Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Judge SUDDOCK.

Kotzebue police officers knocked on David Melton's door to speak with him about a sexual assault allegation by a woman named J.A. Melton answered the door and agreed to speak with the officers as they stood outside his house. The officers informed Melton that his probation officer, who had accompanied them, intended to test him for the presence of alcohol. (Melton was subject to a no-alcohol probation condition.) In response to an officer's question, Melton denied sexual intercourse with J.A. Shortly thereafter, Melton failed a portable breath test.

Melton later moved to suppress his statement denying the sexual intercourse (as well as other statements). Superior Court Judge Tim Dooley denied the motion as to Melton's statements made before he took the portable breath test.

Melton's statement to the police that he did not have sex with J.A. bore important implications for his trial, because testing revealed that DNA matching J.A.'s genetic profile was present on Melton's penis. Rather than defending at trial on the basis that J.A. had consented to sexual intercourse, Melton's defense attorney argued, consistent with Melton's statement to the police, that Melton had not in fact engaged in sexual intercourse with J.A. The jury rejected this defense and convicted Melton of first-degree sexual assault.1

On appeal, Melton implicitly concedes that the police were entitled to knock on his door to speak with him, and that this, standing alone, did not amount to a custodial interrogation requiring a Miranda warning. Melton also implicitly concedes that his probation officer was entitled to test him for the presence of alcohol, and that this also, standing alone, did not rise to the level of Miranda custody.

Instead, Melton argues that, because the police spoke with Melton at a time when he was not free to disengage from them until the probation officer tested him for alcohol, what would otherwise be a non-custodial encounter rose to the level of Miranda custody.

For the reasons explained in this opinion, we conclude that Melton was not in Miranda custody when he spoke to the police before the breath test.

Background facts

J.A. reported to the Kotzebue police that David Melton had sexually assaulted her after a night of drinking at Melton's house. Based on this report, police officers went to Melton's house to speak with him. They were accompanied by Melton's probation officer, who intended to investigate whether Melton had consumed alcohol and thereby violated a no-alcohol condition of his felony probation.

Melton opened his door and spoke with the police officers standing outside:

Melton subsequently moved to suppress his statements to the police at the house. Following an evidentiary hearing, the superior court suppressed only the statements that Melton made after he heard the results of the portable breath test and before the Miranda advisement.

A jury convicted Melton of one count of first-degree sexual assault. This appeal followed.

Why we conclude that Melton was not in Miranda custody when he spoke to the police before the breath test

Melton claims that his questioning by the police was sufficiently coercive that he was in Miranda custody from the outset of the police inquiry at his front door. Melton asserts that this coercion stemmed from the presence of his probation officer; he argues that, because the probation officer required Melton to undergo a check for alcohol consumption, Melton was unable to exercise his constitutionally based prerogative to simply shut his door and decline to talk to the police.

In Hunter v. State, our supreme court held that "[Miranda] [c]ustody occurs if the suspect is physically deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way or is led to believe, as a reasonable person, that he is so deprived."2 In Smith v. State, the supreme court held that the "ultimate inquiry" in determining Miranda custody is whether the subject was placed under a "restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest."3

As the United States Supreme Court held in Kentucky v. King, when police officers knock on a door to speak with an occupant,

This manner of engagement with an occupant of a home is known colloquially as a "knock-and-talk."5 Melton argues that his case is distinguishable from a typical knock-and-talk case. He contends that the signature factor in such cases — the occupant's absolute ability to decline to answer questions or to simply shut the door in the officers' faces — was not feasible for Melton, because he was required to comply with his probation officer's order to undergo alcohol testing. Accordingly, Melton argues, he was not free to simply decline to answer police questions or to close the door to his home, and this circumstance elevated the encounter to Miranda custody.

The State in turn argues that the brief limitation on Melton's movement imposed by his duty to undergo alcohol testing could be likened to the limitation on a subject's freedom during an investigative stop, a limitation that courts hold does not necessarily rise to the level of Miranda custody.6 The State cites Minnesota v. Murphy for the proposition that, when a probation officer directs a probationer to come to the probation office and then questions the probationer about a crime, the probationer has not thereby been placed in Miranda custody.7

In State v. Fields, the Oregon Supreme Court addressed a situation where a probation officer and a police detective worked in tandem to question a probationer.8 The court held that, even though the probation officer had brought the probationer to the probation office (under false pretenses) and then had summoned a police detective to interrogate the probationer in that office, the probationer was not placed in Miranda custody, because the probationer understood that he was neither under arrest nor required to answer questions.9

In the present case, Melton agreed to speak with the police immediately after he answered the door, before the topic of a breath test arose. Seconds after the breath test was mentioned, but before the test was administered, Melton denied having sexual intercourse with J.A.

Soon thereafter, an officer announced the result of the breath test. The superior court found that only at that point, when it was clear that Melton had violated his probation, was Melton's freedom of movement constrained to a degree that constituted Miranda custody. (We have not been asked to review the superior court's ruling that Melton was in Miranda custody at that point, and we express no opinion on its correctness.)

We conclude that Melton's obligation to take a breath test at the request of his probation officer did not meaningfully diminish his freedom not to cooperate with the police in any other way. While Melton may not have been completely free to tell the officers to leave his home, this restraint on Melton's freedom arose from his obligation as a probationer. That minimal restraint did not give rise to any concomitant obligation to answer police questions. This type of temporary custody for a defined, limited purpose does not trigger the requirements of Miranda.10 We accordingly uphold the superior court's ruling that Melton was not in Miranda custody when he denied having sexual intercourse with J.A.

Conclusion

We AFFIRM the superior court's judgment.