No Fifth Amendment Violation By Asking a Defendant Who Is Not In Custody Just Where He Was When the Cops Showed Up to Execute A Search Warrant

State v. Heinonen, Minn.Ct.App., 1/30/2017.  Police executed a search warrant at a house where Mr. Heinonen happened to be at the time. Officers told him that he was not under arrest although he was handcuffed.  The officers then demanded to know Mr. Heinonen's full name, date of birth, and where he was when the cops showed up.  Mr. Heinonen provided that information, including that he had been in the southwest bedroom.  The cops then took Mr. Heinonen out to a squad car, read  him his Miranda rights, when he invoked.

Police found ammunition and a short barreled shotgun  in the southwest bedroom.

At the jail, an officer asked Mr. Heinonen to consent to a DNA test; the officer did not precede this request with another Miranda warning. Mr. Heinonen consented to the test but also blurted out that he had touched the shotgun.  A jury convicted Mr. Heinonen of possession of the shotgun by an ineligible person.

Mr. Heinonen challenged the admission of his statements at the house and at the jail.  The court of appeals said that just because the cops had handcuffed Mr. Heinonen that did not mean that he was in custody.  In fact, the court said that he was not in custody.  The court seems to say that if there is more than one person inside the house at the time of execution of the search warrant, the cops are authorized to restrain all of them regardless whether any of the occupants are causing a problem. So, since he was not in custody the police had no obligation to precede the demand to Mr. Heinonen to tell them where he was when they arrived with a Miranda warning.  Somehow this question about his location inside the  house when the cops arrived was also not an "interrogation" but just an "on-the-scene questioning" intended to "get a preliminary explanation of a confusing situation."  Really?  What was confusing other than to figure out who to tag with any contraband discovered during the search?  How better to resolve that confusion than to get Mr. Heinonen to them the cops where he was?

As to the question at the jail whether Mr. Heinonen would consent to a DNA test, this, too, is not an "interrogation" such that it triggers a Miranda warning.  The court insists that Mr. Heinonen "volunteered" the admission that he'd touched the shotgun so this slip of the tongue the court says is on Mr. Heinonen.