Opinion ID: 1166977
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Defendant's Statements and Derivative Evidence

Text: In denying the defendant's motion to suppress, the trial court attached no significance to the custodial aspect of the interrogations which occurred during the two day period following the defendant's arrest but, instead, resolved the motion on the basis that the police during this period did not consider the defendant a suspect in the shooting. The trial court's ruling places an interpretation on Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), that undercuts its rationale and nullifies the safeguards of section 19-2-102(3)(c)(I), C.R.S.1973 (1978 Repl. Vol. 8). Briefly stated, the holding of the United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. at 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d at 706-07, is that the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates that the defendant has been adequately warned of his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to counsel and thereafter voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently waives those rights. The reason for the warning requirement is that, without such a safeguard, the compelling pressures inherent in police custody work to undermine the individual's will to resist and to compel him to speak when he would not otherwise do so freely. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. at 467, 86 S.Ct. at 1624, 16 L.Ed.2d at 719. These pressures can be virtually overwhelming in a case of a 15 year old youth. Such a person, no matter how sophisticated, is not the equal to the police in knowledge and understanding of the consequences of ... questions and answers and is unable to know how to protect his own interests or how to get the benefits of his constitutional rights. Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U.S. 49, 54, 82 S.Ct. 1209, 1212, 8 L.Ed.2d 325, 328 (1962). For this reason section 19-2-102(3)(c)(I) of the Colorado Children's Code requires the presence of a parent, legal guardian, or attorney during the advisement of rights and any ensuing interrogation as an additional and necessary assurance that the privilege against self-incrimination will be fully afforded to the juvenile. E.g., People v. Saiz, Colo., 620 P.2d 15 (1980); People v. Maes, 194 Colo. 235, 571 P.2d 305 (1977). Under Miranda, therefore, the decisive stage for the warnings is custodial interrogation. Custodial interrogation means questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. at 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d at 706. There is no dispute here that the defendant was in police custody. See Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 89 S.Ct. 1095, 22 L.Ed.2d 311 (1969). The People seek to justify noncompliance with Miranda and section 19-2-102(3)(c)(I) by arguing that the defendant was not an actual suspect at the time of the interrogation and, therefore, he was not interrogated within the intended sense of Miranda. We reject this argument as legally unsound. The privilege against self-incrimination not only extends to answers that would in themselves support a conviction... but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence.... Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486, 71 S.Ct. 814, 818, 95 L.Ed. 1118, 1124 (1951); accord, e. g., Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 23 L.Ed.2d 57 (1969); Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964). Interrogation occurs when the police use words or engage in actions that are reasonably likely to evoke an incriminating response from the defendant. Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980); People v. Lowe, Colo., 616 P.2d 118 (1980). The critical inquiry in this case is not whether the police considered the defendant a suspect but, rather, whether the defendant, while in police custody, was exposed to a risk of self-incrimination by police interrogation. See, e. g., Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39, 88 S.Ct. 697, 19 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Rogers v. United States, 340 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct. 438, 95 L.Ed. 344 (1951). Prior to the first interrogation there was no clearly identifiable suspect and Officer Reeve surmised that the defendant might know something about the shooting. The first interrogation resulted in the defendant admitting his knowledge of the shooting, including the location of the weapon. Prior to the second interrogation the police had been informed that the defendant resembled the description of a young black male who was seen carrying a rifle case in the area of the shooting. During the second interrogation the defendant implicated himself further in the shooting by admitting that he disposed of bullets at the request of Bug. Prior to the third interrogation the defendant actually had been identified by photograph as the young black male present in the area of the shooting when it occurred. During this last interrogation the defendant repeated his earlier statements about his knowledge of the shooting and the location of the weapon. Never having been advised of his absolute right to decline to answer any questions, the defendant's opportunity to exercise this right was illusory while, at the same time, his exposure to the risk of actual incrimination was continuous. Reduced to its basic components, the People's argument amounts to an attempt to engraft on Miranda a focus-requirement that would reduce to constitutional insignificance the critical relationship between police custody and the privilege against self-incrimination. In Mathis v. United States, 391 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1503, 20 L.Ed.2d 381 (1968), where the defendant while incarcerated under a state sentence was interrogated by federal officers, the Supreme Court rejected the government's contention that the Miranda holding applies only to questioning one who is `in custody' in connection with the very case under investigation: There is no substance to such a distinction, and in effect it goes against the whole purpose of the Miranda decision which was designed to give meaningful protection to Fifth Amendment rights. We find nothing in the Miranda opinion which calls for a curtailment of the warnings to be given persons under interrogation by officers based on the reason why the person is in custody. Id. at 4-5, 88 S.Ct. at 1505, 20 L.Ed.2d at 385. See, e. g., Wade v. Mancusi, 358 F.Supp. 103 (W.D.N.Y.1973) ( Miranda warnings required prior to interrogation where defendant in custody for offense other than that under investigation); Carter v. McGinnis, 351 F.Supp. 787 (W.D.N.Y.1972) ( Miranda warnings required where defendant incarcerated and interrogation related to prison disciplinary matter that arguably could result in criminal prosecution). [12] For purposes of Miranda, there is no basis to attribute any greater constitutional significance to the level of police suspicion toward a defendant already in custody than the significance attributed to the reason why he is in custody. Neither the absence of police suspicion nor the precise basis for custody affects in the least the principle that [u]nder Miranda, a person in police custody has ... an absolute right to decline to answer any question.... United States v. Mandujano, 425 U.S. 564, 581, 96 S.Ct. 1768, 1778, 48 L.Ed.2d 212, 225 (1976). We believe Miranda's prophylactic standards, as well as the safeguards of section 19-2-102(3)(c)(I), were intended to apply to this defendant's custodial situation by affording him a full opportunity to exercise his privilege against self-incrimination in a knowing and intelligent manner. The logic of the People's argument would subject one in police custody to unlimited interrogation on any crime, without any warning of basic constitutional rights, so long as the focus of suspicion had not yet settled on the person interrogated. We reject such an argument as contrary to the basic purpose of the Miranda decision and, in the case of juveniles, as inimical to the statutory protections contemplated by section 19-2-102(3)(c)(I). The trial court erred in denying the defendant's motion to suppress his three custodial statements made on October 2 and October 3. [13]
The defendant moved to suppress not only his custodial statements but also the fruits of those interrogations, including any real evidence derived directly therefrom and the testimony of witnesses whose names were furnished by the defendant during the interrogations. Having found no Miranda violation the trial court never considered the application of the derivative evidence rule to these separate evidentiary items. Once it is determined that a statement was improperly obtained in violation of Miranda, not only must the statement be suppressed but also evidence subsequently acquired may be suppressible as the fruit of the illegal interrogation. E.g., Harrison v. United States, 392 U.S. 219, 88 S.Ct. 2008, 20 L.Ed.2d 1047 (1968); People v. Founds, Colo., 621 P.2d 325 (1981); People v. Saiz, supra ; People v. Lowe, supra . In situations involving successively invalid statements by a defendant or real evidence derived from an unlawful interrogation, the derivative evidence rule generally requires the prosecution to establish that the challenged evidence was obtained from an independent source, or that the connection between the initial illegality and the evidence has become so attenuated as to dissipate the initial taint. E.g, People v. Founds, supra ; People v. Lowe, supra . Additional considerations are applicable to this case, where the alleged fruit of the Miranda violation is the trial testimony of witnesses whose identities were disclosed in the course of an unlawful interrogation of the defendant. The source of trial testimony often lies in the free choice of the witness to give evidence in the case. Witnesses are not like guns or documents which remain hidden from view until one turns over a sofa or opens a filing cabinet. Witnesses can, and often do, come forward and offer evidence entirely of their own volition. United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 276, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 1060, 55 L.Ed.2d 268, 277 (1978). It is not unreasonable to assume that under ordinary circumstances the decision of a witness to testify will arise from an independent source unrelated to the official misconduct. Even where the road between the constitutional violation and the witness is direct, there well might be sufficient attenuation to permit the witness to testify. [14] [T]he degree of free will necessary to dissipate the taint will very likely be found more often in the case of live witness testimony than other kinds of evidence. United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. at 276-77, 98 S.Ct. at 1060, 55 L.Ed.2d at 277. As an alternative to a showing of independent source or sufficient attenuation the prosecution might be able to demonstrate, as a basis for admission, that the witnesses and their testimony inevitably would have been discovered in the normal course of police investigation. E.g., United States v. Seohnlein, 423 F.2d 1051 (4th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 399 U.S. 913, 90 S.Ct. 2215, 26 L.Ed.2d 570 (1970); Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205 (D.C.Cir.1963), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 860, 84 S.Ct. 125, 11 L.Ed.2d 86 (1963). The trial court on remand should apply these principles to the challenged evidence and, in accordance with the derivative evidence rule, make appropriate determinations of admissibility.