Opinion ID: 835779
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Evidence of Body of Unrelated Victim

Text: In another assignment of error, defendant contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion to exclude evidence of the body of George (the man who defendant confessed to killing in California) during defendant's penalty trial. Before turning to defendant's arguments, we first provide the relevant factual background. See Stevens, 311 Or. at 126-27, 806 P.2d 92 (this court bound by trial court's findings of fact and, if trial court did not make express findings respecting all pertinent historical facts, then court presumes that trial court found facts consistent with its ultimate conclusion). During the above-described interview with defendant on December 13, 1995, about the Ellis and Abdill murders, Detectives George and Doney also asked defendant about the earlier murder of George in California and, specifically, questioned defendant about where he had hidden George's body. Although he admitted to murdering George, defendant refused to disclose the location of George's body to the detectives. At some point during that interview, defendant's father, Kenneth Acremant, Sr. (Kenneth Sr.), arrived at the station house of the Stockton Police Department where defendant was being held. Detective Newell, along with two other detectives, spoke with Kenneth Sr. about defendant's confessions to the three murders and requested that Kenneth Sr. ask defendant about the location of George's body. Without informing defendant that the detectives had instructed him to do so, Kenneth Sr. asked defendant where he had hidden George's body when he spoke with defendant that same day. Defendant also refused to disclose the location of George's body to Kenneth Sr. After having failed to obtain any information from defendant, Kenneth Sr. informed the police that he suspected that defendant had hidden George's body in one of the mine shafts or in the cave on Kenneth Sr.'s ranch. [18] The police made arrangements with Kenneth Sr. to search his ranch on December 18, 1995. The police did not ask Kenneth Sr. to speak with defendant again about the location of George's body. On December 17, 1995, Kenneth Sr. had another visit with defendant. During that visit, Kenneth Sr. informed defendant that the police would be searching Kenneth Sr.'s ranch the next day with police dogs trained to detect a deceased human body. Kenneth Sr. again did not disclose to defendant that the detectives previously had asked him to question defendant about the location of George's body. Defendant advised Kenneth Sr. that he had hidden George's body in a particular mine shaft on Kenneth Sr.'s ranch that was used for dumping trash. The police searched that mine shaft the next day and discovered George's body. Before the start of his penalty trial, defendant moved to exclude evidence of the statements that he had made to Kenneth Sr. on both December 13 and 17, along with the derivative evidence of George's body. Defendant argued that, because the police had directed Kenneth Sr. to ask defendant about the location of George's body, Kenneth Sr. had acted as an agent of the state during both his interviews with defendant and, for that reason, should have provided defendant with Miranda warnings before questioning defendant. The state disputed that Kenneth Sr. had acted as an agent of the state during his second interview with defendant and asserted that, in any event, the police would have discovered George's body through ordinary investigative procedures even if defendant had not disclosed its location to Kenneth Sr. After a hearing, the trial court determined that, as a matter of law, Kenneth Sr. was still acting as an agent of the police during the second interview with defendant on December 17. As the factual basis for that legal conclusion, the trial court stated: I think the time frame, the closeness in time is strong  is a strong indicator that there had not been enough lapse of time. I think there's a  you know, always a tremendous psychological conversion, the forces on any parent in this situation. And I think that the tremendously conflicting position that a parent finds himself in in this situation is very  and these facts that are before the Court  is one of great difficulty and great desire to cooperate. And I think that the suggestion by the police enlisted him as an agent, and he still wanted to comply, and that was part  and he testified that that was part of the motivating feature. So, I believe that he was still an agent of the police [during the interview on December 17, 1995]. Based upon that conclusion, the trial court determined that Kenneth Sr. had been required to provide defendant with Miranda warnings and that his failure to do so required the court to suppress defendant's statements. [19] The trial court further ruled, however, that the evidence of George's body was admissible because the state had proved that it was absolutely inevitable that the police would have discovered George's body in any event through ordinary investigative procedures. Defendant assigns error to that ruling. Before this court, defendant focuses his arguments upon whether the trial court correctly concluded that the state had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have discovered George's body in any event through ordinary investigative procedures. See State v. Johnson, 335 Or. 511, 522-26, 73 P.3d 282 (2003) (discussing inevitable discovery doctrine). For its part, the state challenges the trial court's conclusion that Kenneth Sr. had acted as an agent of the state during his second interview with defendant. The state also argues that, even if Kenneth Sr. had been acting as an agent of the state, he was not required to inform defendant of his rights under Article I, section 12, because the compelling circumstances giving rise to the warnings requirement under Article I, section 12, are not present when a suspect is unaware that he or she is speaking to a police agent. See State v. Smith, 310 Or. 1, 7, 791 P.2d 836 (1990) (warning of rights under Article I, section 12, of Oregon Constitution required when police questioning occurs in setting which judges would and officers should recognize as `compelling' (quoting Magee, 304 Or. at 265, 744 P.2d 250; internal quotation marks omitted)); cf. Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292, 294, 110 S.Ct. 2394, 110 L.Ed.2d 243 (1990) (Fifth Amendment does not require Miranda warnings when suspect is unaware that he or she is speaking with state agent). We do not address defendant's argument regarding the trial court's inevitable discovery ruling or the state's second argument regarding the circumstances when Article I, section 12, requires a police agent to provide warnings to a suspect. Instead, we affirm the trial court's ruling because we conclude that, as a matter of law, Kenneth Sr. was not acting as a police agent on December 17 and, therefore, that his actions did not implicate Article I, section 12. See Outdoor Media Dimensions Inc. v. State of Oregon, 331 Or. 634, 659-60, 20 P.3d 180 (2001) (discussing right for the wrong reason principle for affirming judgment of trial court). [20] In Smith, this court explained that, in deciding whether a private citizen acted as a police agent as a matter of law, a court must examine if the police were directly or indirectly involved to a sufficient extent in initiating, planning, controlling or supporting the citizen's activities. 310 Or. at 13, 791 P.2d 836 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). In that case, this court rejected the defendant's argument that his cellmate had acted as an agent of the state when the cellmate obtained information from the defendant that incriminated him in his wife's murder. In reaching that conclusion, this court observed that the cellmate had initiated contact with the sheriff's deputies about the defendant's statements and that the deputies had informed the cellmate that he could pass the information along, but was not required to do so. Id. at 14, 791 P.2d 836. The court also pointed out that the deputies had not made any deals with the cellmate for the information and that the cellmate had testified that his principle motivation for his information gathering was his revulsion at the manner in which the victim was killed. Id. In this case, we similarly conclude that the facts do not support the legal conclusion that Kenneth Sr. had been acting as an agent of the state at the time of his second interview with defendant on December 17. Although the police had asked Kenneth Sr. to question defendant about the location of George's body on December 13, the police had not instructed Kenneth Sr. to continue to try to obtain that information after defendant refused to disclose it. Rather, the police proceeded to make plans with Kenneth Sr. to search his ranch and to follow other leads that had surfaced. Indeed, the trial court found that, as a factual matter, Kenneth Sr.'s primary motivation for questioning defendant a second time about the location of George's body was Kenneth Sr.'s own personal desire to provide assistance to the police in the face of his son's crimes. Because the police lacked sufficient involvement in controlling and directing Kenneth Sr.'s actions on December 17 to render him a state agent, Kenneth Sr.'s actions did not implicate Article I, section 12. For that reason, the trial court did not err in admitting evidence of George's body during defendant's penalty trial.