Can you be “released from custody” when you’re in jail?

Sass can't believe the state's argument
(photo by John Storz)  

The question seems paradoxical, if not outright nonsensical.  And the answer to the question can be equally goofy—enough to flummox even the sharpest legal watchdog.  Take for example, the Miranda warnings.  The police must read them before they interrogate an in-custody suspect.  Certainly a person in jail is in custody, right?  Not necessarily.  The police might be able to legally interrogate an imprisoned defendant without Miranda warnings unless the defendant can later show that he was “in custody within custody.”  (Very clever.)  In other words, he was in custody, sure, but he was out of custody regarding the subject matter of the interrogation!  Therefore, Miranda warnings might not be required!

Prosecutors and courts like to pay this game with bond conditions, too.  Assume that a defendant’s signature bond has a “no contact with Ms. Smith” condition, he signs the bond, but he remains in custody because he’s also being held on another case for which he can’t post the cash bail.  In this scenario, if he calls Ms. Smith from inside the jail, he’s committing bail jumping because, even though he’s locked away and literally can’t get out, he’s technically “released from custody” on the case for which he signed the signature bond that includes the “no contact with Ms. Smith” condition!  See State v. Dewitt, 2008 WI App 134.  Most prosecutors and some judges live for this kind of sneaky, form-over-substance, somewhat clever, “gotcha” approach to criminal law.

But recently, in State v. Jacobs, prosecutors tried to extend the application of this ploy and went a bit too far.  Sure, the trial court judge, Katherine Sloma, proved to be an eager coconspirator, and bought the prosecutor’s argument hook, line, and sinker.  But the appellate court couldn’t quite stomach it and had to reverse. 

Logjam: An Unintended Consequence of the Preliminary-Hearing Swindle

One of my new articles, which is currently under submission for publication, is titled The Preliminary-Hearing Swindle: A Crime Against Procedure.  In it, I explain a swindle happening in criminal cases throughout Wisconsin.  The preliminary hearing, or simply the “prelim,” has been replaced with a mere in-court reading of the prosecutor’s unchallenged allegations in the complaint.  In some Wisconsin counties, the prosecutors are a bit more straightforward about what they’re doing.  They don’t carry on with the pretense of calling a “witness” to read the complaint or answer questions about it from the “witness” stand.  Instead, because the magistrate is capable of reading the document for him or herself, and in fact has already read the document, the prosecutors in some counties will simply “move” the complaint into “evidence.”  (There is, quite paradoxically, a certain Machiavellian honesty to this streamlined approach, I have to admit.)