D. The Public Safety Exception
Recognizing that “public safety must be paramount to
adherence to the literal langauge of Miranda” the United
States Supreme Court in New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S.
649 (1984), announced a limited “public safety” exception
to the requirement that a suspect be advised of his rights
prior to custodial interrogation. In Quarles, officers
arrested a man matching the description of a rapist who was
reportedly armed with a handgun. The arresting officer
frisked the suspect and discovered that he was wearing a
shoulder holster. After handcuffing the suspect, the officer
asked him where the gun was. The suspect responded by
saying, “The gun is over there.” After retrieving the gun,
the officer advised the suspect of Miranda rights and asked
several additional questions regarding the handgun.
Notwithstanding the officer’s failure to advise the
suspect of his rights before asking where the gun was
located, the Court deemed the suspect’s answer admissible
at his trial, concluding that under the particular
circumstances, “overriding considerations of public safety
justified the officer’s failure to provide Miranda warnings
before he asked questions devoted to locating the
abandoned weapon.” Moreover, the test for determining
whether the officer’s conduct complies with the exception
is objective: where his or her inquiry can reasonably be said
to have been prompted by a concern for public safety, then
the exception is applicable and the unwarned statement
may be subsequently admitted at trial.
The Appellate Division, in State in the Interest of A.S.,
227 N.J. Super. 541 (App. Div. 1988), addressed the public
safety exception and concluded that, based upon facts
similar to those addressed in Quarles, sufficient exigencies
existed to justify the officer’s failure to advise the suspect of
his Miranda warnings before asking where a gun could be
found.
E. Adequacy of Miranda Warnings
An officer’s failure to adhere to the precise language of
the warnings enumerated in the Miranda decision does not
invariably render a suspect’s statement inadmissible.
Rather, the warnings given must, viewed in their totality,
satisfactorily express the substantive meaning of the
Miranda rights. California v. Prystock, 453 U.S. 355
(1981). In Duckworth v. Egan, 492 U.S. 195 (1989), the
United States Supreme Court concluded that warnings,
which suggested that the suspect was entitled to an attorney
only at trial, were nonetheless sufficient when viewed in
their totality.
Although it is unlikely that the patently flawed
warnings under scrutiny in Duckworth would pass muster
under this State’s constitution, the Supreme Court of New
Jersey has on one occasion concluded that a deviation from
the language of the warning announced in Miranda did not
warrant suppression of the defendant’s statement. State v.
Melvin, 65 N.J. 1 (1974). Although disapproving of the
officer’s warning to the defendant that anything he said
could be used for or against him at trial, the Court declined
to find constitutional error based upon its observation that
“in resolving the adequacy of the language of a Miranda
warning a court should given precedence to substance over
form.” State v. Melvin, 65 N.J. at 13; see also State v. Dixon,
125 N.J. 223 (1991).It is now clear that officers are not constitutionally
obligated to inform a suspect of anything beyond the
warnings delineated in the Miranda decision. State v.
Adams, 127 N.J. 438 (1992) (“The responsibility of law-
enforcement authorities to inform defendants of their
rights ends with the proper administration of Miranda
warnings”). Thus, if a defendant’s statement is tape
recorded, officers are not required to inform him about the
recording. State v. Vandever, 314 N.J. Super. 124 (App.
Div. 1998). Nor is it necessary for officers to seeking to
question a suspect to inform him of all possible subjects of
the proposed interrogation, the fact that he or she is the
target of the investigation, or the penalties for the crimes
being investigated. See Colorado v. Spring, 479 U.S. 564
(1987); State v. Adams, 127 N.J. 438 (1992) (“A police
officer has no duty to probe for a defendant’s unstated
misconceptions about the effect of the waiver of Fifth
Amendment rights); State v. McKnight, 52 N.J. 35 (1968);
State v. Hollander, 201 N.J. Super. 453 (App. Div.), certif.
denied, 101 N.J. 335 (1985).F. WaiverA valid waiver of both the right to remain silent and the
right to counsel are unconditional prerequisites to the
admissibility of any statement derived from a custodial
interrogation. Moreover, it is firmly embedded in the
jurisprudence of New Jersey that the prosecution must
establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect’s
waiver was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary in light of
all the circumstances. State v. Presha, 163 N.J. 304 (2000);
State v. Burris, 145 N.J. 509 (1996); State v. Kelly, 61 N.J.
283 (1972).As stated unequivocally by the United States Supreme
Court in Miranda, “a valid waiver will not presumed from
the silence of the accused after warnings are given or simply
from the facts that a confession was in fact eventually