defendant's statements given during custodial interrogation are only admissible if police first read defendant his or her Miranda rights

State v Fulgencio Gonzalez-Monasterio the court held

Generally, a defendant's statements given during custodial interrogation are only admissible if police first read defendant his or her Miranda rights. A defendant may then waive these rights, however, the "waiver must be 'voluntary, knowing, and intelligent.'" Ibid. (quoting Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S. Ct. at 1612, 16 L. Ed. 2d at 706). The State bears the burden of proving, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a defendant's prior statements are admissible. Id. at 383. If the State demonstrates either that the defendant was not in custody, State v. Carlucci, 217 N.J. 129, 144 (2014), or that the statements were not elicited in response to interrogation, State v. Stever, 107 N.J. 543, 552-53, cert. denied, 484 U.S. 954, 108 S. Ct. 348, 98 L. Ed.2d 373 (1987), then the statements may be admitted.

Martinez argues that the trial court incorrectly found he was not in custody when he first spoke to the police and gave consent to search his home. When the State began to introduce these statements, Martinez objected, and the court held a hearing to determine whether Martinez was in custody at the time. The State presented testimony from Sergeant Eleazar Ricardo, the interviewing investigator, and Martinez did not testify. After summarizing the facts, the trial court applied "the objective reasonable [person] test," and denied the motion, finding that Martinez "was not in custody because an objective reasonable person under the circumstances described here would not reasonably believe that he was not free to leave."

The predicate condition for the police requirement to administer Miranda warnings is whether the defendant was in custody. State v. P.Z., 152 N.J. 86, 102 (1997). Custodial interrogation occurs when a law enforcement officer initiates questioning after a person has been taken into police custody "'or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.'" State v. O'Neal, 190 N.J. 601, 615 (2007) (quoting Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S. Ct. at 1612, 16 L. Ed. 2d at 706).

A person may be "in custody" for purposes of determining whether he or she is entitled to a Miranda warning irrespective of whether there has been a formal arrest, the existence of physical restraints, or whether the interrogation occurred in the suspect's home, a public place, or a police station. P.Z., supra, 152 N.J. at 103. "The critical determinant of custody is whether there has been a significant deprivation of the suspect's freedom of action based on the objective circumstances, including the time and place of the interrogation, the status of the interrogator, the status of the suspect, and other such factors." Ibid.

Custody is an objective determination. Carlucci, supra, 217 N.J. at 144. A defendant is in custody if "a reasonable person in defendant's position, based on the nature of the police encounter, would not have believed that he [or she] was free to leave." O'Neal, supra, 190 N.J. at 616.

In this case, the trial court applied the incorrect legal standard in determining that Martinez was not in custody when the police first questioned him at 1:00 a.m. The court erroneously viewed the evidence under an "objective reasonable [person] test," rather than the correct standard, which requires "an objective determination, based on 'how a reasonable [person] in the suspect's position would have understood his situation.'" Carlucci, supra, 217 N.J. at 144 (alteration in original) (emphasis added) (quoting Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 442, 104 S. Ct. 3138, 3151, 82 L. Ed.2d 317, 336 (1984)).

Thus, in determining whether Martinez would have believed he was free to leave, the court should have examined the circumstances from the perspective of a reasonable person in Martinez's position. The court failed to address the undisputed evidence that Martinez had been taken to the police station while he was so intoxicated that the police had declined to question him, that he had been sleeping there for approximately seven hours, and that he had awoken to find himself in the presence of police officers. The court accepted the State's assertion that Martinez was in an area generally used for domestic violence witnesses; however, no such witnesses were present at that time, so Martinez was unlikely to have realized that fact.

Sergeant Ricardo's claim that Martinez was free to leave did not render that assertion objectively true. A statement by police that a defendant is free to leave, even when made directly to the suspect at the time of the interrogation, "is 'not a talisman in whose presence the [Fifth] Amendment fades away and disappears.'" State v. Stott, 171 N.J. 343, 368 (2002) (alteration in original) (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 461, 91 S. Ct. 2022, 2035, 29 L. Ed.2d 564, 580 (1971)). Instead, the circumstances here suggest that the police may have questioned Martinez to elicit incriminating evidence, and only provided Miranda warnings once that evidence was obtained. Our Supreme Court has roundly condemned the use of a "two-step, 'question-first, warn-later' interrogation" as "a technique devised to undermine both the efficacy of Miranda and our state law privilege." State v. O'Neill, 193 N.J. 148, 180 (2007).

We conclude that the trial court failed to apply the appropriate standard to determine the admissibility of Martinez's pre-Miranda statement to the police. Because we are reversing for other reasons, on remand, Martinez shall be permitted to make a new pre-trial motion for the trial court to consider his motion under the correct legal standard.