# Rhode Island v. Innis > Supreme Court of the United States · May 12, 1980 · 446 U.S. 291 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427904 ## Case - **Full name:** Rhode Island v. Innis - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** May 12, 1980 - **Citations:** 446 U.S. 291; 100 S. Ct. 1682; 64 L. Ed. 2d 297; 1980 U.S. LEXIS 94 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Marshall - **Judges:** Stewart, White, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist, Burger, Marshall, Brennan, Stevens - **Cited by:** 4,895 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Limited by People v. Villa-Gomez, 9 Cal. App. 5th 527 (2017). - Negative treatments: 1 - Distinguished by: 4 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427904 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that a police officer’s subjective intent to obtain incriminatory statements is not relevant to determining whether an interrogation has occurred - finding that brief conversation between patrolmen was not functional equivalent of questioning when there was nothing to suggest that'the police knew that the suspect was susceptible to the subject matter of their conversation, nothing suggested that the suspect was unusu *283… - holding that under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution “interrogation” “refers not only to express questioning, but also to any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know … - holding that officers’ conversation amongst themselves, with the suspect in the car, about concerns of disabled children finding the weapon used in the crime was not the functional equivalent of interrogation because there was no evidence the conversation was specifically desi… - holding that it was not interrogation when one officer said to another in the defendant's presence that a missing shotgun was near a school for handicapped children and expressed fear that one of the children might find the weapon and hurt themselves, in response to which the … ## Opinion text Me. Justice Marshall, with whom Me. Justice Brennan joins, dissenting. I am substantially in agreement with the Court’s definition of “interrogation” within the meaning of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). In my view, the Miranda safeguards apply whenever police conduct is intended or likely to produce a response from a suspect in custody. As I read the Court’s opinion, its definition of “interrogation” for Miranda purposes is equivalent, for practical purposes, to my formulation, since it contemplates that “where a police practice is designed to elicit an incriminating response from the accused, it is unlikely that the practice will not also be one which the police should have known was reasonably likely to have that effect.” Ante, at 302, n. 7. Thus, the Court requires an objective inquiry into the likely effect of police conduct on a typical individual, taking into account any special susceptibility of the suspect to certain kinds of pressure of which the police know or have reason to know. I am utterly at a loss, however, to understand how this objective standard as applied to the facts before us can rationally lead to the conclusion that there was no interrogation. Innis was arrested at 4:30 a. m., handcuffed, searched, advised of his rights, and placed in the back seat of a patrol car. Within a short time he had been twice more advised of his rights and driven away in a four-door sedan with three police officers. Two officers sat in the front seat and one sat beside Innis in the back seat. Since the car traveled no more than a mile before Innis agreed to point out the location of *306 the murder weapon, Officer Gleckman must have begun almost immediately to talk about the search for the shotgun. The Court attempts to characterize Gleckman’s statements as “no more than a few offhand remarks” which could not reasonably have been expected to elicit a response. Ante, at 303. If the statements had been addressed to respondent, it would be impossible to draw such a conclusion. The simple message of the “talking back and forth” between Gleckman and McKenna was that they had to find the shotgun to avert a child’s death. One can scarcely imagine a stronger appeal to the conscience of a suspect — any suspect — than the assertion that if the weapon is not found an innocent person will be hurt or killed. And not just any innocent person, but an innocent child' — a little girl — a helpless, handicapped little girl on her way to school. The notion that such an appeal could not be expected to have any effect unless the suspect were known to have some special interest in handicapped children verges on the ludicrous. As a matter of fact, the appeal to a suspect to confess for the sake of others, to “display some evidence of decency and honor,” is a classic interrogation technique. See, e. g., F. Inbau & J. Reid, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions 60-62 (2d ed. 1967). Gleckman’s remarks would obviously have constituted interrogation if they had been explicitly directed to respondent, and the result should not be different because they were nominally addressed to McKenna. This is not a case where police officers speaking among themselves are accidentally overheard by a suspect. These officers were “talking back and forth” in close quarters with the handcuffed suspect, * traveling past the very place where they believed the weapon was located. They knew respondent would hear and attend to their conversation, and they are chargeable with knowledge *307 of and responsibility for the pressures to speak which they created. I firmly believe that this case is simply an aberration, and that in future cases the Court will apply the standard adopted today in accordance with its plain meaning. Gleckman may even have been sitting in the back seat beside respondent. See App. 60, 52, 56; but see id., 39, 43, 47, 58. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9427904. Public record. Not legal advice.