Confession to Undercover Agent Might Trigger Miranda if Known Officer Interrupts

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

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Confession to Undercover Agent Might Trigger Miranda if Known Officer Interrupts—C.A.

Opinion Says Case Law Favoring Operations by Phony Inmates as Non-Coercive Does Not Apply Where Suspect Invoked Rights, Police Interrupted Conversation to Lie About Fake Identification

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday that a convicted murderer’s rights were violated by an undercover operation in which he confessed to law enforcement agents, posing as fellow inmates, after he invoked his right to counsel and had his jailhouse conversation interrupted by a known officer who falsely told the defendant that he was about to face charges for the killing based on an eyewitness identification.

Even though the uniformed officer left before the inmate confessed, the court opined that the disruption transformed the nature of the conversation into a custodial interrogation and that the statements were improperly admitted at trial, causing prejudice to the defendant and requiring reversal of his judgment of conviction.

The agents were posing as prisoners as part of a so-called Perkins operation, named after the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case of Illinois v. Perkins, in which the high court held that an undercover officer posing as a fellow inmate need not give Miranda warnings to an incarcerated suspect before questioning because the coercive nature of a custodial interrogation is not present where the prisoner does not know that he is talking to police.

Justice David M. Rubin authored yesterday’s opinion, acknowledging case law suggesting that the non-coercive nature of an undercover, jailhouse operation is not undermined by a known law enforcement agent entering the picture to stimulate a confession unless such officer remains present during the admission but declaring:

“One could read [those cases] to suggest that in order for a police stimulation to constitute an interrogation, the stimulating officer must remain present when the suspect incriminates himself. While that is a relevant circumstance, we do not find it controlling because [the] coercive effect will continue to be present even when the officer is not. In this case, the deputy making his presence generally known…, the lineup ploy, and then the announcement of charges…was coercive notwithstanding the fact that it did not come to fruition until after the deputy left the cell.”

2014 Murder

The question arose after Jason Zapata was accused of the September 2014 murder of aspiring rapper Justin Tripplett, who was gunned down inside his Temecula-area apartment. After another suspect purportedly said that Zapata shot the victim while high on drugs, a Riverside County Sheriff’s deputy orchestrated a Perkins operation in 2015 at a facility where the defendant was being held on unrelated charges.

Zapata was placed in a holding cell with two law enforcement agents posing as fellow inmates for more than three hours, during which time the defendant initially denied involvement in Triplett’s killing. After a uniformed deputy pulled Zapata to compel his participation in a fake lineup, and then falsely told him that a witness had identified him as the shooter, the defendant said he wanted a lawyer before any further questioning.

After he was placed back in the holding cell, the deputy announced that he would face murder charges. The undercover operatives asking him about the killing, and Zapata admitted to shooting Triplett.

During the ensuing trial, then-Riverside Superior Court Judge John M. Davis denied Zapata’s motion to exclude the confession and allowed the admission of an audio recording of a portion of the jailhouse operation. In October 2023, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder and a related firearm allegation.

Davis sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison, and a judgment of conviction was entered in January 2024. Yesterday’s opinion, joined in by Presiding Justice Judith McConnell and Justice William Dato, reverses the judgment, declaring:

“[W]e cannot say the erroneous admission of Zapata’s statements from the Perkins operation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, reversal is required.”

Saying that “[n]ot all Perkins operations are the same,” Rubin wrote:

“[A] variation…is the one employed here. In this version, known law enforcement personnel interact with the suspect during the conversation with the Perkins questioners.” Noting that the purpose of the interruption is to “stimulate” a conversation by “reminding the suspect of law enforcement’s presence” and to increase a suspect’s anxiety so that he might be more likely to incriminate himself to the undercover agents, the jurist remarked:

“While the Perkins case did not directly address police stimulation techniques, it did speak to such tactics. ‘Ploys to mislead a suspect or lull him into a false sense of security that do not rise to the level of compulsion or coercion to speak are not within Miranda’s concern.’...Put another way, ploys which rise to the level of compulsion or coercion remain within Miranda’s ambit. Indeed, obtaining a confession by ‘trickery,’ including false lineups, was among the police tactics criticized in Miranda.”

Recurring Presence

Applying these principles to Zapata’s confession, he reasoned:

“Law enforcement’s recurring presence, along with an elaborate lineup ruse, was intended to place significant pressure on Zapata. More importantly, conducting a fake lineup and announcing the murder charge in the presence of the undercover operatives was ‘reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from’ Zapata….That was the deputy’s stated purpose, and Zapata had no ‘impartial observers to guard against intimidation or trickery’…when he subsequently incriminated himself. Accordingly, the deputy’s actions raised the Perkins operation to a custodial interrogation, implicating Zapata’s rights under Miranda….”

Acknowledging that “two cases have found admissible a suspect’s statements made after invoking the right to counsel and during Perkins operations involving police stimulations,” he said that “the level of activity of the known law enforcement” in Zapata’s operation distinguished it from the scenarios in those matters.

Rubin added:

“[W]e remain mindful that Perkins operations furnish law enforcement, and the community as a whole, a valuable tool to solve crimes. However, police agencies must not violate the important constitutional rights implicated by Perkins operations.” In a footnote, the justice pointed out that the California Supreme Court has granted review of the 2024 unpublished decision by Div. One of this district’s Court of Appeal in People v. Allen, in which the court found that a defendant’s statements to an undercover jailhouse agent after he invoked his right to counsel did not violate the Constitution. He explained:

“[O]ur holding is limited to a post-Miranda invocation Perkins operation where stimulations from a known police officer amount to custodial interrogation.”

The case is People v. Zapata, 2026 S.O.S. 413.