holding that, absent factual dispute, totality test "requires us to 'consider legal concepts in the mix of fact and law and to exercise judgment about the values' underlying the Miranda rule and the fifth amendment"
How later courts described this case
- holding that, absent factual dispute, totality test "requires us to 'consider legal concepts in the mix of fact and law and to exercise judgment about the values' underlying the Miranda rule and the fifth amendment"
- affirming the exclusion of expert eyewitness-identification testimony on the grounds that “the court believed that general testimony, not tied to the specific testimony in the case, would not be helpful to the jury”
- asking detainee his name was interrogation in the context of a coercive interview where officer confronted detainee with evidence implicating him in a bank robbery and should have anticipated a defensive response
- noting that the district court properly excluded statements made by a defendant where he was shown surveillance photographs after invoking his right to silence
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
SKOPIL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The district court did not err in admitting evidence that the defendant Poole gave a false name to an FBI agent. The district court’s judgment of conviction should be affirmed.
I cannot agree with the majority that the government obtained the false name testimony in violation of Poole’s rights under the fifth amendment. I agree with the district court’s conclusion that the questions by the FBI to Poole regarding Poole’s name, and date and place of birth did not constitute an interrogation.
The police are generally under an obligation to inquire about an individual’s identity, both for the protection of the individual and the police. This case is indistinguishable from United States v. Booth, 669 F.2d 1231, 1238 (9th Cir.1981), wherein we concluded these same questions, asked under similar investigatory circumstances, were “routine, noninvestigatory ... [and] totally unrelated to the crime____” That the questions in this case were asked at the close of an interrogation, rather than at some other time during the arrest or investigation of the crime, is irrelevant. There is no indication in the record that the question to Poole regarding his name was likely to elicit an incriminating response. See id. “If an [FBI] investigator has no reason to suspect that the question asked is likely to elicit an incriminating response, there is no interrogation and, therefore, no Miranda violation.” United States v. Mata-Abun-dis, 717 F.2d 1277, 1279-80 (9th Cir.1983).
Because I would uphold the district court’s decision to admit this evidence, and therefore uphold the judgment of conviction, I dissent.