Also known as: express questionings · express interrogation
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Direct questions posed by law enforcement officers to a suspect in custody. The term forms one component of the broader Miranda definition of interrogation, which also reaches the functional equivalent of questioning through words or actions that officers should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response.
Security agents detained aerospace engineer Daniel Ruiz after he invoked counsel. While Ruiz remained handcuffed, the agents asked him directly which classified documents he had transmitted. Ruiz answered and later sought suppression. The agents' express questioning after the invocation constituted interrogation requiring Miranda compliance.
An undercover officer posing as a fellow inmate asked Perkins a series of questions about the victim, crime scene, weapon, and motive. Perkins supplied the requested information. Although the officer used express questioning, Perkins did not know he was speaking with police so the statements did not require Miranda warnings.
In November 1984, Richard Stephenson was murdered in a suburb of East St. Louis, Illinois, and the murder remained unsolved for over a year. In March 1986, Donald Charlton, an inmate at the Graham Correctional Facility serving a sentence for burglary, told police he had learned about a homicide from fellow inmate Lloyd Perkins, and Charlton provided details that police recognized as matching the Stephenson murder. Perkins had been released from Graham by that time. Police traced him to the Montgomery County jail, where he was being held pending trial on a charge of aggravated battery unrelated to the Stephenson murder. The police wanted to investigate Perkins' connection to the murder further, but they decided to place an undercover agent in the cellblock with Perkins and Charlton rather than use an eavesdropping device. Undercover agent John Parisi, using the alias Vito Bianco, and Charlton were placed in the cellblock with Perkins. Both were clothed in jail garb and posed as escapees from a work release program who had been arrested during a burglary. The cellblock consisted of 12 separate cells opening onto a common room. Parisi suggested the three of them escape, and respondent replied that the jail was rinky-dink and they could break out. Later that evening the trio met in Perkins' cell to refine their plan. Perkins said his girlfriend could smuggle in a pistol. After Charlton said he was a burglar and not a murderer, Parisi asked Perkins if he had ever done anybody, and Perkins proceeded to describe at length the events of the Stephenson murder. Parisi did not give Perkins Miranda warnings before the conversations. Perkins was charged with the Stephenson murder. Before trial he moved to suppress the statements made to Parisi. The trial court granted the motion to suppress, and the Appellate Court of Illinois affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide the Miranda issue.
View caseOfficers allowed Mauro to speak with his wife in their presence after he had invoked counsel. They recorded the exchange without asking any questions themselves. The absence of express questioning meant the conversation did not qualify as interrogation under Miranda.
On November 23, 1982, the Flagstaff Police Department received a telephone call from a local K mart store stating that a man had entered claiming to have killed his son. When officers arrived, respondent William Mauro freely admitted that he had killed his son, directed the officers to the child's body, and was arrested. He was advised of his Miranda rights at the scene and again after being taken to the police station. At the station Mauro told the officers that he did not wish to make any more statements without a lawyer present, and all questioning ceased. Because no secure detention area was available, Mauro was held in the office of the police captain. At the same time Detective Manson was questioning Mauro's wife in another room. After finishing with Manson, Mrs. Mauro asked if she could speak to her husband. Manson was reluctant but, after she insisted, discussed the request with Sergeant Allen, who saw no harm in allowing the meeting and suggested that Manson tape-record the conversation while remaining present. Manson told both Mr. and Mrs. Mauro that they could speak together only if an officer were present in the room to observe and hear what was going on. He then seated himself at a desk with a tape recorder in plain sight and recorded their brief conversation. During the recorded conversation Mrs. Mauro expressed despair about their situation and Mauro told his wife not to answer questions until a lawyer was present. At trial on charges of murder and child abuse, where Mauro's defense was insanity, the prosecution played the tape in rebuttal to demonstrate that Mauro was sane. Mauro sought suppression of the recording on the ground that it was the product of police interrogation in violation of his Miranda rights. The trial court refused to suppress the recording after finding that the officers had yielded to Mrs. Mauro's insistent demands, that the procedure was not a ruse or subterfuge created as an indirect means of avoiding Miranda, and that the officers had legitimate security and safety concerns. Mauro was convicted and sentenced to death. The Arizona Supreme Court reversed. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseNo. Express questioning covers any direct inquiry by officers designed to obtain information from a suspect in custody. The form of the statement is irrelevant so long as it constitutes a question seeking an incriminating response.
Express questioning involves direct questions. The functional equivalent covers indirect words or actions that officers should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response even without a direct question.
No. Generalized conversation or logistical remarks that are not aimed at eliciting incriminating information fall outside both express questioning and its functional equivalent.
…discussion, with each man offering his views on different topics. Rather, it was an interrogation: Perkins was subjected to express questioning likely to evoke an incriminating response. Rhode Island v. Innis , 446 U. S. 291, 300-301 (1980). Because Perkins was interrogated by police while he was in custody, Miranda required…