Opinion ID: 1518087
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admissibility of Statements Made to a Prison Guard

Text: The killing of Springbett occurred on December 12, 1967. DuVal surrendered to police authorities in the office of his lawyer on the late afternoon of December 14th. Testimony of the arresting officer establishes that DuVal was read the arrest warrant, was read the Miranda warnings from a card which he subsequently signed, and was then removed from the attorney's office. It was made clear to the arresting officer by appellant's lawyer, however, that no interrogation of DuVal was to take place at all. Consequently, the defendant was taken to the Bristol Township Building, was there fingerprinted and arraigned before a Bucks County magistrate, and was then delivered into the custody of the officials of the Bucks County Prison. On the afternoon of the third day of trial, two days after the witnesses McCabe and D'Ulisse had invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege, the Commonwealth informed defense counsel that it had located a witness, James W. Doorly, who would testify to incriminating statements made by the defendant DuVal. [11] Doorly was a prison guard on the late afternoon to midnight shift. It was he who checked DuVal into the prison on the evening of December 14 at approximately 6:30 p.m. According to Sergeant Doorly, while he was filling out a required form, DuVal, without prompting and in response to no question asked by Doorly, spontaneously declared: I shot this guy. He was beating up the girl, and it was my home. This testimony, of course, converted what had begun to appear to be a weak circumstantial case into one in which the defendant had in effect confessed to the crime. Defense counsel moved to suppress this statement on the ground that it was obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966). Appellant contends that the intake process in which Sergeant Doorly was involved is a custodial interrogation within the meaning of Miranda, that no warnings were given to DuVal by Sergeant Doorly, and that hence any statement thus elicited from DuVal was obtained in violation of his constitutional rights. Miranda warnings had been given to DuVal by the arresting officer less than two hours before. We regard these warnings as sufficient in view of the short lapse of time. Commonwealth v. Hoss, 445 Pa. 98, 111-12, 283 A. 2d 58 (1971). The argument necessarily becomes, then, that DuVal, who was informed of his constitutional rights and who, through his lawyer, had indicated a desire to exercise his absolute right to remain silent, was nonetheless interrogated by Sergeant Doorly. It is clear that under the circumstances no interrogation of DuVal was permissible. Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. at 474; Commonwealth v. Nathan, 445 Pa. 470, 285 A. 2d 175 (1971); Commonwealth v. Leaming, 432 Pa. 326, 247 A. 2d 590 (1968). We have defined interrogation under Miranda as encompassing any question likely to or expected to elicit a confession. Commonwealth v. Simala, 434 Pa. 219, 227, 252 A. 2d 575 (1969). We have, however, never read Miranda as requiring all subsequent statements made by the defendant to be suppressed. If the defendant, without prodding or inducement by the police which amounts to interrogation, spontaneously confesses or blurts out incriminating statements, those statements are admissible. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 478, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966); Commonwealth v. Simala, supra, 434 Pa. at 225; Commonwealth v. Feldman, 432 Pa. 428, 248 A. 2d 1 (1968); Commonwealth ex rel. Vanderpool v. Russell, 426 Pa. 499, 233 A. 2d 246 (1967); Commonwealth v. Eperjesi, 423 Pa. 455, 224 A. 2d 216 (1966). We think that this statement made to Sergeant Doorly was not the product of interrogation, but rather was volunteered. According to the testimony of the prison guard, which the lower court credited, DuVal had been asked his name, his marital status, his religion, his occupation, and his address for purposes of completing a summary card. Sergeant Doorly then put down the summary card and picked up a form called an arrest report to which was attached a commitment form. This latter form had already been completed by the magistrate before whom DuVal had been arraigned, and it indicated that the arrested man was held for homicide. Although the arrest report, which was blank, contained a space for charge to be indicated, Sergeant Doorly testified that he did not ask DuVal the nature of the charges against him, but rather set about transferring the data on the commitment form to the arrest report. In the silence DuVal made the declaration quoted above: I shot this guy, he was beating up the girl, and it was my home. [12] We recognize the legitimate need of the police and of prison authorities to process even those persons who have claimed their rights under Miranda and hence we cannot and do not proscribe all police-prisoner contact or conversation. We have recognized, however, that subtle pressures  later said to have been administrative  can be applied to encourage or elicit incriminating statements, and we will look carefully to determine whether Miranda rights have been violated. See Commonwealth v. Mercier, 451 Pa. 211, 302 A. 2d 337 (1973); Commonwealth v. Hamilton, 445 Pa. 292, 285 A. 2d 172 (1971). Sergeant Doorly's questions were not such as to be likely . . . to elicit a confession; indeed, the guard thought so little of the incident and viewed his role as so apart from the crime solving role of the police that he never reported it to his supervisors. We conclude that the challenged statements were properly admitted.