As the district court reasoned: The dissent's lengthy discussion of United States v. Jamison, 509 F.3d 623 (4th Cir.2007), see post at 272–73 & n. 15, to suggest that a bullet hole might not have been present in Davis' pants, is unavailing. Jamison did not involve any challenge to the search or seizure of evidence; the issue there was whether the defendant was in custody for Miranda purposes at the time police questioned him.
In this regard, the Fourth Circuit has explained that a person is deemed to be "in custody" if under the totality of the circumstances, "a reasonable person would [not] feel free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter." United States v. Jamison , 509 F.3d 623, 628 (4th Cir.2007) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Although a government agent's clear pre-interview statement that an individual is not in custody and is free to leave is not "sufficient in and of itself to show a lack of custody," such a statement is "highly probative of whether, in the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable person would have reason to believe he was in custody."
And although defendant may have been restrained because of his physical condition, it was not the officers' doing. (United States v. Jamison (4th Cir. 2007) 509 F.3d 623, 632 (Jamison) [the defendant "was primarily restrained not by the might of the police, but by his self-inflicted gunshot wound, the medical exigencies it created, and the investigation he initiated"].)
While defendant attacks the federal cases cited in Mosley, he does not contend Mosley was wrongly decided, and we thus rely on Mosley in its own right. In a strikingly similar case to the present matter, U.S. v. Jamison (4th Cir. 2007) 509 F.3d 623 (Jamison), the defendant, Eric Jamison, accidentally shot himself near the groin. Two men drove him to the emergency room at the University of Maryland Hospital where three on-duty police officers, congregated at the hospital entrance, saw Jamison and the two men arrive.
In every instance, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the party that prevailed below—in this instance, the government. United States v. Jamison, 509 F.3d 623, 628 (4th Cir. 2007). The Harford County Narcotics Task Force (HCNTF) conducted the drug investigation leading to the apprehension of Thomas and White.
When an individual is unable to “leave” the place of the interrogation solely due to circumstances incident to medical treatment, the question is said to be slightly different: whether he or she was at liberty to terminate the interrogation and “cause the [officers] to leave.” United States v. New, 491 F.3d 369, 373 (8th Cir.2007); see United States v. Jamison, 509 F.3d 623, 628 (4th Cir.2007) (whether an individual whose freedom of movement is restricted due to medical treatment is subject to Miranda custody depends on “whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter” (quoting Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 436, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991))). This approach is consistent with the Miranda custody analysis in other contexts where factors independent of the interrogating officers' conduct restrict an individual's freedom of movement.
Our inquiry does not end there, however, because Harris advances an alternative theory: namely, that he was in custody for purposes of Miranda because he was physically restrained in the ambulance by paramedics when Trooper Cockrum asked whether he had been drinking. But physical restraint alone does not invoke Miranda protections, and physical restraint imposed by paramedics does not create the inherently coercive environment contemplated by Miranda.See United States v. Jamison, 509 F.3d 623, 625, 632 (4th Cir. 2007) (holding a hospitalized defendant was not in custody for Miranda purposes where his inability to freely terminate the officer’s questioning was not due to restraint imposed by the officer but rather due to his injury and hospital admittance); Wilson v. Coon, 808 F.2d 688, 690 (8th Cir. 1987) (citing Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 438-39, 104 S.Ct. 3138 ). This same theory of custody based on actual restraint was rejected by the Eighth Circuit in a non-binding but persuasive case presenting a highly similar fact pattern.
It is this careful differentiation between police-imposed restraint and circumstantial restraint that leads us to conclude that [the defendant] was not in custody[.] U.S. v. Jamison, 509 F.3d 623, 629 (4th Cir.2007) (citation, quotation marks, and brackets omitted). In the context of a prison inmate, this Court examines "(1) whether the inmate was free to refuse to go to the place of the interrogation; (2) whether the inmate was told that participation in the interrogation was voluntary and that he was free to leave at any time; (3) whether the inmate was physically restrained from leaving the place of interrogation; and (4) whether the inmate was free to refuse to answer questions."
Barnes first challenges the district court's denial of his motion to suppress statements he made at the hospital. Reviewing the district court's factual findings for clear error and its legal determinations de novo, see United States v. Jamison, 509 F.3d 623, 628 (4th Cir. 2007), we see no reversible error. Barnes argues he was subject to custodial interrogation for Miranda purposes because a correctional officer "ordered" him to tell a doctor what he had swallowed.
Though some of the interrogation circumstances suggest that Stechauner's freedom of movement was restricted, the duration of the questioning was relatively short, Stechauner was not placed in handcuffs or other restraints, and there is no indication of coercion, deception, or use of force on the part of the police. As the Fourth Circuit noted in assessing a similar hospital-questioning case, there has been no police custody when a suspect "was primarily restrained not by the might of the police, but by his self-inflicted gunshot wound [and] the medical exigencies it created." United States v. Jamison , 509 F.3d 623, 632 (4th Cir. 2007).Jamison is partly distinguishable: While the defendant in that case initiated a police investigation by telling officers he had been shot by someone else, see 509 F.3d at 625, here, Stechauner did not want the police to be involved.