California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Boyer, 256 Cal.Rptr. 96, 48 Cal.3d 247, 768 P.2d 610 (Cal. 1989):
I disagree with the majority's conclusion that defendant's taped statement should have been excluded on Fourth Amendment and Miranda (Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694) grounds. In my view, the circumstances of the initial detention and the interrogation do not, as the majority state, add up to an illegal arrest. Whether an illegal detention has occurred must be determined by all the evidence pertaining to the alleged restraint, and the final determination must be made on the basis of the objective reasonableness of the defendant's concern that he was being restrained without his consent. Protestations to the contrary, the majority first question the voluntariness of defendant's consent to the interview and then focus almost exclusively on defendant's state of mind during the interrogation as he countered the detective's questioning, ignoring the consensual nature of his presence at the station house and ignoring the events subsequent to the interrogation which reinforce a conclusion that no illegal detention had occurred or was occurring. I am troubled and concerned that the subjective standard used by the majority portends a severe limitation, if not elimination, of the voluntary, noncustodial police-station interview.
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