United States v. Fnu Lnu

653 F.3d 144, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 16370, 2011 WL 3447494
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedAugust 9, 2011
DocketDocket 10-419-cr
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 653 F.3d 144 (United States v. Fnu Lnu) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Fnu Lnu, 653 F.3d 144, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 16370, 2011 WL 3447494 (2d Cir. 2011).

Opinions

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge:

The district court (Weinstein, J.) denied the defendant’s motion to suppress testimony from the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officer who questioned her without Miranda warnings on her arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport. We reject the district court’s reasoning that either a general exception to Miranda for border questioning exists or that the officer’s intent in posing the questions is relevant. But, based on the totality of the circumstances, we conclude that the defendant was not in custody during the questioning and so Miranda warnings were unnecessary. Accordingly, we affirm the defendant’s conviction.

Background

The defendant, traveling under the name Sandra Calzada, arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on December 29, 2008, on a flight from the Dominican Republic. In preparing to process the passengers from this flight, CBP Officer Frank Umowski ran the flight’s manifest through a database of outstanding warrants and received notice that Calzada’s name appeared on a New York Police Department (NYPD) arrest warrant. Umowski verified that the date and place of birth of the person on the warrant matched that listed on the passport for the passenger and flagged Calzada for “secondary inspection.” Upon arrival, an armed guard escorted her to the secondary inspection room, which, Umowski concedes, she was not free to leave, and Umowski questioned her.

She presented a U.S. passport in the name of Sandra Calzada. He asked her: her name, her citizenship, and where and when she was born. She responded: Sandra Calzada, U.S. citizen, Puerto Rico, and gave a date of birth matching the passport. He asked if she had ever been arrested; she said no. He took her fingerprints, which failed to match those in the NYPD warrant. After a brief computer search, he found her 2008 passport application, which requested renewal of a 1998 passport, and determined that the application contained the same photograph and infor[147]*147mation- as the passport the defendant presented. He then examined the 1998 application, which bore a photograph that he thought depicted someone else. Umowski confronted her with that older photograph, and she said she did not recognize the person pictured.

Umowski again questioned the defendant about her name and background, including her parents and siblings, this time using a translator. She responded that she had one brother, whereas the 1998 passport application listed only one sister. She was unable to recall any addresses where she had lived in Puerto Rico. In total, the questioning lasted for about 90 minutes. Umowski then delivered the defendant to another officer, to whom she gave a sworn statement.1 CBP deemed her inadmissible at that time and held her over for a hearing with an immigration judge. At some later time, different federal agents arrested her on an indictment for making a false statement, in a passport application, 18 U.S.C. § 1542; misusing a passport, id. § 1544; and aggravated identity theft, id. § 1028A(a)(l) & (c)(7).

In the district court, the defendant moved in limine to suppress her statements to Umowski, whom the government had slated as a trial witness, because he failed to provide her with the prophylactic warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The district court held a hearing and found Miranda inapplicable to this situation. It first held that Miranda warnings are not required where a person is questioned in a “routine border crossing inquiry.” United States v. FNU LNU, 261 F.R.D. 1, 3 (E.D.N.Y.2009). It further explained that Miranda warnings were unnecessary because it believed Umowski’s testimony that his “purpose ... was to verify if [the defendant], in fact, was admissible into the U.S. as a U.S. citizen.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The court also explained that the interrogation constituted routine border questioning because “Umowski’s function or intent” was only to determine the defendant’s true identity. Id. It therefore denied the motion.

Umowski and the translator testified at trial. The government also presented testimony from the real Sandra Calzada, who testified that when she had been a cocaine addict, she had sold her passport, birth certificate, and social security card to her drug dealer. She had presented two different stories to the authorities before the one she told at trial and testified pursuant to a nonprosecution agreement covering her passport offenses, her cocaine offenses, and a more recent state shoplifting charge. A State Department agent, Eric Donelan, testified that the defendant possessed a receipt for the 2008 passport renewal and a social security card in the name Sandra Iris Calzada. He also testified that her boyfriend had brought the canceled 1998 passport, which bore her picture, to the airport after her detention and that her boyfriend had provided CBP with a birth certificate matching the information on both passports. Finally, the government called a Department of Homeland Security document expert, Wayne Laptosh, who testified that the 1998 passport had been altered.

The defendant presented no affirmative case, and the jury convicted her on all three counts. The district court sentenced her to 25 months’ imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and the mandatory special assessment. The defendant timely appealed, challenging only the district court’s suppression decision.

[148]*148Discussion

This case presents the question of whether the district court correctly ruled that Officer Umowski’s questioning failed to rise to the level of a “custodial interrogation” under Miranda and thus whether that court properly admitted into evidence the defendant’s statements to Umowski. Though we generally review a district court’s evidentiary decisions for abuse of discretion, United States v. Quinones, 511 F.3d 289, 307 (2d Cir.2007), we review decisions on suppression motions de novo, In re Terrorist Bombings of U.S. Embassies in E. Afr., 552 F.3d 157, 167 (2d Cir.2008). We may, however, uphold the district court’s ultimate decision on any ground supported in the record. United States v. Green, 595 F.3d 432, 436 (2d Cir.2010).

An interaction between law enforcement officials and an individual generally triggers Miranda’s prophylactic warnings when the interaction becomes a “custodial interrogation.” This determination has two parts: (a) there must be an interrogation of the defendant, and (b) it must be while she is in “custody.” See Cruz v. Miller, 255 F.3d 77, 80-81 (2d Cir.2001) (recognizing custody and interrogation as separate elements of the Miranda determination); accord United States v. Ali, 68 F.3d 1468, 1473 (2d Cir.1995). Neither the government nor the district court suggests that Umowski’s direct questioning of the defendant fails to qualify as an interrogation. An interrogation consists of “express questioning or its functional equivalent,” which aptly describes the interaction between Umowski and the defendant. Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300-01, 100 S.Ct.

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Bluebook (online)
653 F.3d 144, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 16370, 2011 WL 3447494, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-fnu-lnu-ca2-2011.