An El Paso County judge mistakenly suppressed evidence from a police interview of a sexual assault suspect, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Monday, finding the suspect was not in custody because he was able to impose a time limit on his interrogation.

“While no one factor is determinative, this fact is significant because a reasonable person who sets the length of an interrogation is unlikely to believe that his freedom of action has been curtailed to a degree associated with formal arrest,” wrote Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright for the Court. Because he was not in custody, the suspect was not entitled to a Miranda warning of his constitutional rights, the Court concluded.

A female victim reported to police that Jose Padilla, Jr. had allegedly sexually assaulted her, prompting two Colorado Springs detectives to speak with Padilla after his probation appointment. The detectives met with Padilla in a windowless conference room and audio recorded the interrogation.

Up front, the parties established Padilla only had a few minutes to talk before he had other obligations. 

“I’m not avoiding you. I’ll sit down and talk to you, but I mean, honestly,” Padilla told them, “it’d probably be better, man, if we could set up an appointment and we could just meet up then and just, we can talk about whatever you want.”

One of the detectives agreed to this, then prompted Padilla: “Obviously, just based on the allegation, did you have any sort of sexual encounter with [the victim]?”

Padilla responded in the negative, and recounted his side of the alleged sexual assault, including his assertion that the victim was “really drunk” and he had stopped the encounter from escalating.

The detectives asked whether Padilla would consent to a DNA test in the conference room, which he did. They then agreed to meet with Padilla two weeks later to “talk a little bit more [in] detail.” Padilla left the room after approximately 10 minutes, without the detectives releasing him or explicitly telling him he was free to go.

The DNA test subsequently matched swabs from the victim, and police arrested Padilla on two counts of sexual assault. Padilla attempted to suppress the evidence from his interrogation because the detectives had not advised him of his Miranda rights.

A 1966 U.S. Supreme Court decision required law enforcement to give a Miranda warning to suspects in custody who are subject to interrogation, so as to not implicate themselves in a crime. El Paso County District Court Judge Erin L. Sokol agreed that Padilla was in custody based on several factors: the tone of the meeting was “pressured,” the detectives continued talking past Padilla’s request to reschedule and they never told Padilla he was not under arrest.

Consequently, she barred Padilla’s statements from evidence and prosecutors appealed directly to the state Supreme Court.

The Court previously established a set of criteria to determine whether an interaction between police and suspects amounts to an interrogation in custody. Those include the circumstances of the encounter, tone and mood, restraints placed on the suspect and whether an officer gave any directions to the suspect.

Examining the audio and considering the environment, the Supreme Court found the tone of the interrogation to be “friendly” and “conversational,” that Padilla already knew he was under investigation, and the detectives neither restrained Padilla nor gave him directives. On the other hand, the conversation took place after a mandatory probation appointment and the setting “closely resembled a traditional interrogation room.”

“In weighing all the facts, we place particular emphasis on the fact that Padilla dictated the length of the interrogation,” Boatright explained in the March 22 opinion. “Simply put, the time, mood, topics, and length of the conversation made it clear that Padilla was leaving the room of his own accord after a short period of time.”

The court reversed Sokol’s suppression order and returned the matter to the trial court.

The case is People v. Padilla.