Contract-killer's confession is admissible at trial

Contract-killing does not just happen in Hollywood. We have real-life contract killers, too. In this case, the defendant was convicted of a murder-for-hire but challenges his conviction on the basis that he made incriminating comments in violation of his Miranda rights. The Court of Appeals does not see it that way, and the conviction stands.

The case is United States v. Pence, issued on April 10. After Plaintiff and his wife began caring for foster children, they took in five children from another couple. For a while the families got a long, but the relationship deteriorated when the family wanted their children back. According to the Court of Appeals Cabranes, Chin and Robinson), Pence began communicating with a hitman and arranged for the family's killing so that it would look like an accident. The killing would cost approximately $16,000.

After tracing the internet contacts with the contract killers to the Pence household, the FBI got a search warrant for the Pence home. When the FBI arrived, Pence agreed to speak with them, though the FBI allowed Pence to walk around the house for a moment to grab his shoes and he walked himself to the FBI vehicle, where a recording device captured Pence confessed to the murder-for-hire. At the time of the confession, Pence was told he was not under arrest. The officers then read Pence his Miranda rights. 

Pence argues that his confession was unlawful because he was officially in police custody but made incriminating statements prior to the Miranda rights were administered. If so, then the confession is tainted and the FBI will have to prove Pence's involvement in the attempted murder through some other way. But that will not be necessary, the  Court of Appeals holds, because Pence was not really in police custody when he spilled the beans. We analyze this issue through a totality of the circumstances test, considering in part whether a reasonable person would have felt free to leave when the police were present.

On this record, Pence was not in custody because a reasonable person in his position would not have believed he was not free to leave, or that he was at the mercy of the FBI agents. He entered the FBI vehicle under his own free will, outside his home while his family went about their day. He was not handcuffed and agreed to speak with the agents, who did not point their guns at him. No one yelled at Pence. While the agents outnumbered Pence 2:1 and they questioned him for 1.5 hours, that is not enough to show he did not reasonably believe he could not walk away. While the agents did present Pence with some evidence of his guilt, and that factor certainly counts for something in this equation, that factor is not dispositive, as the agents did not threaten to arrest him. Nor is it dispositive that the agents came to the house with equipment and weapons, making Pence feel like "Armageddon" was at the front door. In the end, the Court of Appeals says, Pence confessed to the crime after the FBI told him he was not under arrest and was under no obligation to speak with them.