Opinion ID: 2103748
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: February 21, 1991, Discarded Gun Search

Text: On the day after his arrest, February 21, 1991, the defendant was taken from the Carroll County Jail to various locations in Tippecanoe County so that the defendant could show police investigators where evidence from the crimes of January 16, 1991, had been discarded. Detective Brown testified that he did not readvise the defendant of his Miranda rights before going on the search because the excursion was a continuation of the interview from the night before. Record at 3438-42. The detective believed that since the police were not asking the defendant any new questions or taking a formal statement, but merely having the defendant show them the location of the gun discussed the night before, it was not necessary to readvise the defendant of his rights. The police and the defendant looked for the gun but were unable to find it. One week thereafter, however, a gun, later determined to be the murder weapon, was found at the location identified by the defendant. At trial, the defendant objected to the admission of any testimony about what he told police on February 21 and the resulting evidence on the grounds that he had been in police custody and had been subjected to questioning without being advised of and waiving his Miranda rights. On appeal, he argues that we apply the following standard of review: We have held that if at the commencement of custodial interrogation the suspect has been given an advisement and made a waiver in accordance with the guidelines in Miranda, that advisement need not be repeated so long as the circumstances attending any interruption or adjournment of the process is such that the suspect has not been deprived of the opportunity to make an informed and intelligent assessment of his interests involved in the interrogation, including the right to cut off questioning. Partlow v. State (1983), Ind., 453 N.E.2d 259, 269 (citation omitted), cert. denied, (1984), 464 U.S. 1072, 104 S.Ct. 983, 79 L.Ed.2d 219. The defendant urges that the relationship and passage of time between the initial reading of rights and the subsequent search for physical evidence the next day were too tenuous and too great, respectively, and deprived the defendant of the opportunity to make an informed and voluntary waiver of his rights. The State responds that because the defendant had told police the night before that he could show them where the gun was, the intervening time prior to the next day's search was not such that Defendant was deprived of the opportunity to make an informed and intelligent assessment of his interests. We agree. The daylight resumption of the prior night's search for items named that same evening by the defendant did not require a renewed advisement of rights. The trial court did not err in overruling the defendant's objections to the evidence resulting from the February 21 search.