Opinion ID: 2339868
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hospital Statements

Text: Defendant made the first set of inculpatory statements at the hospital on the evening of the accident. When Officer Dennis Pike of the Farmington Police Department arrived in uniform at the hospital one hour after the accident, he found defendant on a gurney in a small room off the emergency room. Officer Pike was acquainted with defendant, and defendant appeared to be comforted by his presence. In fact, defendant held Pike's hand and asked him to remain with him for what turned out to be over two and a half hours. During the first twenty minutes of their conversation, defendant made various incriminatory statements. Pike then gave defendant his Miranda warnings. Defendant, after acknowledging that he understood all of his rights, waived his right to remain silent and his right to counsel and agreed to discuss the accident with Pike. Thereafter defendant repeated all the same incriminating statements that he had made previously. At trial the substance of those post- Miranda statements went into evidence through Officer Pike's testimony. On appeal defendant argues that his statements at the hospital should have been suppressed, contending that the belated Miranda warnings were not sufficient to cure the taint of the initial unwarned statements. He also argues that the suppression justice erred in finding that all of his statements to Officer Pike were voluntarily made. [1] A recent Supreme Court ruling disposes of defendant's argument. In Oregon v. Elstad, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985), the Court held that the initial failure of the police to give a suspect his Miranda warnings does not prevent that suspect from waiving his rights and confessing once he has been given those warnings. The Court stated: When police ask questions of a suspect in custody without administering the required warnings, Miranda dictates that the answers received be presumed compelled and that they be excluded from evidence at trial in the State's case in chief.... The Court today in no way retreats from the bright line rule of Miranda. We do not imply that good faith excuses a failure to administer Miranda warnings; nor do we condone inherently coercive police tactics or methods offensive to due process that render the initial admission involuntary and undermine the suspect's will to invoke his rights once they are read to him. A handful of courts has, however, applied our precedents relating to confessions obtained under coercive circumstances to situations involving wholly voluntary admissions, requiring a passage of time or break in events before a second, fully warned statement can be deemed voluntary. Far from establishing a rigid rule, we direct courts to avoid one; there is no warrant for presuming coercive effect where the suspect's initial inculpatory statement, though technically in violation of Miranda, was voluntary. The relevant inquiry is whether, in fact, the second statement was also voluntarily made. As in any such inquiry, the finder of fact must examine the surrounding circumstances and the entire course of police conduct with respect to the suspect in evaluating the voluntariness of his statements. The fact that a suspect chooses to speak after being informed of his rights is, of course, highly probative. We find that the dictates of Miranda and the goals of the Fifth Amendment proscription against use of compelled testimony are fully satisfied in the circumstances of this case by barring use of the unwarned statement in the case in chief. No further purpose is served by imputing taint to subsequent statements obtained pursuant to a voluntary and knowing waiver. We hold today that a suspect who has once responded to unwarned yet uncoercive questioning is not thereby disabled from waiving his rights and confessing after he has been given the requisite Miranda warnings. Elstad, ___ U.S. at ___, 105 S.Ct. at 1298, 84 L.Ed.2d at 237-38 (footnote omitted; emphasis added). Thus, in the case at bar, the two-pronged question is whether defendant's initial statements to Officer Pike were voluntary, and if so, whether his post- Miranda statements were also voluntarily made. The suppression justice found as a fact that all of defendant's statements were voluntary, and that finding must stand unless clearly erroneous. State v. Reeves, 499 A.2d 130, 132 (Me. 1985). The record fully supports the suppression justice's finding of voluntariness of defendant's statements: defendant was acquainted with Officer Pike, who at defendant's request stayed at his side holding his hand for over two and a half hours; defendant was capable of exercising his free will as is shown by the fact that defendant though uncooperative with medical personnel was very cooperative with Officer Pike; Pike gave defendant complete Miranda warnings and defendant stated that he understood his rights, yet still agreed to discuss the accident; and, finally, Pike, who was in uniform, did not use his acquaintanceship with defendant to trick a confession out of defendant. The evidence shows that defendant's statements both before and after the Miranda warnings were voluntary, and therefore, under Elstad, no violation of defendant's fifth or sixth amendment rights occurred. Defendant's post- Miranda statements were properly admitted in evidence.