Opinion ID: 1801680
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendant's statements to Sergeant Meese on December 4, 1993

Text: Defendant argues that his statements to Petaluma Police Sergeant Meese on December 4, 1993, when he confessed to the murder of Polly Klaas, were admitted in violation of his Miranda rights because Sergeant Meese impermissibly elicited the confession four days after defendant had asserted those rights. These are the pertinent facts: Although defendant invoked his right to counsel toward the end of police questioning on November 30, 1993, no attorney was provided. Defendant remained incarcerated on his parole violation warrant and on the October 19, 1993, drunk driving charge. On December 1, defendant, without an attorney, was placed in an in-person lineup and asked to read phrases said by Polly's kidnapper to Polly's two classmates who were with her in her bedroom on the night of the crimes. On December 2, defendant appeared without counsel in a Mendocino court and pled guilty to the drunk driving charge, waiving his right to remain silent and his right to an attorney for those proceedings. From defendant's arrest through December 3, 1993, the police curtailed their searches for Polly and evidence of her abduction at the Pythian Road site where defendant's car had been stuck, instead focusing attention on defendant's sister's home, where defendant was arrested. During this period, defendant was housed in isolation and was moved from cell to cell. On December 4, defendant was moved from an isolation cell to a medical isolation cell in the Mendocino County Jail because he was considered a suicide risk. The medical isolation cell, with 24-hour lighting, was surrounded by observation windows. About 9:30 that morning, William Marvin White, a friend and former employer, visited defendant and told him that a television report mentioned that defendant was a suspect in Polly's kidnapping and that his palm print had been lifted from Polly's bedroom. Defendant said he was being kept in isolation at the jail and had not watched any television. As White's visit ended, Petaluma Police Sergeant Meese and FBI Agent Taylor arrived at the jail to roll defendant's hands for fingerprints and palm prints. According to Meese, he did not intend to obtain a confession from defendant but was simply trying to discover Polly's whereabouts because there was reason to believe she was still alive. After obtaining prints of defendant's fingers and palms, Sergeant Meese told defendant that if there was any hope that Polly was alive, defendant ought to give thought to talking to him. Defendant replied he did not know what Meese was talking about. Meese told defendant the police had enough physical evidence to make the case even without a statement from defendant, and that if defendant decided he wanted to talk he could give Meese a call. Meese then departed for the Pythian Road crime scene, leaving his pager number with a corrections officer. After Meese's departure, defendant (according to the testimony of a corrections officer at the jail) became very quiet, reserved, and stone-faced, looking at the ground. About 15 minutes after Sergeant Meese's departure, defendant told a corrections officer he wanted to talk to Meese. A corrections officer notified Meese, who decided not to speak to defendant on his cellular phone for fear that the call would be intercepted by the news media. Two hours later, Meese called the jail from a pay telephone and spoke to defendant, who said, I fucked up big time. When Meese asked if Polly was still alive, defendant said she was not. In response to Meese's question whether Polly's body was near the ditch off Pythian Road, defendant said it was not. Defendant then asked for protective custody and a pack of cigarettes. He also asked whether he could plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. That, Meese replied, was a matter for the district attorney. Defendant said that when Meese returned to the jail, defendant would show him the location of Polly's body. When Meese asked if he could bring FBI Agent Taylor with him, defendant said he could. That afternoon, Sergeant Meese and FBI Agent Taylor returned to the jail, where defendant waived his Miranda rights and made videotaped statements for the next two hours. In the evening, defendant led Meese and Taylor to Polly's body, and their conversations during that trip were tape-recorded. Later that night, defendant again waived his Miranda rights and made additional videotaped statements. (11) The trial court denied defendant's motion to suppress the December 4, 1993, telephone conversation in which he told Sergeant Meese that Polly was dead. On appeal, defendant argues that suppression was required under the United States Supreme Court's decision in Edwards v. Arizona (1981) 451 U.S. 477 [68 L.Ed.2d 378, 101 S.Ct. 1880] ( Edwards ). There, the high court said that if, at any point during custodial interrogation, a suspect requests counsel, `the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present.' ( Edwards, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 482, quoting Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at p. 474.) (12) In a later case, the United States Supreme Court explained: Once a suspect asserts the right [to counsel], not only must the current interrogation cease, but he may not be approached for further interrogation `until counsel has been made available to him ...'.... If the police do subsequently initiate an encounter in the absence of counsel (assuming there has been no break in custody), the suspect's statements are presumed involuntary and therefore inadmissible as substantive evidence at trial, even where the suspect executes a waiver and his statements would be considered voluntary under traditional standards. This is `designed to prevent police from badgering a defendant into waiving his previously asserted Miranda rights,' [citation]. ( McNeil v. Wisconsin (1991) 501 U.S. 171, 176-177 [115 L.Ed.2d 158, 111 S.Ct. 2204], citation omitted; see also People v. Cunningham, supra, 25 Cal.4th at pp. 992-993; People v. Crittenden (1994) 9 Cal.4th 83, 128 [36 Cal.Rptr.2d 474, 885 P.2d 887].) Here, four days after defendant had invoked his right to counsel, Sergeant Meese reinitiated contact with defendant and, without providing him with counsel, tried to persuade him to disclose where Polly was. Defendant characterizes that conduct as illegal, thus requiring suppression of the December 4, 1993, telephone conversation and the statements defendant made thereafter. But, as the trial court ruled, the challenged telephone statements were admissible under the rescue doctrine. (See People v. Coffman and Marlow (2004) 34 Cal.4th 1, 56 [17 Cal.Rptr.3d 710, 96 P.3d 30] ( Coffman and Marlow ).) The origins of the rescue doctrine can be traced to our decision in People v. Modesto (1965) 62 Cal.2d 436 [42 Cal.Rptr. 417, 398 P.2d 753] ( Modesto ), which antedated by some 16 months the high court's decision in Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. 436. In Modesto, the defendant broke into a residence and bludgeoned a nine-year-old girl, killing her, and he kidnapped the victim's 12-year-old sister, Connie. Hours later, the police interrogated the defendant without advising him of his rights to remain silent and to the assistance of counsel, suggesting to him that Connie might still be alive and could be saved. The defendant directed them to a storm drain where Connie's body was found farther downstream. She had drowned. We held that the statements defendant made during the interrogation were admissible, explaining: They were freely and voluntarily made at a time when the officers were concerned primarily with the possibility of saving Connie's life. The paramount interest in saving her life, if possible, clearly justified the officers in not impeding their rescue efforts by informing defendant of his rights to remain silent and to the assistance of counsel. ( Modesto, supra, 62 Cal.2d at p. 446.) (13) Shortly thereafter, in People v. Jacobson (1965) 63 Cal.2d 319 [46 Cal.Rptr. 515, 405 P.2d 555], we applied the Modesto holding, and we did so again in People v. Miller (1969) 71 Cal.2d 459, 481-482 [78 Cal.Rptr. 449, 455 P.2d 377], upholding statements obtained by investigating police officers through routine on-the-scene questioning of noncustodial suspects as to facts surrounding a report of a dead or missing child. Later, the Court of Appeal in People v. Dean (1974) 39 Cal.App.3d 875 [114 Cal.Rptr. 555] first coined the phrase rescue doctrine to describe our holding in Modesto, supra, 62 Cal.2d 436; in rejecting the defendant's argument in Dean that the doctrine was no longer viable in light of the high court's decision in Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. 436, the Court of Appeal pointed out that [w]hile life hangs in the balance, there is no room to require admonitions concerning the right to counsel and to remain silent. ( Dean, supra, 39 Cal.App.3d at p. 882.) Four years later, the Court of Appeal in People v. Riddle (1978) 83 Cal.App.3d 563 [148 Cal.Rptr. 170] ( Riddle ), a kidnapping case, articulated a three-part test to determine applicability of the rescue doctrine: 1. Urgency of need in that no other course of action promises relief; [¶] 2. The possibility of saving human life by rescuing a person whose life is in danger; [and] [¶] 3. Rescue as the primary purpose and motive of the interrogators. ( Riddle, supra, 83 Cal.App.3d at p. 576.) Some two years later, the Court of Appeal in People v. Willis (1980) 104 Cal.App.3d 433 [163 Cal.Rptr. 718], applying the Riddle test, held to be admissible the defendant's statements obtained during an interrogation that, as in this case, occurred after the defendant's invocation of his Miranda rights. ( Willis, at p. 449; but see People v. Laliberte (1993) 246 Ill.App.3d 159, 171-172 [186 Ill.Dec. 9, 615 N.E.2d 813] [refusing to apply the rescue doctrine when a suspect invokes the right to counsel]; State v. Miller (1985) 300 Ore. 203 [709 P.2d 225, 241] [same].) (14) After the California courts had adopted the rescue doctrine, the high court in New York v. Quarles (1984) 467 U.S. 649 [81 L.Ed.2d 550, 104 S.Ct. 2626] ( Quarles ) carved out a public safety exception to the requisite Miranda warnings. In Quarles, the victim approached police officers on patrol, told them she had just been raped, described the assailant, and said he was in a nearby store with a gun. An officer entered the store, saw the defendant, and arrested him. Noticing the defendant's empty shoulder holster, the officer asked the defendant where the gun was, and the defendant told him its location. After retrieving the gun, the officers advised the defendant of his constitutional rights under Miranda. The high court held that the officer's initial question to the defendant did not violate Miranda because of a `public safety' exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect's answers may be admitted into evidence. ( Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at p. 655.) Quarles held that the availability of that exception does not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers involved. ( Id. at p. 656.) (15) Quarles explained that the officers in that case were faced with a kaleidoscopic situation ( Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at p. 656) in which spontaneity rather than adherence to a police manual [was] necessarily the order of the day ... ( ibid. ) and the defendant's gun obviously posed more than one danger to the public safety: an accomplice might make use of it, a customer or employee might later come upon it ( id. at p. 657). An officer should not be placed in the untenable position, the court reasoned, of having to decide, often in a matter of seconds, whether to confront the volatile situation by either seeking an un- Mirandized statement, thereby rendering the evidence inadmissible, or giving the requisite Miranda warnings, which might render any answer admissible but also might deter the suspect from making any statement in the first place. ( Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at pp. 657-658.) [T]he need for answers to questions in a situation posing a threat to the public safety, the court held, outweighs the need for the prophylactic rule protecting the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination. ( Id. at p. 657.) (16) Defendant here argues that the rescue doctrine is not a separate exception to the Miranda/Edwards rules but is subsumed within the public safety exception articulated by the high court in Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. 649. This court, however, has described the rescue doctrine as analogous to, not subsumed within, the public safety exception. ( Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 56.) In the handful of post- Quarles cases involving the rescue of missing persons, California decisions have continued to apply the rescue doctrine independently of the public safety exception articulated by the high court. (See People v. Panah (2005) 35 Cal.4th 395, 471 [25 Cal.Rptr.3d 672, 107 P.3d 790]; Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 56; People v. Stevenson (1996) 51 Cal.App.4th 1234, 1239-1240 [59 Cal.Rptr.2d 878].) Here, in admitting defendant's statements, the trial court relied in part on its conclusion that when Petaluma Police Sergeant Meese asked defendant to tell him where Polly was, Meese was motivated by the desire to save Polly's life. Reliance on Sergeant Meese's motivation was consistent with the test set forth in the Court of Appeal's decision in Riddle, the third prong of which, as previously mentioned, considers whether rescue is the primary purpose and motive of the interrogators. ( Riddle, supra, 83 Cal.App.3d at p. 576.) But this court has never adopted the Riddle test in determining applicability of the rescue doctrine. And that test's consideration of the motivation of the interrogating officer has been undermined by the high court's statement in Quarles (decided after Riddle ), that the applicability of the public safety exception, which is analogous to the rescue doctrine, does not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers involved. ( Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. at p. 656.) A subjective test, the high court noted in Quarles, would be problematic because different police officers in similar situations may act out of a host of different ... and largely unverifiable motives ( ibid. ), and the legality of their conduct should not be made to depend on post hoc findings at a suppression hearing concerning the subjective motivation of the arresting officer ( ibid. ). In determining the applicability of the Miranda rule, the high court has generally frowned on the use of subjective tests. (See People v. Peevy (1998) 17 Cal.4th 1184, 1199 [73 Cal.Rptr.2d 865, 953 P.2d 1212] [citing decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrating that applications of the Miranda rule generally do not turn upon the individual officer's subjective state of mind ...].) (17) For these reasons, applicability of the rescue doctrine must be grounded on objective facts known to law enforcement. `[U]nder circumstances of extreme emergency where the possibility of saving the life of a missing victim exists, noncoercive questions may be asked of a material witness in custody even though answers to the questions may incriminate the witness. Any other policy would reflect indifference to human life.' [4] ( Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 56, quoting Riddle, supra, 83 Cal.App.3d at p. 578.) Defendant insists that no such emergency existed here. He contends it was unreasonable to believe that Polly was still alive when Sergeant Meese questioned him because at that time Polly had been missing for 64 days, or just over nine weeks. (See People v. Manning (Colo. 1983) 672 P.2d 499, 502, 511-512 [refusing to apply the rescue doctrine because the three-year-old victim, who had been severely beaten before disappearing, had been missing for 14 weeks and the lead investigator had begun to search for the child's dead body].) Defendant points out that in all California cases that have applied the rescue doctrine the victim had been missing for a far shorter time than here. (See Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th 1, 57 [victim missing for seven days]; People v. Willis, supra, 104 Cal.App.3d 433 [victim missing for several days]; Riddle, supra, 83 Cal.App.3d 563 [the defendant was questioned over a two-day period shortly after the victim disappeared]; People v. Dean, supra, 39 Cal.App.3d 875 [victim missing for three days]; see also People v. Swoboda (N.Y.Crim.Ct. 2002) 190 Misc.2d 214 [737 N.Y.S.2d 821, 827] [victim missing for 11 days].) (18) But the length of time a kidnap victim has been missing is not, by itself, dispositive of whether a rescue is still reasonably possible. Although it is sadly true that not all kidnap victims are recovered alive, this does not compel the conclusion that the possibility of rescue is unreasonable. ( People v. Dean, supra, 39 Cal.App.3d at p. 883.) Several published decisions describe kidnappings in which the victim was found alive after being held captive for periods longer than 64 days. (See, e.g., Parnell v. Superior Court (1981) 119 Cal.App.3d 392 [173 Cal.Rptr. 906] [seven-year-old boy kidnapped and held captive for over seven years]; In re Marriage of Weintraub (1985) 167 Cal.App.3d 420 [213 Cal.Rptr. 159] [adult female abducted and forced to marry her captor, who held her captive for 67 days]; People v. Rios (1986) 177 Cal.App.3d 445 [222 Cal.Rptr. 913] [one-year-old infant abducted and found living with surrogate parents four years later]; U.S. v. Hearst (9th Cir. 1977) 563 F.2d 1331 [19 year old, kidnapped by guerilla group, joined her captors for 18 months].) (19) Here, even though Polly had been missing for 64 days, it was objectively reasonable for Sergeant Meese to believe that defendant might have information that could lead to her rescue. When defendant abducted Polly, he told the two friends that were with Polly in her bedroom that he would not touch her and that he was only doing this for the money, implying that he was kidnapping Polly for ransom, not for murder. Moreover, none of the evidence recovered from the Pythian Road site (where defendant's car had become stuck in a ditch on the night Polly was kidnapped and which the police examined on Nov. 28, 1993), or from defendant's car (which the police seized when they arrested defendant on Nov. 30, 1993), indicated that Polly was dead. Defendant contends that it was objectively unreasonable for the police to wait four days after defendant had invoked the right to counsel before asking him where Polly was, and that this delay undercut the existence of any exigency. He relies on a District of Columbia decision holding that a delay in questioning can be unreasonable for purposes of the public safety exception that the high court articulated in Quarles, supra, 467 U.S. 649. ( Trice v. U.S. (D.C. 1995) 662 A.2d 891 ( Trice ); see also Note, The Public Safety Exception to Miranda: Analyzing Subjective Motivation (1995) 93 Mich. L.Rev. 2377, 2390 [[A]n appreciable delay before questioning about the alleged danger indicates that investigatory considerations, rather than an immediate danger, motivated the officer.... [C]ourts widely consider an officer's immediate questioning as an objective factor that supports applying the Quarles exception.].) In Trice, the federal appeals court applied the Quarles public safety exception in a situation where the police officer asked the suspect about the location of a missing shotgun well after his arrest and transport to the police station. Trice noted, however: [W]e do not suggest that the exception remains available indefinitely simply because a missing weapon has not been located; if the police, after becoming aware of a threat to public safety, delay questioning the suspect about that threat for an unreasonable period of time, a court no longer may be able to conclude that the question was prompted by a concern for public safety rather than for factual investigation. ( Trice, supra, 662 A.2d at pp. 896-897.) Trice is distinguishable from this case, because it involved a search for a missing weapon, not (as in this case) a missing child. Here, the police and the FBI continued to try to locate the kidnapped Polly during the four days after defendant had invoked his right to counsel and made no statements regarding Polly's whereabouts. But that search proved fruitless. Defendant was law enforcement's best hope to gain vital information about Polly, who had been missing for over two months after defendant had kidnapped her: Where was she? Was she still alive? The questions posed to defendant on the morning of December 4, 1993, were specifically aimed at getting answers to those questions. So long as she remained missing, her safety was of paramount importance. Under these extraordinary circumstances, Sergeant Meese's inquiry did not violate the high court's decisions in Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. 436, and Edwards, supra, 451 U.S. 477. Therefore, the trial court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress his December 4, 1993, statements to Sergeant Meese that same morning and thereafter over the telephone, when he said that Polly was dead and that he would lead the police to her body. As mentioned earlier, after defendant's telephone conversation with Sergeant Meese, the latter and FBI Agent Taylor went back to the jail, where defendant waived his Miranda rights and made statements for the next two hours. In the evening, defendant led Meese and Taylor to Polly's body. Later that night, defendant again waived his Miranda rights and made additional statements. For purposes of our analysis, however, we need not determine the precise moment when Polly's rescue was no longer a realistic possibility because, as we explain below, the trial court correctly denied defendant's motion to suppress his statements at issue. (20) After a suspect has invoked the right to counsel, police officers may nonetheless resume their interrogation if the suspect `(a) initiated further discussions with the police, and (b) knowingly and intelligently waived the right he had invoked.' ( Connecticut v. Barrett (1987) 479 U.S. 523, 527 [93 L.Ed.2d 920, 107 S.Ct. 828]; see also Smith v. Illinois (1984) 469 U.S. 91, 95 [83 L.Ed.2d 488, 105 S.Ct. 490]; Oregon v. Bradshaw (1983) 462 U.S. 1039, 1044 [77 L.Ed.2d 405, 103 S.Ct. 2830] ( Bradshaw ).) The waiver must be `knowing and intelligent ... under the totality of the circumstances, including the necessary fact that the accused, not the police, reopened the dialogue with the authorities.' ( Bradshaw, supra, at p. 1046, quoting Edwards, supra, 451 U.S. at p. 486, fn. 9.) The trial court must take into account `the particular facts and circumstances surrounding [the] case, including the [suspect's] background, experience, and conduct.' ( Bradshaw, supra, at p. 1046, quoting North Carolina v. Butler, supra, 441 U.S. at pp. 374-375; see also People v. San Nicolas (2004) 34 Cal.4th 614, 642-643 [21 Cal.Rptr.3d 612, 101 P.3d 509]; People v. Mickey (1991) 54 Cal.3d 612, 648-653 [286 Cal.Rptr. 801, 818 P.2d 84]; People v. Thompson (1990) 50 Cal.3d 134, 163-164 [266 Cal.Rptr. 309, 785 P.2d 857]; People v. Boyer (1989) 48 Cal.3d 247, 273-275 [256 Cal.Rptr. 96, 768 P.2d 610].) (21) But a defendant's decision to talk with police cannot be a product of police interrogation, badgering, or overreaching, whether explicit or subtle, deliberate or unintentional. ( Smith v. Illinois, supra, 469 U.S. at p. 98.) Without this limitation, police might otherwise wear down the accused and persuade him to incriminate himself notwithstanding his earlier request for counsel's assistance. ( Ibid.; see also Michigan v. Harvey (1990) 494 U.S. 344, 350 [108 L.Ed.2d 293, 110 S.Ct. 1176]; Arizona v. Roberson (1988) 486 U.S. 675, 681 [100 L.Ed.2d 704, 108 S.Ct. 2093].) Here, it is unclear whether defendant independently decided to reopen the discussion of Polly's kidnapping, or whether he did so because Sergeant Meese told him after the fingerprinting at the jail that the police had enough evidence to convict defendant without any statements from him and to call Meese if defendant wanted to talk. (See People v. Boyer, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 275; U.S. v. Szymaniak (2d Cir.1991) 934 F.2d 434; U.S. v. Gomez (11th Cir. 1991) 927 F.2d 1530; U.S. v. Walker (D.Md. 1985) 624 F.Supp. 103; Blake v. Maryland (2004) 381 Md. 218 [849 A.2d 410]; Florida v. Brown (1991) 592 So.2d 308; Wainwright v. State (Del. 1986) 504 A.2d 1096.) But even if we were to assume that defendant's decision to make a statement resulted from Sergeant Meese's comments to him after the fingerprinting, this circumstance is not significant because, as we previously explained (see ante, at p. 595), Meese was entitled to make those comments (which otherwise might well have been improper) in an effort to persuade defendant to provide information that could lead to kidnapped Polly's rescue. Because Sergeant Meese's comments to defendant at the jail were permissible under the rescue doctrine, no overreaching occurred, and defendant was not badgered by police officers in the manner in which the defendant in Edwards was. ( Bradshaw, supra, 462 U.S. at p. 1044.) Therefore, regardless of why defendant decided to enter into further conversation with the police about Polly's kidnapping, that decision was not the product of any improper police conduct. Moreover, undisputed evidence shows that defendant knowingly and intelligently waived his right to counsel before speaking with Sergeant Meese and FBI Agent Taylor when they returned to the jail after defendant's December 4, 1993, telephone conversation with Sergeant Meese. Defendant's comments during that telephone conversation with Sergeant Meese indicated a willingness to waive his previously asserted right to counsel and to make a statement. Defendant knew that Polly was dead: Admitting that fact to Meese over the telephone risked turning a kidnapping case into one of murder. Defendant chose to take that risk. In addition, defendant was free to place limits on the scope of his decision to cooperate, including a refusal to waive his previously asserted right to counsel. He did not. Instead, defendant himself changed the dynamics of the conversation when he sought to make a plea bargain in exchange for helping the police locate Polly. Defendant had two hours, between his decision to contact Sergeant Meese and the latter's return to the jail, to consider his options and how he wished to proceed. Moreover, as the trial court observed, defendant had had a lot of contact with the justice system and appeared to be a very articulate person. In his later recorded interrogations, defendant indicated that he wanted to talk and that he had realized that he could not play it out too long. He mocked the idea of a hypothetical defense attorney chastising him for having confessed. And Sergeant Meese, upon returning to the jail, immediately took the further precaution of readmonishing defendant of his Miranda rights, which defendant waived without hesitation. Under these circumstances, defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights, after Sergeant Meese returned to the jail with FBI Agent Taylor, was knowing and voluntary. For the reasons stated above, the trial court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress defendant's December 4, 1993, statements.