Opinion ID: 1974181
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Blackburn's Contentions

Text: Blackburn, who, among other things, was a barber (who had finished high school and had taken college courses) despite the fact that two fingers on one hand cannot be straightened except involuntarily with resulting pain, and that he must wear a brace for a back condition resulting from something akin to a slipped disc, came home from work on the evening of April 23 to an empty house, his wife having left him sometime before to live with her mother. He had a long telephone talk with Irvin Ellis, Mefford's brother-in-law (who had introduced him to Mefford), who told him Mefford was in the hands of the police and that he better get a lawyer. He went to bed without eating because he had a headache. About three in the morning, he was awakened by a knocking on the door. He garbed himself in pants, a T shirt and slippers and went downstairs and out into an alleyway, and was there arrested and handcuffed behind his back. The police say he did not want to go back into the house for other clothing, he says they would not let him do so. He was taken to Towson police headquarters, interrogated for an hour and then put in a cell, which he says had only a metal bunk, was so cold he shivered, and was completely dark (the County police say the temperature was 70° , as it always is in the modern building, winter and summer, and the cell was lighted), until 8:30 a.m. when he was fingerprinted by pressing the fingers of his afflicted hand straight. He says this was very painful  the police say he did appear to wince. He was then, he says, given a cup of cold coffee, half of which he spilled because he was cold and nervous. The police say he was given a cup of coffee and a bun. He says he was not given lunch. Two County policemen testified that he was. In the afternoon he was taken to the State police barracks at Benson near Bel Air. He says that because he did not have his back brace and because, on the ride, he was handcuffed behind so that he was forced to lean forward, his back hurt and he could not walk when he got out of the car (he made the same claims as to subsequent trips). All the policemen who saw him while he was in custody say he would sometimes limp for a minute or so when he first got out of a car but that except for this he walked and sat completely normally. (Irvin Ellis testified that some months before, when Blackburn was a trusty, his job was cutting grass and doing other physical labor at the State Office Building in Baltimore, and that about that time he, Ellis, had played football with him.) At Benson Blackburn was questioned for a few minutes by Lt. Hanley. Blackburn says Hanley told him he was not going to be released until they got what they were looking for and they would keep working on him until they did. He testified he told Hanley to charge him if he had anything on him so he could get a lawyer, but he got no response. (Although Blackburn says in his brief that he repeatedly asked the police for a lawyer and was either denied the opportunity to call one or was ignored, in his testimony he says that when he was first arrested he several times asked the Baltimore County police, to whom he did not confess, as once he did Hanley, to be charged if they had anything on him so he could then get a lawyer  apparently as an indigent person, since he testified he had no money when he was arrested and, at his trial, was represented by a lawyer supplied by the State.) Blackburn's recollection of what Hanley told him was completely different from that of Trooper Wellman, who said Hanley urged Blackburn to talk, after telling him in terms that they would promise him nothing and advising him of his right either to talk or, without prejudice, to remain silent, and to attempt to persuade him to take a lie detector test, and that Blackburn said he knew his rights. Blackburn frankly admits that, after discussing such a test with Hanley, he agreed to take one, if he could have twenty-four hours rest, a bed with a mattress and three good meals. Hanley agreed to these conditions. An hour later a trooper came and ascertained from Blackburn where to reach his wife so access could be gained to his apartment in order to get him clothing. Blackburn furnished the information and told the trooper the clothing he wanted. Two hours later, the trooper was back with the requested clothing. Blackburn was then taken to the North East Barracks and placed for the night in a cell in which there was a bed with a mattress and blankets. Blackburn says that while he was in custody he was fed only sandwiches and milk and regurgitated what he ate and drank  with the exception of one sandwich  into the toilet in his cell. All the police officers who had an opportunity to judge say he was given full meals at the proper hours and apparently both ate and retained them (Blackburn often quibbled on the stand as to matters on which he had heard testimony from the officers. For example, they said one dinner he was given consisted of steak, french fried potatoes and cole slaw. He said there was no steak  only a little dried up piece of meat.). Sergeant Stacey, after advising Blackburn of his right to answer or not to answer, conducted a preliminary examination of him on the morning after he was brought to North East Barracks. After lunch Blackburn was given the lie detector test and, when he asked what it showed, was told it revealed a little deception. Stacey said Blackburn never made to him any request of any kind for counsel. Blackburn argues that the subtle techniques and circumstances of the interrogations, such as constant repetitions suggesting his guilt, the physical position of Stacey during the lie detector test so close to Blackburn that the moisture from the former's mouth was transmitted to the latter's face, and a rhetorical question as to what he thought a jury would do when Mefford told them Blackburn had shot Snider, illegitimately induced his confession. Stacey and other police witnesses deny completely Blackburn's version of how the interrogations and the lie detector test were conducted. Blackburn's account of his reaction to being told that Mefford was accusing him of the actual shooting was that first he repeated his request that he be charged so he could get a lawyer, and second he asked to be allowed to confront Mefford and to see his wife. Both latter requests were immediately granted. When Mefford's statement was read to Blackburn (apparently in part by Mefford himself), he said he had heard enough and what he had to do now would be easier to do. He then talked to his wife and learned that she would not support his alibi that he was home in bed the night of Snider's murder. The combination of Mefford's accusation of Blackburn and his wife's inability or unwillingness to support his alibi apparently were the blows that persuaded him that he might as well confess, rather than any improper or unlawful techniques of the police, subtle or direct. We find that the trial judges permissibly could, as they did, both preliminarily in passing on admissibility and then as the triers of fact, find Blackburn's confession to have been in fact voluntary and not the result of an overborne will, not the product of either police stick or carrot.