Opinion ID: 2508499
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Taint

Text: As for Swanigan's November 1 statement, we observe that like his October 31 statement, the police approached Swanigan, Mirandized him, and he waived his rights. But unlike the earlier statement, it was short and not recorded, perhaps because its main purpose, according to Sweeney, was to implicate Marcus Brown, not to incriminate Swanigan. The only evidence of the statement's content at the suppression hearing consists of Sweeney's brief testimony. The gist of Swanigan's statement is contained in the following excerpt: Q: Did the defendant make any statements at that time? A: Yes. He told me that he obtained the gun from Marcus Brown and left, or, and that he left in a Marisha McWilliams's vehicle, went to the bowling alley, talked to Marisha, who was still at work. Then he went by Jessica Wegele's house, but she was not home. He then drove down Centennial Road to Cloud. He parked his vehicle in the Tally Ho trailer court, stayed there a couple minutes planning the robbery. He walked up to the window, looked inside to make sure no one was there and then went in and robbed the place. And he said that the clerk looked like a female. He got anywhere from one to two hundred dollars. Then he corrected himself, that it was more than two hundred. Q: Then, did he start to change his attitude or his willingness to speak with you? A: Yes. As in the other interviews that we were talking to him, you would ask him questions and he would just start making other statements that we know were not true, and so then I terminated the interview.  (Emphasis added.) The trial court considered the October 31 and November 1 statements together, concluding that both were voluntarily made and both should be admitted into evidence. On appeal, the parties do the same, i.e., the State argues both were voluntary and Swanigan argues both were involuntary. However, now that we have held that the first statement was involuntary, the analysis of the second statement is modified. In addition to considering the totality of the circumstances per State v. Sanders , we must also consider whether the coercion of the first statement tainted the voluntariness of the second, rendering it involuntary. Kansas appellate courts have addressed similar situations, usually involving a failure to Mirandize the defendant before at least one of the statements. See, e.g., State v. Hebert, 277 Kan. 61, 82 P.3d 470 (2004); State v. Lewis, 258 Kan. 24, 899 P.2d 1027 (1995). However, no Kansas appellate court has addressed a situation when a coerced Mirandized statement may affect the second Mirandized statement. Accordingly, we look to other jurisdictions. In United States v. Marenghi, 109 F.3d 28 (1st Cir. 1997), the First Circuit Court of Appeals explained the different approaches required for analyzing (1) a situation concerning merely an un- Mirandized statement and (2) a situation concerning a truly coerced statement: There is an enormous difference . . . between `the uncertain consequences of disclosure of a `guilty secret' freely given in response to an unwarned [un- Mirandized ] but uncoercive question' and `the direct consequences flowing from coercion of a confession by physical violence or other deliberate means calculated to break the suspect's will . . . .' [ Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 312, 84 L. Ed. 2d 222, 105 S. Ct. 1285 (1985)]. As such, when the infirmity underlying an initial statement transcends the mere failure to follow the dictates of Miranda, the determination as to the admissibility of a subsequent statement is much more involved. A careful and thorough administration of Miranda warnings alone is not necessarily sufficient to ensure the validity of the subsequent statement. See [470 U.S. at 310]. This is so because the danger exists that the coercive nature of the circumstances under which the initial statement was obtained lingered in the mind of the defendant at the time he or she provided the subsequent statement, irrespective of the fact that he or she had been advised of the Miranda warnings and made the subsequent statement in an atmosphere devoid of coercion or compulsion. [Citation omitted.] In this instance, a court cannot determine the admissibility of the subsequent statement solely by examining the circumstances surrounding that statement. Instead, it must determine whether the subsequent statement is sufficiently removed from the milieu of the coerced statement so as to preclude any lingering taint. 109 F.3d at 32. The Marenghi court agreed with the trial court's determination that the second statement had been voluntarily made, but then proceeded to determine whether the written statement could possibly have been tainted by any coercion lingering from the [first statement]. In order to resolve this issue, we must compare and contrast the circumstances surrounding each of the two statements. In so doing, we look to several factors; [1] the change in the place of the interrogations; [2] the time that passed between the statements; and [3] the change in the identity of the interrogators. See Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 310, 105 S. Ct. at 1293-94. Marenghi, 109 F.3d at 33. See Watson v. Detella, 122 F.3d 450 (7th Cir. 1997); United States v. Perdue, 8 F.3d 1455; United States v. Jenkins, 938 F.2d 934 (9th Cir. 1991); United States v. Wauneka, 770 F.2d 1434 (9th Cir. 1985); State v. Edward B., 72 Conn. App. 282, 289, 806 A.2d 64 (2002) (If the first statement actually was coerced in violation of the fifth amendment, however, the second statement is inadmissible `unless it can be shown that due to the `break in the stream of events' the taint from the earlier prewarning confession has been removed from the subsequent postwarning confession.); State v. Evans, 144 Ohio App. 3d 539, 760 N.E.2d 909 (2001); State v. Juarez, 120 N.M. 499, 903 P.2d 241 (Ct. App. 1995). United States v. Jenkins is directly on point. There, the court held that the suspect's first Mirandized confession had been coerced. Accordingly, it needed to examine whether that coercion tainted the second Mirandized confession. The court, in concluding the second statement had been tainted and was involuntary, stated as follows: Determining whether the taint had dissipated sufficiently is merely another way of asking whether the subsequent confession was, itself, involuntary. This inquiry `depends on the inferences as to the continuing effect of the coercive practices which may fairly be drawn from the surrounding circumstances.' Lyons v. Oklahoma, 322 U.S. 596, 602, 88 L. Ed. 2d 1481, 64 S. Ct. 1208, 1212 (1944) (citation omitted). Specifically, we look to [1] the temporal proximity of the coercive misconduct to the confession, [2] the presence of intervening circumstances which attenuate and dissipate the coercive effects of that misconduct, and, particularly, [3] the purpose and flagrancy of that [prior] misconduct. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603-04, 45 L. Ed. 2d 416, 95 S. Ct. 2254, 2261-62 (1975). As with the initial confession, it is the government's burden to prove this confession admissible. [422 U.S. at 604]. 938 F.2d at 941. Similarly, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Perdue, 8 F.3d 1455, concluded that the government failed to show that the coercion surrounding the first, albeit un- Mirandized, statement had been sufficiently dissipated so as to make the second, Mirandized, statement voluntary. The court examined the length of time that passed between the two confessions, the addition of new pressures, and the absence of any meaningful intervening circumstances which would indicate that the second confession was insulated from the effect of all that went before. 8 F.3d at 1467-69. Stated another way, [t]he later confession will be admissible while the first confession will not `only if such a distinction is justified by a sufficiently isolating break in the stream of events.' 8 F.3d at 1467-68. With these holdings in mind, we observe that according to Sweeney's testimony, Swanigan's second statement occurred at 1 p.m., approximately 19 hours after his first. As with the first statement, Sweeney and Lanham were again interrogating Swanigan; only Feldman was absent. Since Swanigan had been arrested and incarcerated the evening before, it appears the interrogation again was conducted at the police station, perhaps in the same interview room as the first interrogation. Swanigan repeated the same general facts, including the same ones he had stated incorrectly 19 hours before. Furthermore, there is no evidence of intervening circumstances which would attenuate and dissipate the coercive effects of the evening before except the passage of time, which, when considering an individual with an IQ of 76 who is also susceptible to being overborne by anxiety, may mean little. On the other hand, we do observe that the prior misconduct was not physical nor necessarily flagrant. We conclude that the State has failed to meet its burden of showing the second statement was untainted by the first, i.e., that the second was voluntary as well. See Perdue, 8 F.3d 1455, 1467-68 (same agent who conducted first coercive interrogation present for the second was a factor in finding taint from the first interrogation; same location for both interrogations a factor in finding taint from the first interrogation); Jenkins, 938 F.2d 934, 941 (no significant intervening circumstances which might have purged the taint from the initial coerced confession were brought to court's attention); United States v. Lee, 699 F.2d 466, 469 (9th Cir. 1982) (the second confession, a virtual repetition of the first, was obtained less than 24 hours after the first confession was elicited; Ninth Circuit held it was not clearly erroneous for district court to conclude that no intervening event of significance occurred so as to purge the taint of the illegally obtained confession). Accordingly, the November 1 statement should also have been excluded as evidence at trial. We reemphasize that a case-by-case evaluation approach is employed to determine whether coercion was impermissibly used in obtaining a confession. State v. Lane, 262 Kan. 373, 385, 940 P.2d 422 (1997). We also emphasize that voluntariness of confessions is determined by a totality of the circumstances, Sanders, 272 Kan. at 452, and that none of the circumstances in the instant case alone make the confession involuntary per se. Finally, we point out that the determination of whether the coercion of one statement taints another is also necessarily fact sensitive. Consequently, a broad reading of our opinion today is expressly discouraged.