Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Terrance Payne Hayes, Petitioner v. United States

No.

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

TERRANCE PAYNE HAYES,

Petitioner,

vs.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Respondent.

________________________

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari

to the United States Court of Appeals

for the Eighth Circuit

________________________

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

________________________

Rick L. Ramstad

BANGS, MCCULLEN, BUTLER,

FOYE & SIMMONS, LLP

5048 East 57th St., Suite B

Sioux Falls, SD 57108

T: 605-339-6800

rramstad@bangsmccullen.com

Attorney for Petitioner

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

The questions presented are:

1. Whether Petitioner unambiguously invoked his right to end

questioning when, after stating that he was “ready to go” and

attempting to leave, he twice told officers, “If I’m not being

detained, I would like to go.”

2. Whether, in determining custody under Miranda, a court may

disregard a hospital patient’s confinement because the police did

not cause it, rather than consider that restraint with the other

objective circumstances.

PARTIES TO THE CASE

Petitioner Terrance Payne Hayes was the defendant in the district

court and the appellant in the court of appeals. Respondent United

States of America was the plaintiff in the district court and the appellee

in the court of appeals.

RELATED CASES

United States v. Hayes, No. 5:23-cr-04068, Northern District of Iowa

Judgment entered on March 26, 2025.

United States v. Hayes, No. 25-1649, Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals

Opinion filed May 11, 2026.

United States v. Hayes, No. 25-1649, Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals

Order Denying Petition for En Banc Rehearing

Order entered on June 8, 2026.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Questions Presented ................................................................................ ii

Related Cases ........................................................................................... ii

Table of Contents .................................................................................... iii

Table of Authorities ..................................................................................v

Opinions and Orders Entered Below ....................................................... 1

Constitutional Provisions and Statutes Involved in the Case ................ 2

Statement of the Case .............................................................................. 2

1.

Detectives Question Hayes in His Hospital Bed Without

Miranda Warnings ........................................................................2

2.

Detectives Continue Questioning Hayes After He Twice Asks

to Leave..........................................................................................5

3.

The Lower Courts Refuse to Suppress Hayes’s Statements ......... 7

Reasons for Granting the Petition ..........................................................10

1.

The Decision Below Conflicts with This Court’s Rules for

Determining Whether a Suspect Has Invoked the Right to

Silence. .......................................................................................... 11

A. Hayes’s Words and Conduct Were Unambiguous When

Assessed at the Time of the Request. .......................................... 11

B. The Panel’s Use of Hayes’s Later Answers Conflicts with

Smith and the Approach of Other Courts of Appeals. ................ 13

iii

C. The Question Is Recurring and Important. .................................15

2.

The Hospital Holding Imports Connelly’s Voluntariness Rule

Into the Distinct Miranda-Custody Inquiry. ................................ 16

A. Connelly Does Not Permit Courts to Disregard Objective

Restraint in Deciding Custody. ...................................................16

B. The Question Recurs, and the Decision Below Creates a

Categorical Rule. .........................................................................19

3.

This Case Is an Ideal Vehicle for Resolving Both Questions. ......20

Conclusion ...............................................................................................21

Appendices

Opinion of the Court of Appeals .................................................... 1–12

District Court’s Memorandum Opinion and Order ..................... 13–26

Denying Motion to Suppress

Report and Recommendation on Motion to Suppress ................. 27–45

Court of Appeals Order Denying ...................................................... 46

Petition for En Banc Rehearing

iv

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

United States Constitution

U.S. Const. amend. V .............................................................................. 2

Statutes of the United States

18 U.S.C. § 3231 ...................................................................................... 7

28 U.S.C. § 1254(1) .................................................................................. 1

Cases

United States Supreme Court

Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370 (2010) ............................. 11–14, 16

Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157 (1986) ........................................... 17

Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994) .......................................... 11

Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. 499 (2012) ............................................... 16, 18

Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96 (1975) ................................................ 11

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) .... 2–3, 5, 7, 10–11, 16–17, 19–20

Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91 (1984) .......................................... 12–15, 19

Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99 (1995) ....................................... 16–18

United States Courts of Appeals

Anderson v. Terhune, 516 F.3d 781 (9th Cir. 2008) ............................... 15

Stechauner v. Smith, 852 F.3d 708 (7th Cir. 2017) ................................ 19

v

United States v. Abdallah, 911 F.3d 201 (4th Cir. 2018) ....................... 15

United States v. Hayes, 174 F.4th 1092 (8th Cir. 2026) ...................... 1, 14

United States v. Infante, 701 F.3d 386 (1st Cir. 2012) .......................... 19

United States v. Jamison, 509 F.3d 623 (4th Cir. 2007) ........................ 19

United States v. Martin, 781 F.2d 671 (9th Cir. 1986) .......................... 19

United States v. New, 491 F.3d 369 (8th Cir. 2007) ............................... 19

United States v. Robertson, 19 F.3d 1318 (10th Cir. 1994) .................. 119

United States v. Simpson, 44 F.4th 1093 (8th Cir. 2022) ...................... 10

Rules

Sup. Ct. R. 13 .......................................................................................... 1

vi

OPINIONS AND ORDERS ENTERED BELOW

The opinion of the court of appeals is published and available as

United States v. Hayes, 174 F.4th 1092 (8th Cir. 2026), and is reproduced

at Pet. App. 1–12. The district court’s order adopting the report and

recommendation and denying the motion to suppress is reproduced at

Pet. App. 13–26. The report and recommendation is reproduced at Pet.

App. 27–45. The court of appeals’ order denying panel rehearing and

rehearing en banc is reproduced at Pet. App. 46.

JURISDICTIONAL STATEMENT

The judgment of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was entered in

this case on May 11, 2026. Pet. App. 1. Petitioner timely sought panel

rehearing and rehearing en banc, which the court of appeals denied on

June 8, 2026. Pet. App. 46. This petition for a writ of certiorari is timely

under Rule 13 of this Court’s Rules. This Court has jurisdiction under

28 U.S.C. § 1254(1).

1

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS AND STATUTES INVOLVED IN THE CASE

The Fifth Amendment provides in relevant part: “No person . . . shall

be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U.S.

Const. amend. V.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

This case concerns two interrogations in which detectives obtained

statements that became the basis of Hayes’s federal firearm

prosecution. During the first, detectives questioned Hayes without

Miranda warnings while he was confined to a hospital bed recovering

from surgery. During the second, detectives continued questioning

Hayes after he attempted to leave and twice stated, “If I’m not being

detained, I would like to go.” Pet. App. 2–4.

1. Detectives Question Hayes in His Hospital Bed Without

Miranda Warnings

In the early morning hours of July 17, 2023, Sioux City police officers

responded to a report that an intruder had broken into Mr. Hayes’s

home and stabbed him. Pet. App. 2. Officers found Hayes outside the

residence bleeding from multiple stab wounds and found the intruder

inside holding a knife. D. Ct. Doc. 43-1, at 2. Both men were

2

transported to the hospital. Id. Hayes was seriously injured and

required surgery; the intruder died.

The following afternoon, three detectives entered Hayes’s hospital

room to question him. Pet. App. 28. Hayes lay in his post-surgery

hospital bed, hooked to monitors and tubes. Id. The three detectives

stood around his bed. Id. When they asked how he was feeling, Hayes

responded that he did not feel well. Id.

The detectives had initiated the encounter, but they did not tell

Hayes that he could decline questioning, terminate the interview, or

require them to leave. Pet. App. 35. They did not provide Miranda

warnings. Pet. App. 33, 36.

The interview lasted approximately eighty minutes. Pet. App. 2–3.

Hayes initially described the home invasion and stated that he had

taken the firearm from the intruder during the struggle. Pet. App. 2–3.

Approximately forty minutes into the interview, the detectives told

Hayes that the intruder had died. Pet. App. 29. Hayes appeared visibly

shaken. Id.

The detectives then focused their questioning on the origin of the

firearm. Pet. App. 3, 29. One detective told Hayes, “I understand if

3

you’re worried about catching a gun charge, I don’t give two shits about

that.” D. Ct. Doc. 43-1, at 4. The detective said that he believed the

firearm had been inside Hayes’s house and told Hayes that the officers

needed “all the details exactly as it happened.” Id.

The detectives continued to challenge Hayes’s account. D. Ct. Doc.

43-1, at 4–7. They suggested that forensic testing would reveal Hayes’s

fingerprints on the magazine or ammunition and repeatedly assured

him that they were not there to “jam [him] up.” Id. at 6–7. They told

Hayes that they did not care whether the firearm had already been

inside the house; they wanted “the facts of the case.” Id. at 7.

After repeated questioning, Hayes stated that the firearm had been

near the television when the intruder entered. Pet. App. 3; D. Ct. Doc.

43-1, at 7. He then stated that another individual had brought it to the

house approximately one week before the break-in. Pet. App. 3, 29; D.

Ct. Doc. 43-1, at 8.

More than an hour into the interview—and after obtaining that

admission—the detectives offered to let Hayes rest. Pet. App. 3, 29.

Hayes said that he could continue, and the detectives questioned him

for approximately ten more minutes before leaving. Id.

4

2. Detectives Continue Questioning Hayes After He Twice

Asks to Leave

On August 11, 2023, Detective Knudsen transported Hayes and his

wife from their home to the Sioux City Police Department. Pet. App. 30.

The detectives placed them in separate interview rooms. Id. Knudsen

told Hayes that he still regarded him as the victim and then advised

him of his Miranda rights. Pet. App. 3, 30; D. Ct. Doc. 43-1, at 8–9.

Knudsen explained that he was providing the warnings because they

were at the police station and that he did so “for everyone.” D. Ct. Doc.

43-1, at 8. Hayes signed a waiver and agreed to speak with him. Pet.

App. 30.

Approximately fifty minutes into the interview, Hayes stated that he

had too much going on in his head and was “ready to go.” Gov’t Hr’g Ex.

4.1 at 51:20; Pet. App. 31. He asked to wait in the hallway, stood up,

and walked out of the interview room. Pet. App. 31. After approximately

ten seconds, the detective directed him back inside. Id. Hayes then

stated: “That’s why I don’t like coming down here. If I’m not being

detained, I would like to go.” Id.

Hayes was then left alone in the interview room with the door closed.

Id. Approximately four minutes later, the detective returned with

5

another detective. Id. The detectives told Hayes that they had

additional questions concerning his hospital statements about the

firearm. Id. Sitzman accused Hayes of lying and warned that the

investigation could shift from self-defense to murder. Id.

Hayes denied committing murder and again stated: “If I’m not being

detained, I’d like to go.” Pet. App. 4, 31. Sitzman responded: “Then

we’re going to have to switch gears and I’m just warning you that we’re

going to probably turn this into a murder investigation.” Id. Sitzman

then told Hayes that the intruder was dead and that Hayes was “lying

about the murder weapon.” Pet. App. 31–32. This portion of the

recorded interrogation begins at 56:06 of Government Exhibit 4.1 and

continues through the end of that recording and the first 4:24 of

Government Exhibit 4.2. Pet. App. 31 n.5.

Sitzman opened the interview-room door, and Sergeant John

Sanders entered. Pet. App. 32. Three officers were now inside the small

room. Id. Sanders stood between Hayes and the door, Sitzman stood

beside him, and Knudsen sat to Hayes’s right. Id.

Sanders told Hayes that the detectives had “two cases”—one

involving self-defense and one involving murder. D. Ct. Doc. 43-1, at 12.

6

He warned that if their “main player” was not “100% honest,” the

investigation could “only go one way.” Id. Sanders also told Hayes that

the detectives were not trying to “jam [him] up” and did not care where

the firearm came from, but needed to know where it had been inside the

house. Pet. App. 32.

After Sanders left, Knudsen and Sitzman continued questioning

Hayes about the firearm and how it came into his possession. Id. The

questioning continued for approximately twenty minutes. Pet. App. 4,

32.

3. The Lower Courts Refuse to Suppress Hayes’s Statements

A federal grand jury charged Hayes with possessing a firearm as a

felon, a drug user, and a person convicted of domestic violence, and with

possessing a stolen firearm. Pet. App. 4; D. Ct. Doc. 43-1, at 1. The

district court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3231.

Hayes moved to suppress the statements obtained during the July 18

hospital interview and the August 11 station-house interview. Pet. App.

4; D. Ct. Docs. 43, 43-1. He argued that the hospital interrogation was

custodial and conducted without Miranda warnings and that the later

statements were obtained after detectives refused to honor his requests

7

to leave and threatened him with a murder investigation. D. Ct. Doc.

43-1, at 23–28.

The magistrate judge recommended denying the motion. Pet. App.

27–45. She found that the hospital interrogation was noncustodial

because Hayes’s immobility resulted from his medical condition rather

than restraints imposed by the detectives. Pet. App. 35–36. She also

found that the station-house interview became custodial after Hayes

attempted to leave, was directed back into the room, and faced

increasingly aggressive questioning. Pet. App. 39–40.

The magistrate judge nevertheless recommended finding that Hayes

had not clearly invoked his right to terminate questioning. Pet. App.

44–45. Although she stated that “it seems clear that Hayes wanted to

cut off questioning,” she considered herself bound by Eighth Circuit

precedent to treat his requests to leave as ambiguous. Pet. App. 44. She

further concluded that the detectives’ tactics did not overbear Hayes’s

will. Pet. App. 37–39.

Both parties objected to portions of the report and recommendation.

Pet. App. 16. The district court adopted the recommendation and denied

suppression. Pet. App. 13–26. It agreed that the hospital interview was

8

noncustodial because the detectives had not created the physical

restrictions arising from Hayes’s hospitalization. Pet. App. 18–20. It

also agreed that the station interview became custodial after Hayes

attempted to leave and the questioning became increasingly hostile.

Pet. App. 20–22. Nevertheless, the court held that Hayes’s requests to

leave did not clearly invoke his right to remain silent and that the

detectives’ tactics did not render his statements involuntary. Pet. App.

22–26.

Hayes entered a conditional guilty plea to the prohibited-person

count, preserving only his right to appeal the denial of his motion to

suppress. R. Doc. 69-1; Pet. App. 5. The district court sentenced him to

ninety months’ imprisonment. Pet. App. 5.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Pet. App. 1–12. As to the hospital

interrogation, the court held that its custody analysis concerned only

restraints imposed by law enforcement. Pet. App. 8. Because Hayes’s

immobility resulted from medical exigencies and the detectives imposed

no additional restraint, the court concluded that a reasonable person

would have felt free to terminate the questioning and require the

detectives to leave. Id.

9

As to the station-house interrogation, the Eighth Circuit

characterized Hayes’s statements as expressing a “desire to go home,”

rather than a desire to terminate questioning. Pet. App. 10. Relying on

United States v. Simpson, 44 F.4th 1093 (8th Cir. 2022), the court held

that Hayes’s detention-conditioned requests were not clear invocations

of his right to remain silent. Pet. App. 10–11. The court also held that

the detectives’ warnings about a possible murder investigation did not

render Hayes’s statements involuntary. Pet. App. 9–10.

The Eighth Circuit denied panel rehearing and rehearing en banc.

Pet. App. 46.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

This petition does not ask the Court to reweigh a recorded interview

or correct a fact-bound error. The decision below adopts two legal

approaches with consequences beyond this case. In deciding invocation,

the court removed the express detention condition from Hayes’s request

to leave and then relied on answers elicited after the request to confirm

that it was ambiguous. Pet. App. 10–11. In deciding custody, the court

treated Hayes’s confinement to a hospital bed as outside the Miranda

inquiry because the detectives did not cause it, relying on a

10

voluntariness decision to limit the custody analysis. Pet. App. 8. Those

approaches cannot be reconciled with this Court’s objective, contextsensitive Miranda decisions and warrant review.

1. The Decision Below Conflicts with This Court’s Rules for

Determining Whether a Suspect Has Invoked the Right to

Silence.

A. Hayes’s Words and Conduct Were Unambiguous When

Assessed at the Time of the Request.

Miranda protects a suspect’s “right to cut off questioning.” Michigan

v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 103 (1975). When that right is invoked, the

police must cease the interrogation and “scrupulously honor” the

suspect’s decision. Id. at 103–04. Berghuis v. Thompkins requires an

unambiguous invocation and makes the inquiry objective. 560 U.S. 370,

381–82 (2010). Under the standard Berghuis adopted from Davis v.

United States, the question is whether a reasonable police officer in the

circumstances would understand the suspect to be invoking the right.

512 U.S. 452, 459 (1994). That standard does not permit a court to

isolate a few words from what immediately preceded them. This Court

has explained that “[w]here nothing about the request for counsel or the

circumstances leading up to the request would render it ambiguous, all

11

questioning must cease.” Smith v. Illinois, 469 U.S. 91, 98 (1984) (per

curiam). Although Smith involved the right to counsel, Berghuis held

that there is “no principled reason” to use a different invocation

standard for the right to remain silent. 560 U.S. at 381.

Hayes’s words were clear in that setting. After approximately fifty

minutes of questioning, he said he was “ready to go,” stood up, and

walked out of the interview room. Pet. App. 3, 31. Detective Knudsen

directed him back inside. Id. Hayes then said: “If I’m not being

detained, I would like to go.” Id. Several minutes later, after Detective

Sitzman accused him of lying, Hayes repeated: “If I’m not being

detained, I would like to go.” Pet. App. 4, 31.

The conditional wording did not express uncertainty about what

Hayes wanted. It identified detention as the only circumstance in which

the officers could prevent him from leaving. In ordinary language, “If I

am free to leave, I want to leave” communicates a present decision to

end the encounter, not a hope to go home at some later time. The

statement was reinforced by Hayes’s preceding words and conduct: he

said he was ready to go, stood up, left the room, was ordered back, and

then twice made the same detention-conditioned request.

12

The detectives’ response confirms the statement’s evident meaning.

When Hayes repeated the request, the detective responded, “Then we’re

going to have to switch gears,” and warned that the officers would

“probably turn this into a murder investigation.” Pet. App. 4, 31. The

word “Then” connected the threatened change in the investigation

directly to Hayes’s request to leave. A reasonable officer would have

understood what Hayes was asking because the officers responded to

that request by supplying a consequence for ending the interview.

The Eighth Circuit nevertheless recast Hayes’s exact words as

statements that he wanted to “go home.” Pet. App. 10. That

characterization omitted the decisive clause—“if I’m not being

detained”—and the act of leaving the room. The unambiguousinvocation rule does not require a suspect to recite constitutional

doctrine. It requires language that a reasonable officer would

understand. Berghuis, 560 U.S. at 381–82. Hayes supplied that

language.

B. The Panel’s Use of Hayes’s Later Answers Conflicts with

Smith and the Approach of Other Courts of Appeals.

The panel’s reasoning presents a separate legal error. After finding

Hayes’s requests ambiguous, it added that “[e]ven if Hayes had

13

intended to invoke his right to remain silent, he continued talking with

detectives for an additional 30 minutes, ‘never clarifying his earlier

statement or otherwise unequivocally invoking his right to remain

silent.’” United States v. Hayes, 174 F.4th 1092, 1101 (8th Cir. 2026);

Pet. App. 10–11. That reasoning uses Hayes’s answers to the continued

interrogation as evidence that his earlier request was unclear.

Smith forbids that temporal inversion in the right-to-counsel context.

It holds that “an accused’s postrequest responses to further

interrogation may not be used to cast retrospective doubt on the clarity

of the initial request itself.” 469 U.S. at 100. The reason is practical as

well as doctrinal: officers may not ignore a request, continue

questioning, and then rely on the answers they elicited to show that the

suspect never meant the request. Id. at 98–100. Because Berghuis

applies the same invocation standard to the rights to counsel and

silence, Smith’s restriction should apply here. See Berghuis, 560 U.S. at

381; Smith, 469 U.S. at 98–100.

Other courts of appeals have applied that rule to invocations of the

right to silence. The Fourth Circuit holds that Smith and Berghuis

prohibit courts from using post-request conduct to cast doubt on an

14

otherwise clear request to remain silent. United States v. Abdallah, 911

F.3d 201, 210–11 (4th Cir. 2018). The Ninth Circuit likewise holds that,

when an initial request to stop questioning is clear, officers may not

create ambiguity by continuing the interrogation and relying on the

suspect’s later responses. Anderson v. Terhune, 516 F.3d 781, 789–91

(9th Cir. 2008) (en banc). The decision below permits the very method

those courts—and Smith—forbid.

The disagreement concerns a defined rule of decision, not merely

competing views of the facts. Courts disagree about the temporal

universe relevant to clarity: whether the analysis ends with the request

and the circumstances preceding it, or may include answers obtained

after officers continue questioning. Review is warranted to resolve that

conflict.

C. The Question Is Recurring and Important.

The invocation rule must guide officers in real time and suspects

without legal training. Requests to leave, go home, or end an interview

arise in ordinary language, not in phrases drafted by lawyers. The

decision below allows a court to remove an express reference to

detention, relabel the statement as a general wish to go home, and use

15

later answers to support that relabeling. That approach leaves no

reliable line between an ambiguous expression of impatience and a

present demand to end questioning.

This case places that problem in its clearest form. Hayes did not

merely mention home. He attempted to leave, was directed back into

the room, and twice told the officers that if he was not detained, he

wanted to go. Pet. App. 3–4. If those words and actions do not suffice, an

ordinary suspect is effectively required to know and recite a legal

formula. Miranda and Berghuis require clarity, not legal sophistication.

2. The Hospital Holding Imports Connelly’s Voluntariness

Rule Into the Distinct Miranda-Custody Inquiry.

A. Connelly Does Not Permit Courts to Disregard Objective

Restraint in Deciding Custody.

Miranda custody asks two questions: what circumstances

surrounded the interrogation, and whether a reasonable person in those

circumstances would have felt free to terminate the questioning and

leave. Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U.S. 99, 112 (1995). Courts must

consider the totality of the objective circumstances. Howes v. Fields, 565

U.S. 499, 509 (2012).

16

The decision below acknowledged that Hayes was confined to his

hospital bed and could not walk out of the interview. Pet. App. 8. But it

treated that restraint as outside the custody inquiry because medical

exigencies, rather than detectives, caused it. Quoting Colorado v.

Connelly, the court reasoned that the Fifth Amendment’s “sole concern”

is governmental coercion and that its examination therefore “only

relates to the restraint imposed by the detectives.” Id. (quoting 479 U.S.

157, 170 (1986)).

That reliance on Connelly confuses two distinct inquiries. Connelly

considered whether a confession was involuntary when mental illness,

rather than police coercion, caused the confession. 479 U.S. at 163–67.

It held that coercive police activity is a necessary predicate to a dueprocess involuntariness claim. Id. at 167. It did not decide what

objective circumstances count in determining Miranda custody, much

less hold that a restraint disappears from the custody analysis unless

police created it.

Voluntariness asks whether state coercion overbore a suspect’s will.

Custody asks how a reasonable person would experience the objective

setting before the interrogation begins and while it proceeds. The source

17

of a restraint may bear on that assessment, and hospitalization alone

does not establish custody. But the source cannot replace the totality

inquiry required by Thompson and Howes. A reasonable patient’s

ability to terminate questioning is affected by the restraint he actually

experiences, whether the restraint began with handcuffs, a locked door,

or medical equipment.

Here the objective circumstances extended well beyond

hospitalization alone. Hayes had undergone surgery for multiple lifethreatening stab wounds. He remained confined to bed and attached to

monitors and tubes. Three detectives entered his private hospital room

and stood around his bed. They never told him that he could decline

questioning, end the interview, or require them to leave. They

questioned him for approximately eighty minutes, challenged his

account, and pressed him about the firearm until he made the

admission used in this prosecution. Pet. App. 2–3, 28–29, 35–36.

The detectives’ offer to leave after more than an hour does not

answer whether Hayes was in custody when he made the challenged

admission. Pet. App. 3, 29. Custody must be assessed when the

statement was obtained. The panel’s causation rule prevented the

18

immobility that defined Hayes’s actual setting from receiving weight in

that assessment.

B. The Question Recurs, and the Decision Below Creates a

Categorical Rule.

Federal courts of appeals repeatedly confront whether police

questioning of an injured hospital patient is custodial. See, e.g., United

States v. Infante, 701 F.3d 386, 396–98 (1st Cir. 2012); United States v.

Jamison, 509 F.3d 623, 629–33 (4th Cir. 2007); Stechauner v. Smith, 852

F.3d 708, 715–16 (7th Cir. 2017); United States v. New, 491 F.3d 369,

373–74 (8th Cir. 2007); United States v. Martin, 781 F.2d 671, 673–74

(9th Cir. 1986); United States v. Robertson, 19 F.3d 1318, 1320–21 (10th

Cir. 1994). Those decisions recognize that hospitalization alone does not

establish Miranda custody. But the frequency with which the issue

recurs and the fact-intensive distinctions the courts draw demonstrate

the need for guidance concerning how medically imposed restraint

enters the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis. The question here is

whether a court may categorically disregard a patient’s medical

restraint solely because the police did not cause it.

The Eighth Circuit answered yes. Its statement that the custody

examination “only relates” to restraints imposed by detectives makes

19

the source of restraint a threshold limitation, not one fact among many.

Pet. App. 8. That rule applies to every interrogation of a hospital

patient whose wounds or treatment prevent departure. Review is

warranted to confirm that medical restraint must be considered with all

other objective circumstances, without making every hospital interview

custodial.

3. This Case Is an Ideal Vehicle for Resolving Both Questions.

Both questions were preserved in the suppression proceedings,

decided by the district court, presented to the Eighth Circuit, and

renewed in a timely petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc.

Pet. App. 4–5, 13–26, 46. The court of appeals squarely held that the

hospital interview was noncustodial and that Hayes did not clearly

invoke his right to end the station interview. Pet. App. 8, 10–11.

The relevant facts are undisputed and recorded. The hospital

question turns on a defined setting: a post-surgery patient confined to

bed, three detectives, no Miranda warnings, and an eighty-minute

interview. Pet. App. 2–3, 28–29. The invocation question is cleaner still.

Custody and the warnings are not disputed, and the exact exchange

appears in the recording and the opinion below. Pet. App. 3–4. No

20

credibility determination stands between the Court and either legal

question.

The questions raised are consequential. The hospital interrogation

produced the critical admission that the firearm was already in the

home, and the station interrogation sought to reinforce that admission

after Hayes attempted to leave. Pet. App. 3–4. Hayes entered a

conditional guilty plea preserving appellate review of the suppression

ruling. Pet. App. 5. A decision on either question would govern further

proceedings on that preserved ruling and plea.

Finally, the decision below makes clear that the questions are legal,

not merely factual. For the hospital interview, the panel limited its

examination to restraint imposed by detectives. Pet. App. 8. For the

station interview, it treated the detention-conditioned requests as a

desire to go home and relied on Hayes’s subsequent answers. Pet. App.

10–11. This case therefore presents both issues in the precise posture

needed to resolve them.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Petitioner respectfully requests that this

Court grant this petition for a writ of certiorari.

21

Dated this 25th day of August, 2026.

/s/ Rick L. Ramstad

Rick L. Ramstad

BANGS, MCCULLEN, BUTLER,

FOYE & SIMMONS, LLP

5048 East 57th St., Suite B

Sioux Falls, SD 57108

T: 605-339-6800

rramstad@bangsmccullen.com

Attorney for Petitioner

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