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clear that the initial determination of custody depends on the objective circumstances of the interrogation, not on the subjective views harbored by either the interrogating officers or the person being questioned." Id. at 323 (emphasis supplied). However, the Court also clarified that the subjective perception or intent of the interrogating officer becomes relevant for purposes of the objective test when disclosed or articulated "by word or deed" during the course of the interrogation. Id. at 325 (emphasis supplied). Within this objective inquiry,




[e]ven a clear statement from an officer that the person under interrogation is a prime suspect is not, in itself, dispositive of the custody issue, for some suspects are free to come and go until the police decide to make an arrest. The weight and pertinence of any communications regarding the officer's degree of suspicion will depend upon the facts and circumstances of the particular case.


Id. (emphasis supplied). This entire line of precedent demonstrates "that a determination of whether the situation [i]s custodial for Miranda purposes will often require a careful examination of all the [objective] circumstances of the particular case." LaFave, supra § 6.6(c), at 729.



The United States Supreme Court has also held that "voluntary"24 interviews conducted in police stations do not necessarily trigger Miranda. See Oregon v.








24. The Miranda Court provided some insight concerning what it originally anticipated would constitute "voluntary" statements:


There is no requirement that police stop a person who enters a police station and states that he wishes to confess to a crime, or a person who calls the police to offer a confession or any other statement he desires







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Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495 (1977) (defendant not in custody where: (1) he voluntarily traveled to the police station; (2) the interrogating officer explicitly told him that he was not under arrest; (3) the interview lasted for thirty minutes; and (4) the defendant was free to leave after the interview); California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1123-25 (1983) (defendant not in custody where: (1) he voluntarily traveled to the police station; (2) the interrogating officer told him that he was not under arrest; and (3) the interview lasted for thirty minutes); see also Roman v. State, 475 So. 2d 1228, 1230-32 (Fla. 1985) (defendant not in custody where: (1) he voluntarily traveled to the police station; (2) the police did not confront him with evidence of his guilt but, instead, showed him photographs of the child victim and pleaded that he help ensure the child's proper burial; and (3) the interview lasted for 3.5 hours). Of course, this raises at least two questions: (1) What qualifies as a "voluntary" interview?; and (2) Once an interview is classified as "voluntary," does it inexorably remain so?


Similar to the traffic-stop situation at issue in Berkemer, at some point the words and conduct of the interrogating officers may transform that which once was a noncustodial, "voluntary" event into a custodial interrogation, which then





to make. Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today.


384 U.S. at 478 (footnote omitted).







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triggers Miranda. See, e.g., Mansfield v. State, 758 So. 2d 636, 644 (Fla. 2000) (the interrogating detectives converted a "voluntary" interview into a custodial interrogation where: "[1] [the defendant] was interrogated by three detectives at the police station, [2] he was never told he was free to leave, [3] he was confronted with evidence strongly suggesting his guilt, and [4] he was asked questions that made it readily apparent that the detectives considered him the prime, if not the only, suspect"); Caso v. State, 524 So. 2d 422, 424 (Fla. 1988) (finding the defendant "in custody" and stating, "Contrary to the defendants in Beheler and Mathiason, Caso did not initiate the contact with police. Moreover, Caso was interrogated at the police station and was not specifically informed that he was not under arrest, despite being confronted with evidence which implicated him in the crime . . . .").


Thus, the statements that appear in Mathiason and Beheler indicating that the "the requirement of warnings [is not] to be imposed simply because the questioning takes place in the station house, or because the questioned person is one whom the police suspect,"25 must be interpreted in light of the objective circumstances presented in those cases, as disclosed by the words and actions of the interrogating officers. In each case, the defendants were explicitly told that they were not under arrest, the interviews only lasted for thirty minutes, and the








25. Mathiason, 429 U.S. at 495; see also Beheler, 463 U.S. at 1124-25 (substantially similar).







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defendants were free to leave post-interview. Further, Mathiason is now of dubious validity to the extent the Court held that confrontation with evidence of guilt does not bear on custody determinations. Mathiason appears to have employed a now abandoned subjective test to hold that the officer's false claim that the defendant's fingerprints matched those recovered from the scene of a burglary was of no significance. See LaFave, supra § 6.6(d), at 734 n.49 ("[T]he [holding of the] Court in Mathiason, by stating the officer's falsehood `has nothing to do with whether respondent was in custody for purposes of the Miranda rule,' . . . cannot be squared with the Court's [modern] objective test, [therefore] it is often not followed by lower courts. See, e.g., . . . Mansfield v. State, 758 So. 2d 636 (Fla. 2000) (custody [occurred] at station where defendant `was confronted with evidence strongly suggesting his guilt, and he was asked questions that made it readily apparent that the detectives considered him the prime, if not the only, suspect')) . . . .").


The High Court most recently reaffirmed its objective "reasonable person" Miranda custody test in a federal habeas case, which required a deferential standard of review under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of




1996. See Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 655 (2004) ("[A] federal court can grant an application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person held pursuant to a state-court judgment if the state-court adjudication `resulted in a







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decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.'" (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1)) (emphasis supplied)).


Under the applicable deferential standard of review, the High Court reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and upheld a state-court determination that the defendant was not in custody where: (1) the seventeen- nearly eighteen-year-old, defendant voluntarily came to a sheriff's station accompanied by his parents for an interview concerning a murder investigation; (2) the recorded interview took place in a small room; (3) the parents waited in the lobby; (4) the interview lasted for two hours; (5) a single interrogating detective questioned the defendant and asked him on at least two occasions whether he needed a break; (6) the detective questioned the defendant in a nonconfrontational, nonthreatening manner; and (7) the defendant returned home after the interview. Alvarado, 541 U.S. at 655-58, 664-65; cf. Schoenwetter v. State, 931 So. 2d 857, 868 (Fla. 2006) (teenage murder suspect not in custody where police confronted him with evidence of his guilt before he agreed to a voluntary interview). By recognizing that it was bound by a deferential standard of review, and that this was a close case over which "fair- minded jurists could disagree," the Alvarado Court did not offer much guidance as to whether it would have upheld the custody determination under de novo review.


However, the High Court did reemphasize the following objective reasonable-







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person framework, which it originally articulated in Thompson v. Keohane, 516




U.S. 99 (1995):


Two discrete inquiries are essential to the determination: first, what were the circumstances surrounding the interrogation; and second, given those circumstances, would a reasonable person have felt he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave. Once the scene is set and the players' lines and actions are reconstructed, the court must apply an objective test to resolve the ultimate inquiry: was there a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest.



Alvarado, 541 U.S. at 663 (emphasis supplied) (quoting Thompson, 516 U.S. at 112). This Court has adopted the same objective, reasonable-person framework.


See Connor v. State, 803 So. 2d 598, 606 (Fla. 2001) (quoting the Thompson standard with approval). However, we have also adopted a subsidiary four-part channeling paradigm to organize and analyze the case-specific facts that are relevant to determining whether a reasonable person would have felt that he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave. See Ramirez v. State, 739 So. 2d 568 (Fla. 1999) (adopting the four-part test enunciated by the Iowa Supreme Court in State v. Countryman, 572 N.W.2d 553, 558 (Iowa 1997)). This four-part test requires the Court to consider:




(1) the manner in which police summon the suspect for questioning;





(2) the purpose, place, and manner of the interrogation;





(3) the extent to which the suspect is confronted with evidence of his or her guilt; [and]









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(4) whether the suspect is informed that he or she is free to leave the place of questioning.


Ramirez, 739 So. 2d at 574. Hence, Miranda custody determinations present mixed questions of law and fact, under which the reviewing court defers to the competent factual determinations of the trial court but analyzes de novo the application of the law to those facts. See, e.g., Connor, 803 So. 2d at 605-07. In this context, precedent remains a persistent guide but often plays less of a role because each custody determination depends upon the highly unique facts of the given case:



Suppression issues are extraordinarily rich in diversity and run the gamut from (1) pure questions of fact, to (2) mixed questions of law and fact, to (3) pure questions of law. Reviewing courts must exercise care when examining such issues, for while the issues themselves may be posed in broad legal terms . . ., the actual ruling is often discrete and factual (e.g., whether police did in fact tell a suspect he was free to go, whether police did in fact ask a suspect if he committed the crime).


State v. Glatzmayer, 789 So. 2d 297, 301 (Fla. 2001) (footnotes omitted).






B. The Miranda Issues Involved in this Case










i. Was Rigterink "in Custody" for Miranda Purposes?








We acknowledge that we must defer to the factual determinations of the trial court if those findings are supported by competent, substantial evidence from the record. See, e.g., Connor, 803 So. 2d at 607-08. In contrast, we review de novo the application of the law to those facts. See id. at 608. Before trial, Rigterink







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moved to suppress only the videotaped portion of his police interrogation. During the suppression hearing, PCSO Detective Jerry Connolly testified on behalf of the State, and the defense presented a partial transcript of Rigterink's confession (to verify the defective right-to-counsel warning that Rigterink received) and a copy of the defective PCSO rights-warning card.26 Detective Connolly's testimony included the following relevant facts: · PCSO detectives previously interviewed Rigterink at his home on September 25, 2003, and October 9, 2003. At those interviews, Rigterink admitted that he had set up a marijuana buy over the phone with victim Jarvis on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 (the day of the murders), but claimed that the buy was scheduled for a different day (Friday, September 26, 2003);



· Rigterink agreed to visit the PCSO on October 10, 2003, to provide "elimination prints," but failed to show up for the appointment;


· Rigterink eventually called and rescheduled for October 13, 2003, but he also failed to show up for that appointment;



· Plainclothes PCSO detectives, including Detective Connolly, were finally able to reestablish contact with Rigterink at his parents' home on the morning of October 16, 2003;



· Rigterink voluntarily agreed to provide "elimination prints," and as he was getting dressed, he spontaneously stated that two methamphetamine dealers from Lake Wales may have murdered the victims;



· Rigterink was never restrained, and his parents voluntarily drove him to the PCSO's BCI office for fingerprinting;








26. Again, Rigterink's videotaped confession was not placed into evidence during the suppression hearing. Instead, it was later admitted during the guilt phase of his capital trial.







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· Detective Connolly requested that Rigterink's parents remain in the lobby during the interview process, but it is unclear whether Rigterink was aware of this arrangement;



· PCSO latent-fingerprint analyst Patricia Newton and her supervisor, Bill Thomas, were present and fingerprinted Rigterink before his interview. The detectives prearranged for the analysts to compare Rigterink's fingerprints with the bloody crime-scene latents during their interview of Rigterink;



· Rigterink's interview began at 11:00 a.m. on October 16. The detectives questioned him in a six-by-eight foot polygraph-examination room, which was sound-insulated with protective foam. The room contained three chairs and a small desk;



· At least two detectives were in the room at all times, and other detectives-- which included Detective Raczynski, Detective Scott Rench, and Major Martin--entered and exited the room during the questioning process;



· The door was closed, but not locked, while the interview or interrogation took place (however, it is unclear how this detail holds any significance because there was no testimony that Rigterink was aware whether the door was locked or unlocked);



· The detectives and Rigterink discussed his previous descriptions of his whereabouts and actions on September 24, 2003 (i.e., the day of the murders). They began by discussing Rigterink's use of his father's Toyota pickup. Once they established this fact, the detectives moved to discussing Rigterink's relationship with Jarvis beginning with September 21 or 22, 2003, which were the dates on which Rigterink believed that he first borrowed his father's pickup;



· Rigterink readily admitted that on September 22, 2003 (two days before the murders), he purchased marijuana at Jarvis's home;



· Rigterink provided his first story, which was that he was never at Jarvis' residence on the day of the murders;









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· The detectives stated that they did not believe this story, and Rigterink presented his second story, which was (1) that he went to Jarvis's home on the day of the murders to purchase marijuana, and (2) that Jarvis was unharmed when he left at approximately 2:30 or 3 p.m.;



· Sometime during the questioning process, Detective Connolly received a message from the fingerprint analysts, which stated that Rigterink's prints matched the bloody latents recovered from the crime scene;




· After Rigterink completed his second story, the detectives confronted him with the fact that his prints matched the bloody latents discovered at the crime scene;



· Rigterink then presented his third story, which was that he visited Jarvis' home on the day of the murders but arrived after the deaths occurred and left before the police arrived;


· After Rigterink completed his third story, the detectives again accused him of dissembling, and he then responded that he would tell them "the whole truth";



· The detectives then advised Rigterink of his Miranda rights, and Detective Connolly briefly stepped out of the room to request that a technician turn on the interrogation room's hidden video-recording equipment;



· The initial, untaped portion of the interrogation lasted three hours and twenty-four minutes (i.e., from 11:00 a.m. until 2:24 p.m.) before Detective Connolly decided to Mirandize Rigterink and videotape his statements;



· Detective Connolly testified that he Mirandized Rigterink to ensure the admissibility of his confession, and that Rigterink and Connolly signed the rights-waiver form in each other's presence after Connolly read Rigterink his rights. Connolly had no idea that the rights-waiver form was deficient with regard to its description of the right to counsel;



· Rigterink then "confessed," but couched his confession in terms of a series of "Polaroid snapshots," and claimed that he could not actually remember stabbing either of the victims (although he did admit that he physically struggled with Jarvis);







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· Rigterink never asserted his right to remain silent, his right to terminate questioning, or his right to speak with an attorney "prior to questioning";


· During the "confession," Rigterink physically demonstrated his movements and actions vis-à-vis the victims and drew an accompanying diagram (State's exhibit 466);



· After Rigterink "confessed," Detective Connolly called an assistant state attorney to ensure that he had probable cause to arrest Rigterink. The ASA agreed that Detective Connolly had probable cause, and the detectives arrested Rigterink in the office and officially placed him in PCSO custody. The arrest occurred at approximately 5:30 p.m. (6.5 hours after the interrogation began);



· Rigterink was 32 years old at the time of questioning, had completed college course work, and was "alert and awake and very energetic" during the taped portion of the interrogation;



· Until his arrest, Rigterink was not placed in handcuffs or otherwise restrained, but the detectives never told him that he was free to leave;



· By the time of his October 16 interrogation, Rigterink was the primary suspect in the Jarvis-Sousa murders, but Detective Connolly did not provide any indication that PCSO personnel informed Rigterink of this status.


Based on these facts, the trial court denied Rigterink's suppression motion.


While the trial court's order included a minor reference to the irrelevant, undisclosed subjective intent of the PCSO detectives,27 it generally provided a good overview of the relevant facts. In support of its order, the trial court relied upon Cillo v. State, 849 So. 2d 353 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), which held that a








27. "Law enforcement said they had no intention at that point to detain the defendant."







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defendant was not in custody under this Court's four-part Ramirez test where: (1) the defendant voluntarily agreed to accompany two Sarasota County Sheriff's deputies to a sheriff's office for an interview (similar to Rigterink); (2) the entire interview was videotaped and took place in a small interview room (similar to Rigterink save for the fact that only a portion of Rigterink's interrogation was taped); (3) "The atmosphere of the interview was conversational, and no threats or promises were made" (similar to Rigterink in that no threats or promises were made); and (4) the detectives informed the defendant of the victim's allegations against him, but did not confront him with physical evidence of his guilt (different from Rigterink); and (5) the detectives informed the defendant "that he was not under arrest and that he could leave at any time" (different from Rigterink). Id. at 355-57 (emphasis supplied). The trial court did not explain how these factual variations might have impacted its custody determination, if at all.


The facts established during the suppression hearing, which the trial court adequately summarized in its order, have thus "set the scene" of inquiry. See Alvarado, 541 U.S. at 663. Given these factual circumstances, the second step of the custody analysis is to determine whether "a reasonable person [would] have felt [that] he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave."


Alvarado, 541 U.S. at 663 (quoting Thompson, 516 U.S. at 112). As stated above,







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Ramirez provides the following question-based channeling mechanism to answer this question:




(1) the manner in which police summon the suspect for questioning;





(2) the purpose, place, and manner of the interrogation;





(3) the extent to which the suspect is confronted with evidence of his or her guilt; [and]





(4) whether the suspect is informed that he or she is free to leave the place of questioning.


739 So. 2d at 574 (citing Countryman, 572 N.W.2d at 558) (formatting altered).


Similar to many other Fourth and Fifth Amendment inquiries, no individual factor is singularly determinative;28 rather, the "totality of circumstances" controls, and the dispositive inquiry remains whether "a reasonable person placed in the same position would believe that his or her freedom of action was curtailed to a degree associated with actual arrest." Ramirez, 739 So. 2d at 573. With this standard in mind, we apply the four Ramirez factors to the competent, substantial evidence contained within the record.





a. Rigterink Voluntarily Appeared for Fingerprinting and Questioning














28. Cf., e.g., Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 227 (1973) ("[T]he question [of] whether a consent to a search was in fact `voluntary' [under the Fourth Amendment] or was the product of duress or coercion, express or implied, is a question of fact to be determined from the totality of all the circumstances." (emphasis supplied)).
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