Opinion ID: 2405656
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Suppression of appellant's pre-arrest statement

Text: Sheriff Winters testified: [Appellant] said that he pointed the gun at her and said, `I'm going to blow your head off'; but that he didn't mean it and that the gun just went off. Appellant argues his statement should have been suppressed because it was given before the Miranda warnings were administered. The trial court ruled that the testimony was admissible because appellant's statement was voluntarily given under circumstances that did not constitute a custodial situation that required prior Miranda warnings. Appellant testified that he did not make the challenged statement. The Miranda warnings were intended to inhibit abuse of the federal constitutional Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination of a person by reason of custodial interrogation by law enforcement officers. Stone v. State, 321 Ark. 46, 900 S.W.2d 515 (1995). In custody means a person who is deprived of his freedom of action by formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest. Id. In resolving the question of whether a suspect was in custody at a particular time, the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect's shoes would have understood his situation. State v. Spencer, 319 Ark. 454, 892 S.W.2d 484 (1995). On appeal, we make an independent determination of the voluntariness of a confession. Trull v. State, 322 Ark. 157, 908 S.W.2d 83 (1995). We do not reverse the trial court, absent a finding of clear error, recognizing that conflicts in the testimony are for the trial court to resolve. Id. Here, the record shows that appellant made the challenged pre-arrest statement in the hospital's waiting room after Winters had twice advised appellant that he was not there to take any statements and just wanted to locate and secure the weapon, and that, after the challenged statement was made, Winters left appellant unattended in the waiting room to locate the weapon, then returned to appellant in the waiting room approximately ten minutes later and verbally advised appellant of his Miranda rights. On these facts, we are not persuaded that the trial judge's ruling was clearly against the preponderance of the evidence.