Opinion ID: 535720
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Danner's Confession

Text: 11 (i) Fifth Amendment Claim 12 Danner contends that he told Detective Merriman at noon on March 23, 1988 that he wanted an attorney, that Danner did not initiate any further communication with the police thereafter, and that he merely submitted to questioning later that evening, resulting in a violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. 13 The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination provides the right to counsel during any custodial interrogation. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 470-71, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1625-26, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). 14 [A]n accused, ... having expressed his desire to deal with the police only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation by the authorities until counsel has been made available to him, unless the accused himself initiates further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police. 15 Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884-85, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981) (emphasis added). In Edwards, petitioner had moved to suppress his confession on the ground that his Miranda rights had been violated when police officers returned to the jail to interrogate petitioner the day after he had invoked his right to counsel and questioning had ceased. Reversing a finding of waiver of petitioner's right to counsel, the Supreme Court held that a valid waiver ... cannot be established by showing only that [an accused] responded to further police-initiated custodial interrogation even if he has been advised of his rights. Id. 451 U.S. at 484, 101 S.Ct. at 1884. The Court further stated, [h]ad [petitioner] initiated the meeting ..., nothing in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments would prohibit the police from merely listening to his voluntary, volunteered statements and using them against him at the trial. Id. at 485, 101 S.Ct. at 1885. 16 In the instant case, Detective Merriman and Captain Lowery returned to talk to Danner the evening of March 23 only after Hernandez contacted Captain Lowery and informed him that Danner wished to volunteer information about his dealings with Gaddy. Danner's principal contention on appeal is that when Hernandez contacted him and encouraged him to speak with the authorities, she was acting as a police officer and government agent, so that Danner's subsequent meeting was police-initiated. 17 The magistrate found that Janice Hernandez was not part of the investigative team on Danner's or Gaddy's case, was not directed by a superior to contact Danner, and acted solely out of concern for his welfare, and that there was no evidence that Hernandez was acting in the normal course of her duties when she initiated contact with her nephew; thus, she was not an agent of the government but acted as a private citizen. It is undisputed that Hernandez initiated the telephone conversation with Danner while he was in jail. According to Hernandez's affidavit, she had personal knowledge of both Gaddy's and Danner's history. She became very concerned for Tommy's [Danner's] welfare. She then had a message delivered to Danner to call her, which he did. Even though Hernandez learned that Danner might be a suspect in the case involving the stolen vehicle and missing person through her affiliation with the police department, Captain Lowery contacted her because Gaddy mentioned her name. She could have taken the same action had she been reached at her home, as a private citizen who might provide a lead to the detectives. Hernandez communicated with Danner, not to assist the police department in solving a crime, but to protect her nephew. 18 Hernandez exhibited the same concern for her nephew when she initiated the lunacy warrant for Danner's arrest. At that time, she acted as a private citizen, a concerned relative attempting to protect Danner from harm. Likewise, by encouraging Danner to tell the police what he knew, she acted as a worried aunt who envisioned the hardship that could befall her nephew if he did not reveal the information he possessed, especially before Gaddy rendered his version of the events to the police. The evidence shows that at the time Hernandez contacted Danner she was employed by the Chatham County Police Department, but that even though she was a police officer, 1 her duties were not investigative in nature. She contacted Danner of her own accord, not at the direction of a superior and not for the benefit of the police department. She made no written report following that communication, as would have been customary had Hernandez been acting in an official capacity. Thus, no police-initiated interrogation occurred. 19 Even though the police did not initiate the meeting and Danner volunteered his confession, any statements made are still inadmissible unless they are the product of a knowing and voluntary waiver. Dunkins v. Thigpen, 854 F.2d 394, 397 (11th Cir.1988) (citing Oregon v. Bradshaw, 462 U.S. 1039, 103 S.Ct. 2830, 77 L.Ed.2d 405 (1983)), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 1329, 103 L.Ed.2d 597 (1989). If, at a meeting initiated by the accused, the officers say or do something that clearly would be 'interrogation,' ... the question would be whether a valid waiver of the right to counsel ... had occurred, that is, whether the purported waiver was knowing and intelligent ... under the totality of the circumstances. Edwards, 451 U.S. at 486 n. 9, 101 S.Ct. at 1885 n. 9. Relying upon the testimony of a clinical psychologist who examined Danner and a review of the March 23 tape-recorded meeting between Danner and investigating officers, the magistrate concluded that defendant was sufficiently competent to understand his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights and knowingly and intelligently waived those rights. 20 A waiver is ordinarily an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938). The relinquishment of the right must have been voluntary, in that it resulted from a free and deliberate choice and not from coercion. Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986). Danner signed a waiver form and proceeded to relate the events of the kidnapping and murder in a detailed and lucid manner. There is no evidence of police overreaching, and appellant does not argue on appeal that any waiver was involuntary due to coercion. See Dunkins, 854 F.2d at 399. Thus, his waiver was voluntary. 21 A valid waiver of Miranda rights must also be knowingly and intelligently made. Miller v. Dugger, 838 F.2d 1530, 1538 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 2832, 100 L.Ed.2d 933 (1988). Whether a waiver is knowing and intelligent is determined by the particular facts and circumstances of the case, including the background, experience, and conduct of the accused. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. at 464, 58 S.Ct. at 1023. A criminal suspect is not required to know and understand every possible consequence of a waiver for it to be knowingly and intelligently made. See Colorado v. Spring, 479 U.S. 564, 574, 107 S.Ct. 851, 857, 93 L.Ed.2d 954 (1987) (suspect's awareness of all possible subjects of questioning prior to interrogation is not relevant to determining whether suspect voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived his Fifth Amendment privilege). The Miranda warnings ensure that a suspect knows that he may choose not to talk to law enforcement officers, to talk only with counsel present, or to discontinue talking at any time. Id. Danner testified that he had above average intelligence under the right medication. Moreover, although appellant has a history of emotional problems and addiction to his prescribed drugs, mental illness is only a factor to be weighed in determining the validity of a waiver. Dunkins, 854 F.2d at 399. Danner did not exhibit scattered thinking, panicky behavior, linking circumstances together that really didn't belong together or other symptoms which, the expert clinical psychologist testified, would indicate Danner was experiencing severe depression or anxiety. Danner has a dependent personality disorder, yet he is not completely without the will to refuse the requests of others, even when under medication. The expert testified that Danner would understand at least some of the consequences of his acts. He has previously been convicted, for armed robbery and aggravated assault, and is, therefore, no novice to law enforcement procedures. Viewing the totality of the circumstances, the record supports the finding that Danner's waiver was also knowing and intelligent. 22 (ii) Sixth Amendment Claim 23 Danner further contends that since counsel had already been appointed to represent him on the state firearms charges, his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the police interviewed him and obtained oral and written statements from him in the absence of counsel. 24 The Sixth Amendment guarantees an accused the right to the assistance of counsel in all criminal prosecutions. An individual's right to legal representation during interrogation by the government attaches once adversary proceedings have commenced, whether by way of formal charge, preliminary hearing, indictment, information, or arraignment. Kirby v. Illinois, 406 U.S. 682, 689, 92 S.Ct. 1877, 1882, 32 L.Ed.2d 411 (1972); Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424 (1977); United States v. Gouveia, 467 U.S. 180, 189, 104 S.Ct. 2292, 2298, 81 L.Ed.2d 146 (1984). In Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201, 84 S.Ct. 1199, 12 L.Ed.2d 246 (1964), the Supreme Court held that the accused was denied his Sixth Amendment protections when incriminating evidence was used against him at his trial which federal agents had deliberately elicited from him after he had been indicted and without counsel present. Law enforcement officers had installed a radio transmitter in a co-defendant's car and instructed the co-defendant to elicit information from the defendant, after his right to counsel had attached. In United States v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264, 100 S.Ct. 2183, 65 L.Ed.2d 115 (1980), the Court also found a deliberate elicitation of incriminating statements during interrogation by the government. While the accused was in custody after his indictment, he made incriminating statements to an undisclosed, undercover government informant sharing the same cellblock, whom government agents had told to be alert to any statements made by other prisoners but not to initiate any conversation with or question Henry. 25 Even the knowing exploitation by the State of an opportunity to confront the accused without counsel being present is as much a breach of the State's obligation not to circumvent the right to the assistance of counsel as is the intentional creation of such an opportunity. Maine v. Moulton, 474 U.S. 159, 176, 106 S.Ct. 477, 487, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985). In Moulton, the Court affirmed the suppression of taped conversations the government arranged to have recorded between defendant and his former co-defendant, who was an undercover informant for the police. 26 The parties refer us to no cases which present facts resembling those in the instant case. The magistrate's report cites cases involving government or jailhouse informants, which appellant argues do not apply here. Those as well as the above-cited cases establish, however, that any informant must be acting for the state. For example, in Lightbourne v. Dugger, 829 F.2d 1012 (11th Cir.1987), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 329, 102 L.Ed.2d 346 (1988), this Court stated that [i]n order to establish a violation of the Sixth Amendment in a jailhouse informant case, the accused must show (1) that a fellow inmate was a government agent; and (2) that the inmate deliberately elicited incriminating statements from the accused. Id. at 1020 (citing Henry, 447 U.S. at 270, 100 S.Ct. at 2186). Thus, [t]he ultimate issue is whether what has happened is the functional equivalent of interrogation by the government. Id. at 1028 (Anderson, J., dissenting). 27 We have already concluded that Danner's statements were not made as a result of police-initiated interrogation; they occurred because Danner's aunt, in her private capacity, urged him to speak and he agreed. Therefore, the circumstances under which the government obtained statements from Danner were not the functional equivalent of government interrogation. Since Danner's statements were not given at the urging of or due to the exploitation by a federal agent, the district court properly denied the suppression of the statements offered in the absence of counsel.