Case Title: State v. Phillip Presha

Citation: 

Docket Number: a-79-98

State: new-jersey

Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Date: 2000-03-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). VERNIERO, J., writing for a unanimous Court. This appeal concerns the admissibility of a confession by a juvenile in custody without a parent present during the interrogation by the police. In this case, within an hour after a 12:30 a.m. burglary and physical attack on an elderly couple, Willingboro police officers traced footprints in the snow outside the house of the victims to the nearby home of the juvenile defendant, Phillip Presha. Defendant's mother agreed to take defendant and her other son, who was also home at the time, to the police station after being told about the footprints. At the time, defendant was two weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday and had been arrested fifteen times. Shortly before 4:00 a.m., with the mother's consent, the police took defendant and his brother to the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office. There, in his mother's presence, defendant was informed by a detective of his constitutional rights under Miranda. His mother signed defendant's Miranda card as a witness. She was told that she could be present while her son was questioned, but after she and defendant talked, the pair decided she should not be present in the room. After several periods of questioning, with breaks, defendant confessed to his role in the crime. At first he had denied any involvement, but ultimately he admitted that he and his cousin had committed the offenses. Defendant gave a taped confession to the officers between 7:39 a.m. and 8:11 a.m. Sometime before defendant confessed, his mother asked to see him, telling the officers that she thought her sons should have a lawyer. The officer replied that he didn't think it was necessary because [w]e're just trying to get to the truth. Defendant's mother did not see him until after his taped confession was completed. After conducting a four-day Miranda hearing at which witnesses gave differing testimony regarding the events at issue, the trial court found as a fact that the detective advised defendant of his Miranda rights with his mother present in the room; that both defendant and his mother understood and signed the Miranda card; that both were aware of the mother's right to be present during interrogation; that defendant requested that his mother not be present during the questioning; and that the mother at the outset agreed to be absent, but subsequently asked to reenter the interrogation room. The trial court concluded that defendant's statement was voluntary based on the totality of the circumstances, including defendant's age at the time of his statement, his obvious desire to speak without his mother present, the mother's initial agreement to be absent, and the fair treatment of defendant by the police. Defendant pled guilty to second-degree conspiracy, first-degree robbery, and second-degree burglary and reserved his right to appeal. The trial court sentenced defendant to a twenty-year term of imprisonment with an eight-parole disqualifier for the armed robbery; a concurrent term of ten years with a five-year parole disqualifier for the conspiracy; and a concurrent term of ten years with a five-year parole disqualifier for the burglary. On appeal to the Appellate Division, defendant argued that his rights were violated when his mother was denied access to him during questioning and that the trial court should have merged the conspiracy conviction with the burglary and robbery counts. The Appellate Division agreed with the trial court that based on the totality of the circumstances, defendant's confession was voluntary and therefore admissible. The Appellate Division also held that the conviction for conspiracy should have been merged with the conviction for either robbery or burglary. HELD: Courts should consider the totality of circumstances when reviewing the admissibility of confessions by juveniles in custody. The absence of a parent or legal guardian from the interrogation area is a highly significant fact when considering whether a juvenile's waiver of rights was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. Giving added weight to the mother's absence from the interrogation of the juvenile in this case, the State has demonstrated that his waiver of rights was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. 1. Because of the importance of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a suspect's waiver of that privilege was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary in light of all the circumstances. In determining whether a suspect's confession is the product of free will, courts should consider such factors as the age, education, and intelligence of the suspect, the suspect's previous encounters with the law, advice given as to constitutional rights, the length of detention, whether questioning was repeated and prolonged, and whether there was physical punishment or mental exhaustion. (pp. 9-10) 2. Because punishment as well as rehabilitation now is a component of the State's core mission regarding juvenile offenders, the role of a parent as a buffer between the police and a juvenile in custodial interrogation has become particularly important. A parent or legal guardian should be present in the interrogation room whenever possible and courts should consider the absence of an adult parent or guardian a highly significant factor among all other facts and circumstances when determining the admissibility of a juvenile confession. (pp. 10-13) 3. When a parent or legal guardian is absent from an interrogation of a juvenile under the age of fourteen, any confession resulting from that interrogation should be deemed inadmissible as a matter of law, unless the adult was unwilling to be present or truly unavailable. Police officers must use their best efforts to locate a parent or legal guardian before beginning the interrogation, regardless of the age of a juvenile, and to sustain the admissibility of incriminating statements made outside the presence of the adult, the State must satisfy the court that the authorities were unable to locate the adult. If an adult is unavailable or refuses to accompany the juvenile, the police must conduct the interrogation in accordance with the highest standards of due process and fundamental fairness. (pp. 13-16) 4. It can be concluded that defendant's will was not overborne by the investigators for these reasons: defendant was nearly seventeen years old and had been arrested fifteen times, making him familiar with the criminal process; defendant was given numerous breaks during his interrogation in which he could have decided that he wanted his mother present; and defendant's mother was present initially to provide support to her son and to sign the Miranda card as a witness and consented to her initial absence from the interrogation. Because the proof that defendant's will was not overborne is so compelling in this case and because the police did not have the benefit of the Court's view of the great weight to be accorded the absence of a parent who wishes to be present for questioning, the Court will not disturb the judgments below. (pp. 16-24) The judgment of the Appellate Division is AFFIRMED. JUSTICE STEIN, concurring in the judgment of the Court, is of the view that the Court should adopt a bright-line rule applicable to future cases that statements made by a juvenile whose parent has been deliberately excluded by police from the interrogation room are inadmissible, a rule that he sees as consistent with statutes and judicial decisions throughout the country. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES O'HERN, GARIBALDI, COLEMAN, and LONG join in JUSTICE VERNIERO's opinion. JUSTICE STEIN filed a separate concurring opinion. STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. PHILLIP PRESHA, Defendant-Appellant. Argued October 26, 1999 -- Decided March 23, 2000 On Certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division. Robert L. Sloan, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Ivelisse Torres, Public Defender, attorney). Debra A. Owens, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (John J. Farmer, Jr., Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney). The opinion of the Court was delivered by VERNIERO, J. In this appeal, we consider the voluntariness of a confession by defendant, a juvenile, in a custodial setting. Defendant confessed to committing certain offenses after waiving his constitutional rights in the presence of his mother and deciding that he did not want her present in the interrogation room. At the outset of the interrogation, the parent agreed she should not be present. At the time, the juvenile was almost seventeen years of age and was familiar with the criminal justice system because of fifteen prior arrests. Defendant's mother wanted to rejoin her son well into the questioning, but the police did not accede to that request. The trial court and Appellate Division concluded that the juvenile's confession was voluntary based on the totality of circumstances, including the juvenile's age at the time of his statement, his clear desire to speak outside the presence of his mother, his mother's initial agreement to be absent, and his fair treatment by police. We granted defendant's petition for certification, 160 N.J. 90 (1999), and now affirm. We hold that courts should consider the totality of circumstances when reviewing the admissibility of confessions by juveniles in custody. Moreover, courts should consider the absence of a parent or legal guardian from the interrogation area as a highly significant fact when determining whether the State has demonstrated that a juvenile's waiver of rights was knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. In the specific circumstances of this case, according enhanced weight to the absence of the parent from the interrogation, we conclude that the State has carried its burden. II. SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY A- 79 September Term 1998 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. PHILLIP PRESHA, Defendant-Appellant. STEIN, J., concurring. I join in the Court's determination to sustain the admissibility of the defendant's confession. This record demonstrates that the juvenile defendant had the benefit of a parent's presence during the critical period before questioning began and while defendant was read his Miranda rights. Also significant is the fact that defendant's mother left the room voluntarily. However, I believe that the Court errs when it declines to state unequivocally the consequences in future cases of the deliberate exclusion of parents who have not been present at all during their child's interrogation, and does not acknowledge the obvious connection between the exclusion of parents and the availability of a juvenile's right to counsel. The adoption of a bright-line rule rendering inadmissible those statements made by a juvenile whose parent has been deliberately excluded by the police from the interrogation room would be consistent with statutes and judicial decisions throughout the country. There should be no uncertainty within our State's law enforcement community that the same rule will apply in New Jersey's courts. NO. A-79 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. PHILLIP PRESHA, Defendant-Appellant. DECIDED March 23, 2000 Chief Justice Poritz