In Tekoh v. County, et al., published January 15, 2021, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a defense verdict in a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 case and remanded it for retrial. The plaintiff, an employee at a county medical center was accused of sexual assault on a patient. An investigating sheriff's deputy went to the plaintiff's workplace, and the two went to a nearby private room to talk. Although the deputy interviewed the plaintiff, he did not advise him of his Miranda rights. By the end of the questioning, the plaintiff had written a statement admitting the assault and apologizing for it. The plaintiff tsetified that the officer coerced and threatened him into writing and signing the statement, and dictated the contents of it. The deputy testified that the plaintiff told the deputy he had made a mistake, and at the deputy's request wrote and signed the statement without further prompting. The plaintiff was arrested and criminally charged. His statement was used in the criminal prosecution. A first trial ended with a mistrial. A second trial, at which the plaintiff introduced expert evidence on coerced confessions, ended in acquittal. The plaintiff then sued the deputy for violating the plaintiff's Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. The district court declined to instruct the jury that it should find in his favor on that claim if it found that the deputy obtained statements from him in violation of Miranda that were used in the criminal case against him. Instead, the court instructed the jury that the issue was whether the confession was coerced. The jury found in favor of the deputy.
The 9th Circuit held that the jury instruction was an incorrect statement of the law. In Dickerson v. United States (2000) 530 U.S. 428, the Supreme Court held that Miranda is a rule of constitutional law that could not be overruled by constitutional action. Based on that decision, the Court of Appeals concluded that the right of a criminal defendant against having an unMirandized statement introduced in the prosecution's case in chief is a right secured by the Constitution; and thus such a defendant has a claim that his Fifth Amendment right against Self-Incrimination was violated. Neither United States v. Patane (2004) 542 U.S. 630 or Chavez v. Martinez (2003) 538 U.S. 760 provides otherwise. Both were fractured decisions, in which no common thread of the separate opinions supported the proposition that a criminal defendant whose unMirandized statement is used against him in a criminal prosecution does not have a Fifth Amendment claim. Previous 9th Circuit decisions and the decisions of other circuits support the conclusion. The district court's erroneous instruction was not harmless; it imposed an extra element for the plaintiff to prove--whether the confession was coerced. Further, the issue of whether the plaintiff was in custody when he gave the statement--a necessary element to the Fifth Amendment claim--was never submitted to the jury.
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