Estrada v. State (2014)

In Estrada v. State, No. PD-0106-13, 2014 WL 969221 (Tex. Crim. App. Mar. 12, 2014) (not designated for publication), the Court of Criminal Appeals held, in an unpublished opinion, that the defendant was not in custody during the course of a traffic stop. In the end, Estrada can identify only one circumstance that might lead a reasonable person to consider himself in custody for Miranda purposes: the fact that Officer Rodriguez asked Estrada and her passenger whom the drugs belonged to. Every other factor identified by this Court and the court of appeals--that Estrada was not handcuffed; that she was not subjected to a pat-down; that the "ordinary" number of police vehicles and officers were present during her detention; that she was not informed that she was not free to leave; and that she was not separated from her passenger and interrogated individually--indicate that the stop was a simple investigative detention and never rose to the level where a reasonable person would consider himself in custody. More importantly, the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Estrada's argument that "'according to Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984), at the time Officer Rodriguez posed his question to Ms. Estrada, this encounter was no longer an investigative detention' because the only purpose of his question was to obtain an incriminating response." Id. The court held, Berkemer does not stand for such a proposition. In Berkemer, the Court indicated that a non-custodial, investigative detention will typically involve "a moderate number of questions to determine his identity and to try to obtain information confirming or dispelling the officer's suspicions." This statement does not limit questions asked during an investigative detention to non-incriminating ones. The fact that an officer is authorized to ask questions for the purpose of confirming or dispelling his suspicions assumes that such questions could be potentially incriminating. Ultimately, the Supreme Court in Berkemer stated that a determination of custody turns on whether a detainee's freedom is curtailed to a degree associated with formal arrest, the test this Court and the court of appeals have applied to this case. Id. The Court of Criminal Appeals once again focused the issue on the amount of restraint involved, not on whether the existence of an investigative detention rendered custody impossible.