Verigan v. Colorado

After pulling over Kimberlie Verigan’s car during a traffic stop, police noticed potential contraband in the car. Police then searched the car and without providing Miranda warnings. After Verigan admitted to possessing methamphetamines, the police arrested her and brought her to a police station, where she received Miranda warnings, waived her rights, and again confessed to possessing methamphetamines. Verigan ultimately moved to suppress her statements, asserting, as pertinent here, that the police had obtained her second confession through the use of the type of two-stage interrogation technique that a majority of the Supreme Court had ruled impermissible in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004). The trial court denied Verigan’s motion, and Verigan was subsequently convicted. She then appealed, and a division of the court of appeals affirmed, reasoning that because Seibert was a fractured opinion with no agreement by a majority on the principles of law to be applied, Seibert did not announce a precedential rule. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the outcome of the appellate court's judgment, joining, however, "the vast majority of courts that have addressed the issue now before us and conclude that Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion in Seibert, which enunciated the 'narrowest grounds' on which the members of the majority concurred, is the controlling precedent to be applied." Applying Justice Kennedy’s test here, the Colorado Court concluded the officers in this case did not engage in a two-step interrogation in a deliberate attempt to undermine the effectiveness of the Miranda warnings provided to Verigan. Accordingly, because Verigan’s pre- and post-warning statements were indisputably voluntary, the division correctly determined that Verigan’s post-warning statements were admissible. View "Verigan v. Colorado" on Justia Law