New York v. Quarles

On September 11, 1980, at approximately 12:30 A.M., Officer Frank Kraft and Officer Sal Scarring were on road patrol in Queens, N.Y., when a young woman approached their car. She told them that she had just been raped by a black male, approximately six feet tall, who was wearing a black jacket with the name “Big Ben” printed in yellow letters on the back. She told the officers that the man had just entered an A&P supermarket and that he was carrying a gun. The officers drove the woman to the supermarket. When they found the suspect, one officer frisked him and asked him where the gun was. Respondent nodded in the direction of some empty cartons and responded, “the gun is over there.” The officer retrieved a loaded .38-caliber revolver from one of the cartons, formally placed respondent under arrest, and read him his Miranda rights. In the subsequent prosecution of respondent for criminal possession of a weapon, the judge excluded the statement, “the gun is over there.”