Opinion ID: 835638
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: February 28, 1998, Statements

Text: The first group of statements were made to Washington County Investigator Bowman and his associates over a nine hour period on February 28, 1998. Bowman and the others came to defendant's home at 8:30 p.m. to execute warrants to search defendant's home and car and to obtain DNA samples from his person. Defendant did not answer the door when the police knocked and rang, but he did finally respond when the investigators called to him by means of a police car hailer. When defendant came out of his house, several officers had drawn their guns. Defendant was told to get down on his knees and to keep his hands up. Defendant was searched and then was advised that the police were there to execute search warrants, including a warrant to obtain DNA evidence from his person. At that point, weapons holstered, investigators asked defendant if he would come to the sheriff's office for that purpose and otherwise to assist in the investigation. Defendant agreed to do so. He was driven to the sheriff's office by a police detective and was told by another detective that he was not under arrest. At the sheriff's office, defendant agreed to be interviewed and to allow the interview to be recorded. A few minutes into the interview, however, defendant said that he wished to terminate the interview. The investigators stopped the interview and the taping and proceeded to take samples of defendant's hair and saliva. Midway through that process, the investigators discovered that their warrant was defective. They asked defendant to provide the samples voluntarily, but he replied that he would not provide them without first talking to a lawyer. The investigators then left defendant alone in the interview room while they attempted to amend the defective warrant. After a period of time they returned, reactivated the tape recorder, and accused defendant of erasing part of the tape. Defendant told the investigators that he wanted to go home and did not want to talk to them. The investigators left the room again and then returned and activated the tape in order to confront defendant about looking through notes that an investigator had left in the room. Finally, after assuring defendant again that he was not under arrest, the investigators searched and photocopied the contents of defendant's wallet, took photographs of him, and drove him back to his home, where the house search still was going on. Defendant spent the next several hours outside of the house with an investigator, McKinney, waiting for the house search to end. During that time, defendant asked McKinney about Fraser's death, but McKinney told him that he could not talk to defendant about it. Defendant then commented that he wished [McKinney] was either a lawyer or a priest. Before the trial court, defendant argued that all the statements that he made to the investigators in the course of the foregoing events were inadmissible, primarily because he was in custody or, at least, in compelling circumstances and had not been read the usual Miranda warnings. The trial court, however, expressly found that defendant was not in custody on February 28, 1998, that the circumstances were not compelling, that defendant's statements to police detectives on that date were freely and voluntarily made, and that his statements to McKinney were spontaneous and not the result of questioning. Significantly, the court also found that defendant was sophisticated in the ways of the criminal justice system and that when he didn't want to talk, he didn't talk. Defendant challenges the foregoing findings, albeit in very general terms. However, we have reviewed the record and are satisfied that the trial court's rulings were correct. It is true that defendant reasonably could haveindeed, may havebelieved that he was in custody when police officers summoned him from his home with a bullhorn and met him outside with drawn guns. However, we think that any such belief (assuming that defendant even had it) would have been dispelled when the investigators then presented defendant with apparently lawful search warrants, asked him to come down to the station to assist in an investigation, and told him explicitly that he was not under arrest. Other aspects of the interlude also support the conclusion that the circumstances were neither custodial nor compelling. Most telling are the facts that defendant very actively controlled the interrogation once he was at the station and that, when he asked the investigators to terminate the interview and to return him to his home, they did so. The evidence also verifies the trial court's conclusion that defendant's statements to McKinney while waiting outside his home for the police to finish their search were spontaneous on his part and not the product of any interrogation. In sum, defendant's assignment of error respecting his February 28, 1998, statements is not well taken.