New York v. Quarles

Facts

Shortly after midnight on September 11, 1980, Officers Kraft and Scarring were on road patrol in Queens when a young woman approached their car. She said a man had just raped her. She described him as tall, wearing a black jacket with "Big Ben" in yellow letters on the back. She said he had just entered a nearby A & P supermarket and was carrying a gun. Officer Kraft went into the store and saw Quarles, who matched the description. Quarles ran toward the rear of the store. Kraft chased him with a drawn gun and lost sight of him for several seconds. Kraft then ordered Quarles to stop and put his hands over his head. Other officers had arrived, but Kraft reached Quarles first. He frisked Quarles and found a shoulder holster that was empty. After handcuffing him, Kraft asked where the gun was. Quarles nodded toward some empty cartons and said, "the gun is over there." Kraft retrieved a loaded .38-caliber revolver from a carton. He then formally arrested Quarles and read him his Miranda rights from a printed card. Quarles said he would answer questions without a lawyer. Kraft asked whether he owned the gun and where he bought it. Quarles said he owned it and bought it in Miami, Fla.

Issues

1. Is there a public safety exception to the Miranda requirement of warnings before custodial questioning, so that a suspect's answers to questions reasonably prompted by a concern for public safety may be admitted at trial?
2. Does the availability of that exception depend on the subjective motivation of the individual officer who asked the question?

Holding

On these facts, Officer Kraft's question about where the discarded gun was fell within the public safety exception. The statement "the gun is over there" and the gun were wrongly excluded for lack of warnings, and the later statements were not illegal fruits of a Miranda violation.