Yarborough, Michael, Warden v. Alvarado, Michael (06/01/2004)

(Kennedy-June 1, 2004)

Questions presented: (1) Whether, in applying the objective test for a "custody" determination under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), a court must consider the age and experience of a person if he or she is a juvenile? (2) Whether a state court adjudication can be deemed an "objectively unreasonable" application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent, for the purposes of 28 U.S.C. ? 2254(d), because it declines to "extend" the rule of a Supreme Court precedent to a new context.

BY LAUREN PUERNER, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

On a mid-October morning in 1995, Maria Alvarado received a phone call that would change her life.

Los Angeles County Sheriffs Detective Cheryl Comstock was on the other end of the line, informing her that she "needed" to speak with her son Michael.

Comstock told her "Michael may have seen something or known something about an instance that had happened and could help with the investigation," Maria Alvarado said.

Comstock picked up Mrs. Alvarado at the Pico Rivera Post Office where she worked, and her husband, Elias, took then 17-year-old Michael to the sheriffs station where they all met for the interview at approximately 12:30 p.m.

But when Alvarados parents asked Comstock if they could be present during the interview, Comstock denied their request.

What followed was a two-hour interview conducted solely by Comstock in a room that was behind a locked door.

During this time, Comstock questioned Alvarado about the night of Sept. 22, 1995, which left Francisco Castaneda dead from a bullet wound.

Comstock never told Alvarado that he was under arrest and did not give him Miranda warnings explaining his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Nor was Alvarado given a statement to sign indicating that he was voluntarily participating in the interview. Alvarado was a juvenile, had no criminal history, had never been questioned by police and according to his attorney had never even been inside a police station.

When Alvarado first explained his version of the events of the night in question, he did not mention the shooting or his role in hiding the gun. Yet when Comstock "expressed disbelief" at Alvarados story and told him she had witnesses who had said "quite the opposite," Alvarado started relaying details of the shooting and the hiding of the gun. It was only after Alvarado began divulging this information that Comstock informed him he would be free to go home after the interview.

Alvarado eventually explained that after midnight on Sept. 22, he, Paul Soto and some other people went to a shopping mall in Santa Fe Springs, Calif. There they saw Castanedas truck, and one person in the group walked up to Castaneda and obtained one dollar from him. Alvarado then heard Soto say, "let's jack," meaning, "let's steal [Castanedas] truck." Soto went to the drivers side of the truck while Alvarado approached the passengers side. Soto fired a shot. Someone screamed.

When the questioning ended, Comstock retrieved Alvarados parents, brought them back into the interrogation room and played them the tape of their sons confession.

"At that moment my whole world went down," Maria Alvarado recalled.

Two months later, Detective Comstock again called Maria Alvarado at work, this time to inform her that Michael had been charged with second-degree murder and attempted robbery.

Before trial, Alvarado moved to have the court exclude from trial the statements he made to Detective Comstock because his parents were not allowed to be present during the interview. The prosecution countered that Miranda warnings were not required because Alvarado was not "in custody" during the interview. The trial court sided with the prosecution and admitted the audiotaped statements. A jury convicted Alvarado of the charges and he was sentenced to a prison term of 15 years to life.

The California Court of Appeal affirmed, finding "that a reasonable person under the [totality of] circumstances in which Alvarado was questioned would have felt free to leave," and therefore that Miranda warnings need not have been given to him because he was not in custody.

After the California Supreme Court denied review, Alvarado filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. By filing the petition, Alvarado hoped that a federal judge would release him from custody if he could show that the California courts erred in allowing the statements he made to Detective Comstock to be used as evidence. The District Court denied the petition.

On Dec. 18, 2002, a unanimous 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, citing the 1948 U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Haley v. Ohio, which "established the legal principle that juvenile defendants are, in general, more susceptible to police coercion than adults; as such, due process demands that a defendants juvenile status be taken into consideration when determining the proper procedural safeguards that attach to a custodial interrogation."

In concluding that the totality of circumstances indicated that Alvarado was in custody, Judge Richard Cudahy, sitting by designation from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that because Alvarado was a juvenile who had never been arrested and had no prior experience with law enforcement officials, and because his parents brought him to the sheriffs station and were not allowed to be present during the interrogation, Alvarado was objectively "in custody" when he was questioned. The court did not believe that "a reasonable 17-year-old in Alvarados position" would have felt free to terminate the interview and leave, and ruled that the "improper admission of [Alvarados] incriminating statements by the state court had a substantial and injurious effect on the subsequent jury verdict."

The panel ordered Alvarado to be released from custody "unless the state begins trial proceedings within 120 days of the issuance of the mandate."

Instead, California sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court and Alvarado stayed in prison. The state argued that the 9th Circuit had decided an important and recurring issue regarding "custody" for Miranda purposes that conflicts with the decisions of the Court, has caused a spilt among the circuits, and has placed a significant burden on law enforcement.

On Sept. 30, 2003, one week before the start of the 2003-04 term, the Court granted certiorari in the case.

Alvarados mom visited him at the California state prison in Lancaster, and told him that his case was still alive, that he would have to remain in prison for now, and possibly for the duration of his sentence. "He was upset," Maria Alvarado said. "He was very quiet."