Opinion ID: 780418
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: German Sinisterra's Arrest and Interrogation

Text: 7 Officer David Martin of the Overland Park Police Department was asked to help take German Sinisterra from the Drury Inn in Overland Park to the Sanders Station. Officer Martin had no conversation with Mr. Sinisterra before he entered the booking area, at which point a videotape was started. Officer Martin read Mr. Sinisterra his rights and asked if he understood them, to which Sinisterra replied, yes. Immediately afterwards he signed a Miranda rights waiver form (in English), although he was not asked if he could read. Chief John Douglass of the Overland Park Police Department asked Sinisterra several questions and concluded that Sinisterra understood him. When Chief Douglass learned that Sinisterra was a foreign national and not a United States citizen, he told Sinisterra that he had the right to contact his consul and that the police would let him do that. Sinisterra did not respond to this suggestion, and Chief Douglass concluded that he did not wish to contact his consul. Officer Martin did not give Mr. Sinisterra an opportunity to contact his consul. Sinisterra asked to be permitted to make a phone call, and was refused. As he later testified at the suppression hearing, he wished to call his wife, on whom he was accustomed to rely for help in communicating in English because of his limited education. He had completed the second grade in Colombia. 8 Deputy Herrera asked Mr. Sinisterra in Spanish if he could understand English, and he responded that he could understand both Spanish and English. Deputy Herrera thought that appellant's English was fair, and that he understood questions put to him. Deputy Herrera's Spanish was acquired growing up in a family (originally from Mexico) where Spanish was spoken, although his ability to write in Spanish is not good. 9 During a background interview conducted by Detectives Wilson and Sharp, Detective Wilson also concluded that Mr. Sinisterra understood what the detectives said to him, including questions put to him in English. Detective Sharp understood Mr. Sinisterra's responses in English. When presented with a Miranda rights waiver form, Mr. Sinisterra stated that he did not read English, whereupon Detective Sharp read the form out loud to him. At this point, appellant stated that he understood his rights, and signed the Miranda form. After a non-videotaped interrogation by Detectives Wilson and Sharp in which Mr. Sinisterra recounted the events leading up to the murder and his role in it, he agreed to provide a videotaped statement. Detective Sharp's impression during the videotaping was that Mr. Sinisterra understood the detectives' English. At no time did he ask for an interpreter, nor did the detectives offer him one. 10 Mr. Sinisterra stated that he had gotten a call in Houston from a man named G.G. (identified as Edwin Hinestroza) who wanted him to come to Kansas City to get his stolen money back. Later the same evening, appellant met G.G., the victim, Julian Colon, and another person (Borja) at his motel in Kansas City. They drove to a house where Sinisterra and Hinestroza tied up two people. G.G. asked Sinisterra to shoot Colon, and he agreed. He then shot the victim in the head and took him to the car. 11 In subsequent testimony, at the suppression hearing (conducted with the aid of a Spanish interpreter), appellant Sinisterra testified that he did not know that he had the right to refuse to talk to detectives during this interrogation, and that, had he known, he would have refused to talk to them. He also testified that he did not know that he had the right to ask for an American lawyer to represent him, and that, had he known of this right, he would have asked for a lawyer. He testified that he asked to be allowed to call his wife or someone else at least five times. He relies on his wife regularly for assistance in communicating in English. He also testified that he was asked if he needed an interpreter and said, No, although he also claimed that he told the officers questioning him that he understood very little English. Appellant Sinisterra also stated that he was told he had the right to contact a consular official, but that he did not understand this right. 12