No Miranda Alert for Handcuffed Man, ‘Deeply Divided’ Court Says

A man indicted on firearm possession charges lost his bid to suppress evidence of statements he made while handcuffed, after a split Fifth Circuit panel ruled he wasn’t “in custody” and thus wasn’t entitled to a Miranda warning.

The lone officer who questioned Braylon Ray Coulter for 15 minutes on a “dark street” in the middle of the night employed a “non-threatening, non-aggressive approach” in which handcuffs were used as a precaution for officer safety, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said Monday in a split opinion by Judge Edith H. Jones. A reasonable person in ...