Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 19, 1990 TAG: 9006190186
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short
The 8-1 decision creates an exception to the Miranda doctrine for "routine booking questions" at a police station house.
The ruling also upholds the growing use of videotape by the police, which can be a powerful weapon for prosecutors.
If a suspect is in custody, officers must warn him of his right to remain silent and to have a lawyer before they try to "elicit a confession" from him, as the court said in the 1966 case of Miranda vs. Arizona. But merely asking a suspect to state his name, address, height, weight, eye color, date of birth and age is not a "custodial interrogation," the court said Monday, and is therefore not covered by the Miranda ruling.
The decision reverses one by a Pennsylvania appellate court that concluded that officers cannot use evidence from any "interrogation" in a station house without first warning the suspect of his rights.
In this case, (Pennsylvania vs. Muniz, 89-213), both sides agreed that Inocencio Muniz was in custody when an officer brought him into the station house in the early morning of Nov. 30, 1986. He smelled of alcohol. With the videotape running, he was asked a number of routine questions.
At his trial, the videotaped evidence was presented in court and he was convicted. After a state appeals court ruled the evidence inadmissible, state prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court.
by CNB