Opinion ID: 2631133
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Asserted violation of a trial court order

Text: Defendant contends the prosecution violated an order of the trial court limiting the scope of questioning of defendant regarding the statements he made during a police interview. As noted earlier, defendant initially waived his Miranda rights and agreed to talk with Westminster police officers about the murders of Skillman and Rita. After the officers had briefly questioned him, defendant said he wanted an attorney, and all questioning stopped. Police tape-recorded the entire interview, including defendant's invocation of his right to counsel. At trial and outside the presence of the jury, the parties discussed the admissibility of defendant's statements to police. The trial court and the parties agreed that defendant's statements to the police were obtained in compliance with Miranda. The trial court ruled that defendant's statements were made voluntarily and could be introduced as prior inconsistent statements. The prosecution said it had prepared an edited version of the recorded interview that redacted defendant's invocation of his right to counsel. The trial, court agreed the jury should not hear the invocation. The court then stated: [The prosecutor] can confront [defendant] with the [edited tape of the interview], and then [defendant] can explain it. The court indicated, however, that in questioning defendant about the taped interview, the parties should not get into the Miranda issues. During the prosecution's re-opening of cross-examination of defendant, it asked this question: You had already said that you were willing to talk without an attorney, didn't you?, to which defendant responded, Sir, I was confused. The trial court interrupted, stating that the prosecution had violated the court's admonition not to question defendant about the Miranda advisement. The court asked whether defendant's counsel wanted the court to give a limiting instruction, strike defendant's testimony, or play the entire taped interview. Defendant's counsel chose the latter. The tape recording was played to the jury and the prosecution resumed its cross-examination of defendant. On appeal, defendant contends the prosecution committed misconduct when it asked defendant whether he had told the police officers that he would talk to them without an attorney. Assuming for the sake of argument that the trial court prohibited the prosecutor from questioning defendant about his willingness to speak to the police without an attorney when it said, I don't think we need to get into the Miranda issues, defendant suffered no possible prejudice from the prosecution's question. The jury was already aware from the cross-examination of defendant by codefendant Wynglarz's counsel that defendant's statements to police were inconsistent with the version of events defendant testified to at trial. Defendant told the police he was not present when Skillman and Rita were shot; at trial, he admitted shooting them. Moreover, the prosecution's question to defendant whether he had agreed to speak to the police without an attorney being present was fully consistent with the prosecution's redacted version of the recorded police interview of defendant, which included the Miranda advisements. Defendant not only agreed that this redacted version of the recording should be played to the jury but also expressly requested that the jury hear the entire unredacted recording as a remedy for what the trial court perceived as the prosecutor's improper reference to defendant's initial waiver of his right to counsel. For the same reasons, we reject defendant's contention that, as a result of the prosecutor's violation of the trial court's order not to question defendant about his Miranda advisements, defendant was prejudiced because he was forced to agree to the jury's hearing the entire taped police interview. Defendant, however, was not forced to agree to the playing of the tape-recorded statement for the jury. He could instead have asked the trial court to admonish the jury not to consider whether he had invoked his right to counsel. Such an admonition would have been more than adequate to eliminate any prejudicial effect arising from the prosecution's allegedly improper question. The question had little or no prejudicial effect because the prosecution made no mention of defendant's invocation of his right to counsel (from which the jury might have drawn an inappropriate inference of guilt), and mentioned only defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights, from which the jury could not have drawn any adverse inferences.