderson’s action with the bag of cocaine constituted an incriminating
statement.

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station. Only upon arriving at the station was Revels advised of her rights under

Miranda, which prompted her to immediately request legal counsel.

B

On September 7, 2006, a federal grand jury indicted Revels on three counts:

(1) possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of crack cocaine in

violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) & (b)(1)(B)(iii); (2) possession of cocaine with

intent to manufacture crack cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) &

(b)(1)(C); and (3) possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking

crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). Revels entered a plea of not

guilty to all charges.

Prior to her scheduled trial, Revels filed a motion to suppress the

incriminating statements that she made while officers interviewed her in the rear

bedroom of her home on the day of her arrest. She argued that the government

had obtained the statements in violation of her Fifth Amendment right against

self-incrimination, as articulated by the Supreme Court in Miranda. Specifically,

Revels contended that because she had been subjected to a custodial interrogation

and had not been advised of her rights under Miranda prior to the interview, the

statements she made were not voluntary within the meaning of the Fifth

Amendment. See 384 U.S. at 444-45. The government responded to the motion

by asserting that Revels was not in custody at the time of the interview and that

she had not been interrogated by the officers.

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 At the suppression hearing, the district court received testimony from both

Agent McFadden and Detective Henderson. Finding that the search had been

completed and the incriminating evidence uncovered before the officers escorted

Revels to the rear bedroom for an interview, the court concluded that Revels was

subjected to a custodial interrogation for purposes of the Fifth Amendment. It

ordered that because the officers had not advised Revels of her rights under

Miranda, her incriminating statements would be suppressed and could not be

admitted at trial.

In seeking reconsideration, the government argued that Revels was subject

only to an “investigative detention” at the time of her interview, and that she was

therefore not “in custody” for Fifth Amendment purposes. The district court

denied the government’s motion for reconsideration, and the government

subsequently brought this timely interlocutory appeal under 18 U.S.C. § 3731.

II

“It is well established that ‘police officers are not required to administer

Miranda warnings to everyone whom they question.’” United States v. Erving L.,

147 F.3d 1240, 1246 (10th Cir. 1998) (quoting Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S.

492, 495 (1977)). Rather, as the Supreme Court held in Miranda, police officers

must so advise individuals only when they are subject to a “custodial

interrogation.” 384 U.S. at 444-45. Miranda thus established a two-part analysis

for determining when the prescribed procedural safeguards must be provided: (1)

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the individual must be in custody, and (2) the individual must be subjected to

questioning that meets the legal definition of interrogation. United States v.

Perdue, 8 F.3d 1455, 1463 (10th Cir. 1993). Because the government concedes on

appeal that the police “interrogated” Revels when they questioned her in the rear

bedroom, we need only determine whether Revels was “in custody” when she

made the incriminating statements at issue.

A suspect is in custody for purposes of Miranda if the suspect has been

“deprived of [her] freedom of action in any significant way.” 384 U.S. at 444.

Such a deprivation occurs when the “suspect’s freedom of action is curtailed to a

‘degree associated with formal arrest.’” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440

(1984) (quoting California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125 (1983) (per curiam)).

Our analysis of the circumstances is an objective one; we ask whether

“a reasonable [person] in the suspect’s position would have understood [her]

situation . . . as the functional equivalent of formal arrest.” Id. at 442. We

review de novo the district court’s determination that an individual is in custody,

but we give deference to the district court’s findings of fact and to its credibility

determinations. United States v. Rogers, 391 F.3d 1165, 1169 (10th Cir. 2004);

see also Erving L., 147 F.3d at 1246.

A

Before applying a reasonable person inquiry to the facts, we first address

the government’s primary argument against suppression. According to the

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government, the officers held Revels under a permissible “investigative

detention” when they questioned her in the rear bedroom, and therefore did not

have a duty to advise Revels of her Miranda rights prior to their interrogation. By

characterizing Revels’ detention in Fourth Amendment terms (i.e., “investigative

detention”), the government asks us to conflate Miranda’s traditional “in custody”

inquiry with the analysis we use to determine whether the “seizure” of a criminal

suspect is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. As a matter of precedent,

however, both the Supreme Court, in Berkemer, and this court, in United States v.

Perdue, have definitively foreclosed any attempt to equate the two analytically

distinct inquiries. See Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 435-42; Perdue, 8 F.3d at 1461-66.

In Berkemer, the Supreme Court held that motorists subjected to garden-

variety traffic stops—reasonable seizures within the meaning of the Fourth

Amendment—are not entitled to Miranda warnings. Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 440.

In reaching this determination, the Court applied the standard Miranda inquiry,

concluding that “the atmosphere surrounding an ordinary traffic stop is

substantially less ‘police-dominated’ than that surrounding the kinds of

interrogation at issue in Miranda itself . . . .” Id. at 438-39. It acknowledged that

when compared to formal interrogations, ordinary traffic stops are “comparatively

nonthreatening” and “noncoercive” in character. Id. at 440. The Court also

recognized, however, that when a given traffic stop becomes more coercive than a

routine traffic stop, police may well be required to advise a suspect of his

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Miranda rights even though the underlying seizure of the individual might qualify

as a reasonable investigative detention under the Fourth Amendment. See id. (“If

a motorist who has been detained pursuant to a traffic stop thereafter is subjected

to treatment that renders him ‘in custody’ for practical purposes, he will be

entitled to the full panoply of protections prescribed by Miranda.”). In drawing a

distinction between an ordinary traffic stop and those detentions where coercion

is present, the Supreme Court implicitly, if not explicitly, appreciated a critical

fact: Although some detentions not rising to the level of a formal arrest may be

reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, those same detentions

may nonetheless create the custodial situation in which Miranda was designed to

operate.

In Perdue, we faced the precise scenario contemplated by the Supreme

Court in Berkemer and unequivocally recognized the analytical distinction

between the Fourth Amendment reasonableness analysis and Miranda’s in custody

inquiry. We inquired in Perdue whether several incriminating statements made by

a criminal defendant had been admitted in violation of either the defendant’s

Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights. 8 F.3d at 1464. While executing a search

warrant in a remote area, officers observed a vehicle approach the rural property

where the search was being conducted and then immediately reverse direction

upon spotting the police. Id. at 1458. Aware that the search had uncovered

weapons, two of the officers present stopped the vehicle and ordered the

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occupants, at gunpoint, to exit and lie face down on the ground. Id. With their

guns drawn and the driver lying prone on the road, one of the officers began to

question the driver, Perdue, who responded to the officer’s inquiries by making

several incriminating statements. Id. at 1459.

We held on appeal that the officers’ detention of Perdue was reasonable

under the Fourth Amendment as a lawful investigative detention. Id. at 1463.

Both the officers’ concerns for their own safety and their reasonable suspicion

that Perdue had committed a crime justified the intrusiveness of their actions for

purposes of the Fourth Amendment. Id. Notwithstanding our Fourth Amendment

ruling, we also held, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment, that the officers’ very

same actions in detaining Perdue “created the ‘custodial’ situation envisioned by

Miranda and its progeny.” Id. at 1464. Noting that “[a]ny reasonable person in

Mr. Perdue’s position would have felt ‘completely at the mercy of the police’” at

the time of his detention, we concluded that Perdue was in custody as a matter of

law when he made the incriminating statements. Id. at 1465 (quoting Berkemer,

468 U.S. at 438). We thus recognized, consistent with Berkemer, that whether an

individual is subject to a lawful investigative detention within the meaning of the

Fourth Amendment does not necessarily answer the separate question of whether

a suspect is in custody for purposes of Miranda.

In short, both Berkemer and Perdue establish that merely because a

particular police-citizen encounter can be neatly packaged under the label

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“investigatory detention” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, it does not

necessarily follow that police are freed of their obligation to inform the citizen of

her rights under Miranda in appropriate cases. Consequently, and counter to the

government’s argument, whether the police subjected Revels to a lawful

investigative detention in this case is not dispositive of whether the officers

should have advised Revels of her Miranda rights. See Berkemer, 468 U.S. at

441-42 (“[T]he only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect’s

position would have understood his situation.”); see also Perdue, 8 F.3d at 1463-

66; United States v. Smith, 3 F.3d 1088, 1097 (7th Cir. 1993).

B

We turn then to the proper question raised—whether, within the meaning of

the Fifth Amendment, Revels was in custody at the time she made the

incriminating statements at issue. Taking into account the totality of the

circumstances, we must decide whether a reasonable person in Revels’ position

would have understood her freedom of action to have been restricted to a degree

consistent with formal arrest. See Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 442. In engaging in this

analysis, we ignore the subjective views of the interrogating officers and focus

only on what a reasonable person would have understood from the situation. See

Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 323 (1994) (per curiam). Several relevant

factors inform our fact-specific analysis, including: (1) whether the

circumstances demonstrated a police-dominated atmosphere; (2) whether the

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nature and length of the officers’ questioning was accusatory or coercive; and (3)

whether the police made Revels aware that she was free to refrain from answering

questions, or to otherwise end the interview. See United States v. Griffin, 7 F.3d

1512, 1518-19 (10th Cir. 1993). Considering these factors in light of the record

before us, we conclude that the officers should have advised Revels about the

procedural safeguards required by Miranda before initiating their questioning.

First, a reasonable person in Revels’ position would have perceived a

police-dominated atmosphere. Relatively early in the morning, at approximately

6:00 a.m., seven police officers abruptly roused Revels and Murphy from their

bedroom after forcibly entering their home. Revels was immediately detained,

restrained in handcuffs, and placed face down on the floor. She was made to sit

under the supervision of officers while police executed the search warrant. Then,

before any questioning began, three male officers separated Revels from her

boyfriend and two children, and escorted her to a rear bedroom for questioning.

Once inside the room, the officers isolated Revels from the other occupants of the

home, and closed the door behind her. For much of the interview, all three of the

officers remained in the room with Revels. Taken together, these facts

demonstrate that the police were unequivocally in control of the circumstances

both before and during Revels’ questioning. See Griffin, 7 F.3d at 1519 (noting

that relevant circumstances for finding custody include “separation of the suspect

from family or colleagues who could offer moral support . . . [and the]

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threatening presence of several officers”); United States v. DiGiacomo, 579 F.2d

1211, 1214 (10th Cir. 1978) (holding that Miranda warnings were required when,

among other things, the “[d]efendant was kept apart from his companion,” and

“was confronted simultaneously by four federal agents”); see also United States v.

Mittel-Carey, 493 F.3d 36, 39-40 (1st Cir. 2007) (finding custody for Miranda

purposes in part because police officers conducted a search of the defendant’s

home at an early hour of the morning and exercised physical control over the

defendant during that search).

That Revels was in her own home at the time of the interview does nothing

to alter our conclusion that this was a police-dominated environment. We accept

that the home is generally a more familiar, comfortable atmosphere than a police

interrogation room. See United States v. Ritchie, 35 F.3d 1477, 1485 (10th Cir.

1994) (“[C]ourts are much less likely to find the circumstances custodial when the

interrogation occurs in familiar or at least neutral surroundings, such as the

suspect’s home.” (quotations omitted)). However, the facts belie any conclusion

that Revels’ home, on the morning of the questioning at issue, was the traditional

comfortable environment that we normally would consider a neutral location for

questioning. The police had recently breached Revels’ front door with force,

handcuffed her, and placed her prone on the hall floor. Officers had also

discovered a substantial amount of evidence relating to the distribution of drugs

while Revels sat under their supervision. Given the temporal proximity of her

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initial detention and the overall development of events that morning, we decline

to accord formalistic significance to the fact that the interrogation occurred in

Revels’ own home. See, e.g., Mittel-Carey, 493 F.3d at 40 (“While an

interrogation in a defendant’s residence, without more, certainly weighs against a

finding of custody, . . . the level of physical control the agents exercised . . .

weighs heavily in the opposite direction.”); Sprotsy v. Buchler, 79 F.3d 635, 641

(7th Cir. 1996) (“More important than the familiarity of the surroundings where

[the defendant] was being held is the degree to which the police dominated the

scene.”); United States v. Griffin, 922 F.2d 1343, 1354-55 (8th Cir. 1990)

(“Questioning which occurs in the suspect’s own home may provide a margin of

comfort, but . . . the setting of the interrogation is not so important to the inquiry

as the question of police domination of that setting.”); see also Orozco v. Texas,

394 U.S. 324, 326-27 (1969) (holding that a suspect within his own residence was

in custody for Miranda purposes). Nor does the limited freedom that the officers

afforded Revels by allowing her to dress herself and tend to her infant alter our

conclusion that the atmosphere in the home was dominated by the police.

Handcuffed or not, Revels reasonably understood that the officers were

unambiguously in control of the events, and that she was not free to leave. See

Griffin, 7 F.3d at 1518-19 (“Where police are in full control of the questioning

environment, custody is more easily found.”).

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 Second, the nature of the questioning indicates that Revels was in custody.

Officers purposefully separated Revels from her boyfriend and children and

removed her to a back room. Then, once Revels was inside the room, one of the

officers confronted her with a bag of cocaine that had been seized during the

search. Although she was not questioned directly on point, it is difficult to ignore

the effect that this display of the recently seized drugs had on the tone of the

interrogation. Cf. United States v. Rith, 164 F.3d 1323, 1332 (10th Cir. 1999)

(holding that a suspect “was not in police custody until the point at which he was

confronted with the illegal shotgun”). After being confronted with the drugs in an

accusatory manner, we have no doubt that Revels would have reasonably felt

compelled to cooperate with the police.

Turning to the third factor, the police never indicated to Revels that she

was free to leave or otherwise at liberty to terminate the police questioning.

Although none of the officers expressly told Revels that she was under arrest,

they did not indicate to the contrary. 4 See Griffin, 7 F.3d at 1518 (“[T]he lack of

a police advisement that the suspect is at liberty to decline to answer questions or

free to leave is a significant indication of a custodial detention.”). This is

4
Revels devotes much of her argument to the fact that Agent McFadden
testified at the suppression hearing that Revels was not free to leave at any point
in time. Because Agent McFadden never disclosed this viewpoint to Revels,
however, we decline to consider the agent’s subjective understanding of the
situation. See Stansbury, 511 U.S. at 324 (“It is well settled . . . that a police
officer’s subjective view, . . . if undisclosed, does not bear upon the question
whether the individual is in custody for purposes of Miranda.”).

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particularly significant given that police had just engaged in an intrusive search

warrant operation in Revels’ home and had earlier placed Revels in handcuffs. In

the face of the officers’ dominance of the scene throughout the 30 minutes before

her interview, Revels would have reasonably assumed that she was not free to

leave her home or otherwise decline an interview with the officers.

We also consider it significant that the district court specifically found that

the search had been completed prior to Revels’ questioning. With the search

concluded, there was little remaining for the officers to do inside the home other

than to formally place Revels and Murphy under arrest. Considering the

extensive discovery of evidence, an arrest was likely and a reasonable person in

Revels’ position would have recognized as much.

Taking the totality of the circumstances into account, we conclude that a

reasonable person in Revels’ position would have considered herself under a

degree of restraint equivalent to formal arrest and that officers should have

extended Miranda advisements prior to their questioning. The undisputed facts

demonstrate that the officers’ actions created the type of coercive environment

that Miranda was designed to address.

III

For the forgoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s decision to

suppress Revels’ statements.

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