Admissibility of Statements During Booking In California

In People v. Morris (1987) 192 Cal.App.3d 380, the Court found that certain statements the appellant made during his booking were inadmissible because they directly related to the charged crime. The Court concluded that it was obvious this was the type of questioning a booking officer should know is reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. In Morris, we implicitly recognized that in order to fall outside the routing booking question exception, the incriminating response must relate to the offenses for which the defendant is currently in custody. (Id. at pp. 389-391.)