Opinion ID: 1905193
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fardan's Arrest and Statement

Text: Police arrested Fardan at a friend's house on the night of October 14, 2005. Plain-clothes officers handcuffed him and placed him in an unmarked police car. Fardan's father, Suluki Fardan, arrived at the friend's house and briefly spoke to Fardan after Fardan was placed in the police car. Fardan was taken to Minneapolis City Hall, where he again saw his father on his way to an interrogation room. His father waited in the hallway for a couple of hours, until officers told him he might as well go home because Fardan was not going anywhere. Fardan testified at a pretrial hearing that before going inside City Hall, he had asked the arresting officers if his father could be present. Fardan was told that he would be. A videotape shows that Fardan was brought into the interrogation room at a little before 1:30 a.m., where he was alone for 1 hour and 53 minutes. During that time, Fardan was sleeping or resting; he also stood up, apparently in an effort to try to stay awake. The interrogation began around 3:25 a.m., and lasted approximately 52 minutes. Two investigators came in to question Fardan. The investigators were not aware that Fardan's father was at the station and wanted to be present at the interview. Usually arresting officers will communicate such information to the interrogating officers, but that night the investigators and arresting officers never spoke, and no record exists of who the arresting officers were. Fardan did not request his father's presence during the interview, although he asked the interrogating officers at the very end of the interview if he could see his father real quick. Fardan testified that he did not ask for his father during the interrogation because he had already asked for him and was expecting [his father] to be there. The investigators first took a DNA swab from Fardan. The officers told Fardan they were investigating events from October 10, 2005, and that they had already talked to many people about that night. One of the investigators then administered a Miranda warning. The investigator broke down the warning and specifically asked if Fardan understood each component. The investigators, however, did not tell Fardan that his statements could be used against him in adult court. Fardan indicated that he understood each component of the Miranda warning, and told the investigators they could ask him questions. The record reflects that Fardan had been read his Miranda rights once before, about three years before the night of the interrogation. During the interrogation, Fardan admitted that he shot Brown, but said, I didn't even want to. The investigator asked: Any sense of remorse or do you just think it was an accident? Fardan answered, It was an accident. Fardan explained that I was scaring him, the trigger kinda slipped. When asked what Fardan did to help Brown, Fardan said, I prayed for him. That's all I could do. Fardan also told the police that the gun that shot Brown was at Kyle Fairbank's house  Graves' cousin. Police contacted Fairbanks, who said that he had received the gun, wrapped in a jacket, from Fardan. Fairbanks said that he unwrapped and touched the gun after receiving it. Fairbanks had put the gun in a cousin's closet, where police found it. The recovered gun was a .22 semi-automatic rifle. There were two latent fingerprints and a palm print on the gun; all of these prints belonged to Fairbanks. The butt stock of the rifle had been sawed off or broken off and black electrical tape had been wrapped around it. Evidence showed, however, that the electrical tape had not affected the function of the rifle; the firing mechanism was within the normal range, with a trigger pull that needed the normal amount of pressure to fire. The bullet recovered from Brown's body was not conclusively linked to the gun, although the bullet was consistent with a.22 bullet. Fardan moved before and during trial to exclude his statement to police; the court denied both motions. The court, after examining the totality of the circumstances, found Fardan had made a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary waiver of his Miranda rights, and admitted his statement during trial. The statement came into evidence through the video tape police made while interrogating Fardan. The video of Fardan's interrogation was played twice for the jury.