David, J.
In this case we address whether, under Indiana Evidence Rule 617, admission of incriminating statements made in a motel room during the course of a custodial interrogation required the State to make available an electronic recording of those statements at trial. …
On June 18, 2015, Aaron Fansler (“Fansler”) accepted a Facebook friend request to connect with a user who appeared to be a twenty-one-year-old woman named “Kenzie Allen” (“Kenzie”). Kenzie was not a real person; a fake Facebook account using that name was set up by a drug task force team investigating drug dealing in Grant County. … Fansler agreed to sell two-tenths of a gram of heroin to Kenzie at the Hart Motel, located in Marion, Indiana.
The next day, lured by the prospects of sexual intercourse and a drug sale, Fansler visited Kenzie’s motel room where he was greeted by Detective Wesley McCorkle, a member of the Joint Effort Against Narcotics (“JEAN”) Team. … As Fansler walked along the outside of the motel, a second officer, Detective Sergeant John Kauffman, approached Fansler and arrested him. Fansler was brought back into the motel room, where officers noticed a syringe protruding from an open flap in his cargo pants. Officers retrieved the syringe and, upon searching Fansler further, they recovered over a dozen clonazepam and oxycodone pills, numerous empty plastic bags, a scale, a tourniquet, a hypodermic needle, two cigarette packs, and more than $250 in cash.
After Fansler’s pockets were emptied and his Miranda warnings were read, Fansler made two incriminating statements. The first statement came in response to officers’ questions about the drugs he promised to sell. When officers asked Fansler “where the two points of heroin were,” he told them that the “points” should be in the baggies. …When officers asked Fansler “why he didn’t tell [them] about [the large amount of compressed powder] being in the cigarettes in his possession,” Fansler made a second incriminating statement, claiming that he did not want to “get caught with it” and “go to jail for it.”
On June 24, 2015, Fansler was charged with possession of heroin with intent to deliver, felony possession of heroin, misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, and misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia. Fansler filed a motion to suppress his incriminating statements, which the trial court denied after holding a preliminary hearing.
A jury trial was held on August 1-2, 2016. Fansler admitted possession, but denied intent to deliver and raised an affirmative entrapment defense. During the State’s case in chief, Detective Sergeant Kauffman testified as to Fansler’s two self-incriminating statements—… Ultimately, the jury found Fansler guilty on all four counts.
On September 9, 2016, Fansler was sentenced to thirteen years for dealing, with ten years executed in the Department of Correction and three years suspended. …
Fansler appealed, alleging the two post-Miranda self-incriminating statements he made to officers should not have been admitted into evidence because no electronic recording of the statements was made available at trial, as required by Indiana Evidence Rule 617. …
In a unanimous published opinion, the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s conviction, finding that although the trial court erred in admitting Fansler’s statements without an electronic recording, any error committed was harmless because Fansler’s own admissions at trial and the generally uncontested nature of his possession of heroin eliminated the likelihood that the challenged statements contributed to the verdict. Fansler v. State, 81 N.E.3d 671, 678 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017). …
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Since our Court has yet to construe Rule 617, we elect to address whether the trial court erred in admitting Fansler’s incriminating statements without an electronic recording. …
Indiana Evidence Rule 617 is not a constitutional requirement or a prophylactic rule meant to enforce the Constitution; rather, it is a rule of judicial administration. Thus, assessing the admissibility of Fansler’s statements requires only examining the rule for intent. In doing so, our goal is to determine whether it applies to the circumstances before us. We find that it does not.
Rule 617 heightens the requirements for admissibility of statements in certain circumstances by specifically providing that, “[i]n a felony prosecution, evidence of a statement made by a person during a Custodial Interrogation in a Place of Detention shall not be admitted against the person unless an Electronic Recording of the statement was made, preserved, and is available at trial . . . .” Ind. Evidence Rule 617(a). … A “custodial interrogation” is defined as “an interview conducted by law enforcement during which a reasonable person would consider himself or herself to be in custody.” Id.
The State did not make available at trial an electronic recording of Fansler’s statements and concedes that the statements were made in the course of a custodial interrogation. … Thus, whether Rule 617’s electronic recording mandate for admission of statements applies here turns on whether the motel room used to conduct the custodial interrogation was a “place of detention.”
… A place of detention is defined in subsection (b) as a “jail, law enforcement agency station house, or any other stationary or mobile building owned or operated by a law enforcement agency at which persons are detained in connection with criminal investigations.” … The Hart Motel was owned by a man known to officers as “Bobby,” who was friendly with police and on occasion allowed police to conduct operations, free of charge. But whether law enforcement operated the motel room in a manner that transformed it into a place of detention is less obvious.
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… A “place of detention” describes a more formal setting where interrogations are routinely carried out in a systematic manner. While a jail or station house ordinarily serve this purpose, a temporary mobile command post where police have established a presence to handle an increase in processing needs (perhaps due to a large sporting event) may serve as the functional equivalent of a station house. But the manner in which the space at issue was used does not support a finding that it became the functional equivalent of a station house. Although a custodial interrogation occurred here, as often does during arrests, the primary use of the room was not to conduct custodial interrogations.
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Accordingly, we find that the motel room, as used by law enforcement in this case, was not a place of detention. This is not to say that a motel room can’t ever become a place of detention. …
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… We find that the trial court did not err in admitting testimony about the statements Fansler made after being duly advised of his Miranda rights. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s conviction.
Rush, CJ., and Massa, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.