Opinion ID: 2259150
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: denial of pre-trial motion to suppress appellant's statements

Text: Appellant argues that the trial court erred by failing to suppress his post-arrest exculpatory statements denying the murder and professing his ignorance of the victim's address. [4] Specifically, appellant urges that his post-arrest statements should have been suppressed because: (1) police detectives did not administer Miranda warnings to him before he made the statements in question; (2) the statements were involuntarily uttered; and, (3) the statements were improperly obtained after appellant specifically invoked his right to remain silent. In reviewing a ruling on a suppression motion, the standard of review is whether the factual findings and legal conclusions drawn therefrom are supported by the evidence. Commonwealth v. Bond, 539 Pa. 299, 305-07, 652 A.2d 308, 311 (1995). A suppression court's error regarding failure to suppress statements by the accused will not require reversal if the Commonwealth can establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the error was harmless. See Commonwealth v. Fay, 463 Pa. 158, 161, 344 A.2d 473, 474 (1975). It is well established in Pennsylvania that volunteered or spontaneous utterances are admissible even though the declarant was not Mirandized. [5] Commonwealth v. Bracey, 501 Pa. 356, 369, 461 A.2d 775, 782 (1983); Commonwealth v. Yount, 455 Pa. 303, 314 A.2d 242 (1974); Commonwealth v. Clark, 454 Pa. 329, 311 A.2d 910, 913 (1973)(this Court held that statements were admissible when blurted out spontaneously while appellant was being given Miranda warnings). Here, the record reveals that after Lancaster County police officers arrested appellant on February 24, 1992, they took him to the police station and placed him in a holding cell. Subsequently, officers moved appellant to an office in the detectives' division for questioning. As a detective began reading appellant his Miranda rights, appellant interrupted the detective, proclaimed his innocence and stated that he had never been to the victim's apartment. After this unsolicited statement, appellant made a telephone call lasting twenty-seven minutes. Subsequently, as detectives repeatedly tried to inform him that they could not discuss his case unless he knowingly waived his Miranda rights, appellant again proclaimed his innocence and asserted that he had never been to the victim's apartment. Although appellant's statements were made before he was fully Mirandized, the record amply supports the suppression court's finding that the statements were spontaneously volunteered while investigators were attempting to give appellant his Miranda warnings and immediately after appellant completed his phone call. Therefore, the statements were properly admitted. Moreover, the trial court properly admitted several other exculpatory statements that appellant made to police before his arrest (and after he had been fully Mirandized) which were virtually identical in substance to the challenged statements. Hence, even if the challenged statements were improperly admitted, the error was harmless. Appellant next argues that even if the statements were spontaneously uttered, they were nevertheless involuntarily uttered since they were the product of an inherently coercive environment. Specifically, appellant claims that the initial combination of being arrested, forced to wear handcuffs, and confined, coupled with the subsequent confrontation by two detectives in an enclosed office while he was suffering from an injury to his finger, [6] caused him to involuntarily make the exculpatory statements in question. There is no single litmus-paper test in determining the voluntariness of a statement; it must be established that the decision to speak was the product of free and unrestrained choice by its maker. See Commonwealth v. Hughes, 521 Pa. 423, 442, 555 A.2d 1264, 1273 (1989). All attendant circumstances surrounding the confession must be considered, including: the duration and methods of the interrogation; the length of the delay between arrest and arraignment; the conditions of detainment; the attitudes of police toward the defendant; the defendant's physical and psychological state; and all other conditions present which may serve to drain one's power of resistance to suggestion or undermine one's self-determination. See id. Here, appellant's spontaneous utterances were not rendered involuntary simply because he had a pair of handcuffs on his hands and a minor preexisting cut on his finger. Even if they had been involuntarily uttered, we note again that such putative error would be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt since appellant's virtually identical pre-arrest denials were properly admitted. Appellant next argues that after the police told him they wanted to speak with him about the incident, he invoked his right to remain silent when he stated f___, no, I don't want to talk about anything, in the course of proclaiming his innocence. Appellant contends that at that point he should have been promptly returned to the holding cell and the police should not have engaged him in further conversations. However, after appellant made this statement, detectives did not interrogate him any further. Instead, detectives allowed him to make a telephone call which lasted twenty-seven minutes. Immediately after this telephone call, appellant spontaneously reiterated his innocence and his assertion that he had never been in the victim's apartment. Since the detectives did not take any action designed to elicit these statements, they did not in any way infringe on appellant's right to remain silent. See Bracey, supra, at 369, 461 A.2d at 782 (spontaneous utterances admissible even after suspect has invoked his right to remain silent). Therefore, the suppression court committed no error in regard to the challenged statements. [7]