Questioning of Defendant Did Not Constitute “Custodial Interrogation”

The Third Department determined County Court should not have suppressed defendant’s statements as the product of custodial interrogation. The police investigation had led to defendant’s IP address being associated with accessing child pornography on the Internet. The investigator went to defendant’s place of employment and asked the defendant to accompany him to the police station, which the defendant agreed to do:

The testimony … revealed that defendant was brought to a room at the police station where he was interviewed for a total of no more than 30 minutes. During the brief period that preceded the Miranda warnings, defendant was not handcuffed or restrained in any manner and the investigators did not do anything to convey that defendant was not free to leave … . Moreover, the two questions that preceded the Miranda warnings – the first asked defendant for his address and the second inquired into defendant’s Internet service – were investigatory, as opposed to accusatory. Considering the totality of the circumstances, and in light of County Court’s determinations that [the interrogating officer] was “frank, candid, and trustworthy and [that] his testimony had the general force and flavor of credibility,” we find that the People met their burden of establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant’s pre-Miranda statements were not the product of a custodial interrogation… . People v Henry, 106048, 3rd Dept 2-20-14