The question in the case concerning prisoners, Howes v. Fields, No. 10-680, was whether an inmate’s confession to a sex crime should have been suppressed because he did not receive the familiar warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona before he was questioned. The answer turned on whether he was in custody at the time. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority in the 6-to-3 decision, said that “custody” for these purposes “is a term of art that specifies circumstances that are thought generally to present a serious danger of coercion.” The inmate, Randall L. Fields, was in a Michigan jail for disorderly conduct when he was taken to a conference room in the jail in the evening and was questioned for five to seven hours by armed deputies who used a sharp tone and profanity. He was told he was free to return to his cell but was not given Miranda warnings. The key inquiry, Justice Alito said, was whether a reasonable person in those circumstances would have felt free to end the questioning and leave. He said the fact of imprisonment did not by itself provide the answer. Being moved from one sort of confinement to another, Justice Alito wrote, is unlike “the shock that very often accompanies arrest,” where “detention represents a sharp and ominous change, and the shock may give rise to coercive pressures.” People already in prison or jail, moreover, he said, are “unlikely to be lured into speaking by a longing for prompt release.” And law enforcement officials questioning a prisoner “probably lack the authority to affect the duration of his sentence.” Justice Alito acknowledged that some of the factors present in the questioning — including the length, hour and tone of the questioning — suggested that Mr. Fields had been taken into “custody” for purposes covered by the Miranda decision. But other circumstances, notably that he was told he was free to leave, suggested the opposite. On balance, Justice Alito said, Mr. Fields was not in custody, and so no warnings were required. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for herself and Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, said there was little question that Mr. Fields had been confined in a stressful and coercive setting. “Was Fields ‘held for interrogation’?” she asked, quoting from the Miranda decision. “Brought to, and left alone with, the gun-bearing deputies, he surely was in my judgment.” “Today,” Justice Ginsburg concluded, “for people already in prison, the court finds it adequate for the police to say: ‘You are free to terminate this interrogation and return to your cell.’ Such a statement is no substitute for one ensuring that an individual is aware of his rights.” Also on Tuesday, the court issued a revised argument schedule for the challenges to the 2010 health care overhaul. On March 26, the first of three days of arguments, the court will hear 90 minutes of arguments, instead of an hour, about whether it has jurisdiction to hear the case before 2015 in light of a federal law that bans challenges to tax penalties until they become due. That brings the total time allotted to the challenges to six hours. In a third development, Chief Justice Roberts agreed to a request from Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to release a 1991 resolution concerning gifts and outside income. In it, the justices on the court at the time said regulations on those subjects did not apply to the Supreme Court but added that they would “comply with the substance” of the regulations.
