Opinion ID: 1122530
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Tape-recorded Telephone Conversations

Text: As noted, defendant and Sharon were arrested the day after the Rainwater murders on unrelated narcotics charges. Sharon was soon released but defendant remained in custody on a parole hold for four months until his arrest in the instant case. About one month before defendant's arrest herein, Sharon contacted investigator Hanley about defendant's possible involvement in the Rainwater crimes. Sharon agreed to tape-record her telephone conversations with defendant and to elicit information about the crimes. Counsel had apparently been appointed to represent defendant in the drug and/or parole violation case before Sharon recorded any telephone calls. On several occasions during the ensuing month, defendant used the jail telephone to call Sharon at home. She recorded these calls, most of which concerned personal matters such as the couple's mutual devotion. However, Sharon occasionally prompted defendant to discuss the Rainwater case by talking in code on certain subjects (e.g., the murder weapon and composite drawing), and by fabricating stories about evidence which purportedly linked defendant to the capital crimes. As previously disclosed, defendant made several statements which tended to incriminate him in the crimes. The contents of the tape-recorded conversations were fully disclosed at trial, and Sharon interpreted the couple's code words for the jury. [23] (12a) On appeal, defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his pretrial motion to exclude evidence of his telephone conversations with Sharon during the time she worked as a police informant in this case. Defendant claims that admission of this evidence violated his privilege against self-incrimination and his right to counsel under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and under parallel provisions of the California Constitution. We conclude that even assuming Sharon was a police agent subject to these provisions, the trial court correctly determined that they did not bar admission of the taped conversations and related testimony.
Defendant argues that Sharon's efforts to elicit incriminating statements about the capital crimes while he was incarcerated on unrelated charges violated Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 [16 L.Ed.2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 A.L.R.3d 974] ( Miranda ). Miranda requires that a suspect be given certain advisements to preserve the privilege against self-incrimination, or to ensure its voluntary and intelligent waiver, during the inherently coercive circumstances of a custodial interrogation. ( Id., at p. 444 [16 L.Ed.2d at p. 706].) Defendant insists that his statements to Sharon were inadmissible at trial because he did not receive or waive his Miranda rights beforehand. (13) The high court recently rejected a similar claim involving a government agent posing as the defendant's cellmate. Conversations between suspects and undercover agents do not implicate the concerns underlying Miranda. The essential ingredients of a `police-dominated' atmosphere and compulsion are not present when an incarcerated person speaks freely to someone whom he believes to be a fellow inmate. Coercion is determined from the perspective of the suspect.... When a suspect considers himself in the company of cellmates and not officers, the coercive atmosphere is lacking.... [¶] ... We reject the argument that Miranda warnings are required whenever a suspect is in custody in a technical sense and converses with someone who happens to be a government agent. ( Illinois v. Perkins (1990) 496 U.S. 292, 296-297 [110 L.Ed.2d 243, 251, 110 S.Ct. 2394], internal citations omitted.) (12b) We similarly conclude that statements defendant made to Sharon over the jail telephone were not the product of custodial interrogation. Defendant sensed that the telephones available to inmates were bugged, but he did not know Sharon was cooperating with law enforcement and recording their conversations. From defendant's perspective, he was talking with a friend and lover.  Miranda forbids coercion, not mere strategic deception by taking advantage of a suspect's misplaced trust in one he supposes to be a fellow prisoner or ally. ( Illinois v. Perkins, supra, 496 U.S. at p. 297 [110 L.Ed.2d at p. 251].) Under the circumstances, defendant's tape-recorded statements were completely voluntary and compulsion-free. The trial court correctly denied defendant's motion to exclude this evidence under the Fifth Amendment.
Defendant next relies on the rule prohibiting the government from using an undercover agent to deliberately elicit[] incriminating statements from an accused in circumvention of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. ( Massiah v. United States (1964) 377 U.S. 201, 206 [12 L.Ed.2d 246, 250, 84 S.Ct. 1199] [ Massiah ].) (14a) The right attaches at the `initiation of adversary judicial criminal proceedings  whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment.' ( United States v. Gouveia (1984) 467 U.S. 180, 188 [81 L.Ed.2d 146, 154, 104 S.Ct. 2292].) (12c) Defendant suggests that because counsel had already been appointed to assist him with narcotics and/or parole revocation charges, statements surreptitiously elicited and recorded by Sharon concerning the Rainwater murders were inadmissible in the capital trial. (14b) It is settled, however, that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel is offense-specific, i.e., it attaches only to those offenses for which adversary judicial criminal proceedings have begun. ( McNeil v. Wisconsin (1991) 501 U.S. 171, 175 [115 L.Ed.2d 158, 166-167, 111 S.Ct. 2204]; People v. Clair (1992) 2 Cal.4th 629, 657 [7 Cal. Rptr.2d 564, 828 P.2d 705].) (12d) Here, defendant was not arrested on capital charges until the day after Sharon taped the couple's last phone conversation. Thus, under the foregoing authorities, defendant's Sixth Amendment rights had not yet attached in this case and could not have been violated when Sharon performed her undercover work. No contrary conclusion is compelled by the fact that defendant had already been charged, incarcerated, and appointed counsel on wholly unrelated offenses. ( People v. Wader (1993) 5 Cal.4th 610, 636 [20 Cal. Rptr.2d 788, 854 P.2d 80]; People v. Clair, supra, 2 Cal.4th 629, 657; cf. In re Wilson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 945, 949-955 [13 Cal. Rptr.2d 269, 838 P.2d 1222].) Defendant insists the police had sufficient evidence to arrest him on capital charges at a much earlier point in time and that they unreasonably delayed doing so in order to give Sharon more time in which to elicit incriminatory statements. Defendant emphasizes testimony by investigator Hanley and Sharon at trial indicating that Hanley told Sharon before the last taped conversation that defendant would be arrested the next day, and that she should intensify her questioning about the Rainwater crimes. Defendant has waived the Massiah claim to the extent it rests on this trial testimony. No similar evidence was introduced at the pretrial suppression hearing, and defendant failed to formally renew his Massiah motion in light of the new testimony at trial. (See People v. Morris (1991) 53 Cal.3d 152, 189-190 [279 Cal. Rptr. 720, 807 P.2d 949].) In any event, any conscious delay in arresting defendant in this case did not violate defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In Hoffa v. United States (1966) 385 U.S. 293 [17 L.Ed.2d 374, 87 S.Ct. 408] ( Hoffa ), defendant's colleague, acting as a paid government informant, acquired information over a two-month period about the defendant's efforts to bribe the jury in an ongoing criminal trial. In a subsequent prosecution on jury tampering charges, the defendant sought to exclude the informant's testimony on the ground that the government improperly delayed arrest in the bribery matter in order to obtain incriminating information in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel under Massiah, supra, 377 U.S. 201. The Hoffa court rejected the claim. There is no constitutional right to be arrested. [Footnote omitted.] The police are not required to guess at their peril the precise moment at which they have probable cause to arrest a suspect, risking a violation of the Fourth Amendment if they act too soon, and a violation of the Sixth Amendment if they wait too long. Law enforcement officers are under no constitutional duty to call a halt to a criminal investigation the moment they have the minimum evidence to establish probable cause.... ( Hoffa v. United States, supra, 385 U.S. 293, 310 [17 L.Ed.2d 374, 386].) A contrary rule would similarly impinge upon prosecutorial discretion to decide whether and when to file criminal charges. (See United States v. Lovasco (1977) 431 U.S. 783, 790-796 [52 L.Ed.2d 752, 759-763, 97 S.Ct. 2044].) In light of the foregoing, the trial court did not err in admitting evidence of the telephone conversations recorded by Sharon. [24]