Opinion ID: 1710572
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: clemons's confession

Text: Appellant asserts that the trial court erred in refusing to suppress certain statements made by him because authorities obtained those statements in violation of his constitutional rights. In this regard, appellant claims that the police beat him in order to obtain a confession. He also contends that the police continued to interrogate him after he invoked his right to remain silent and his right to counsel. He argues that any statements he made to a family friend should also have been suppressed because that family friend was a police officer and the friend's questioning of appellant constituted a custodial interrogation. In reviewing the trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress, this Court will sustain the trial court's determinations unless there is insufficient evidence to support the rulings. State v. Rodriguez, 877 S.W.2d 106, 110 (Mo. banc 1994). In reviewing the evidence, we consider all evidence and reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling. Id. The facts show that about 6:00 p.m. on April 7, 1991, Officers Walsh and Brauer went to appellant's home and, finding him there, asked him if he would accompany them to police headquarters, as his name had surfaced in the bridge case. Appellant agreed to accompany them. The officers did not handcuff nor arrest him, and appellant was free to leave. Appellant arrived at police headquarters with the officers at about 6:30 p.m. The police advised him of the rights protected by the Miranda warnings. Appellant indicated that he understood those rights, did not want a lawyer, and was willing to talk to the police. A 45-minute interview ensued, followed by a 20-minute break, and then another interview which lasted between an hour and an hour and a half. At the conclusion of the second interview, the officers arrested appellant. Appellant agreed to make an audiotaped confession. Prior to the taped confession, police again advised appellant of his constitutional rights. Appellant waived those rights in writing again.
Appellant claims the police beat him, rendering his confession involuntary. At the suppression hearing, appellant testified that the police officers conducting the interrogation beat him about the head and chest and slammed his head against the wall. The detectives involved categorically denied that any physical contact occurred. Appellant's initial attorney in this matter testified that he visited appellant in a holding cell at police headquarters the afternoon of April 8th, some 14 hours after appellant's interview had concluded, and observed that the right side of appellant's face was swollen. However, Warren Williams, a friend of appellant's family who is employed as a police officer, visited appellant at the request of appellant's mother and saw appellant literally minutes before appellant's attorney arrived. Williams testified that he did not observe any sign of injury. The next day, April 9, at appellant's arraignment, the presiding judge ordered that appellant be examined at the emergency room at the Regional Hospital. According to the hospital records, appellant was diagnosed with myalgia, [2] mild myositis, [3] and a swollen right cheek. Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling, we find sufficient evidence to support the trial court's finding that appellant's confession was voluntary. The trial court had the opportunity to judge the credibility of the witnesses and obviously found the state's witnesses' testimony more credible than appellant's. While there was additional testimony from appellant's family that appellant's face was swollen, all of these observations were made some 48 hours or more after appellant's interview and confession. The evidence, including the hospital records, simply does not demonstrate either when or how appellant incurred any injury. Nor does it establish that an injury actually occurred at the hands of the police officers conducting his interview. Appellant failed to meet his burden. We find no abuse of discretion in failing to suppress appellant's confession on these grounds.
Appellant also claims that the trial court should have suppressed his statements because police officers ignored his invocation of his right to remain silent and his right to counsel. [4] This alleged assertion took place at the beginning of appellant's audiotaped confession. Appellant claims that the taped statement demonstrates that the police violated the rule announced in Miranda . The audiotaped statement begins with the police reading each Miranda warning and asking appellant whether he understands that right. Appellant states that he does. Detective Pappas then asks: Q. Okay. At this time, Reginald ... do you wish to waive these constitutional rights and make a statement concerning what happened on the night of April 5th, 1991, on ... the Chain of Rocks Bridge? A. No, sir. Appellant cites language in Miranda that states that questioning must cease if the suspect indicates in any manner and at any state of the process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking. 384 U.S. at 444-445, 86 S.Ct. at 1612. Appellant maintains that when he said, No, sir, in response to the officer's question, he asserted his intention not to waive his constitutional rights and that the interview should have stopped at once. Instead, the police continued questioning as follows: Q. Okay, you doyou don't want to make a statement at this time? A. I don't want to use the rights. Q. In other words ... you're waiving your rights to make a statement.... Is that right? A. Yes. Q. Okay. So you're waiving your constitutional rights? A. Okay, sir. DET. BRAUER: ... [W]hat it means is that you give up those rights and that you want to talk about the incident. Is that what you want to do? Tell us about the incident? A. Yes, sir. DET. BRAUER: Okay. That's what we mean. That's what it means to waive your rights. DET. PAPPAS: All that means is that you want to waive these rights at this time to make ... an audio taped statement. That's what we're talking about. Okay. Do you still understand what we're saying? I don't want you to be confused about this. A. Yes. I want to tell everything that happened up on the bridge. Q. Okay. So you're wishing to make a statement? A. Yes. Despite appellant's hopeful, contrary claim, the transcript clearly shows that appellant affirmatively waived his rights and agreed to make an audio-taped statement. Undaunted, appellant contends that the dialogue clarifying his intent should not be considered at all, in that his initial responseNo, sirwas an unequivocal statement of his intent to exercise his rights. Thus, the police should immediately have ceased any questioning of any type. We disagree. Unlike appellant, we do not read Miranda searching for out-of-context sentences that support a preferred outcome. Honestly read, Miranda contemplates situations in which there may be some question as to whether a defendant wishes to assert his rights or not. In such instances, the interviewer may clarify the defendant's intent by continued questioning as to whether or not the defendant does or does not waive his rights. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 485, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1633-1634, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (citing with approval Federal Bureau of Investigation procedures for conduct of custodial interviews with respect to subject's constitutional rights). In light of the fact that appellant had been freely speaking with the police for the past two hours, had already confessed, and had agreed to make a tape-recorded statement before the detectives began to record the confession, we find that appellant's response was not an unequivocal assertion of his rights but rather an ambiguous, equivocal statement of his intent that required clarification. The detectives did not violate appellant's constitutional rights by asking questions to clarify his intentions. His intentions, as reflected by the entire conversation, were to waive his rights and make a statement. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in failing to suppress the taped confession.
Finally, appellant contends that the trial court erred in refusing to suppress statements he made to Warren Williams because appellant made those statements during a custodial interrogation and appellant had not waived his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. Appellant's mother, Vera Thomas, grew concerned when she heard nothing from appellant after he left with the homicide detectives early in the evening of April 7th. Thomas called a friend of the family, Warren Williams, a police officer who was once married to Thomas's cousin, and asked him to try to discover what had happened to appellant. Williams made a few phone calls and found that appellant was in the men's holdover at police headquarters. Williams, who had known appellant since appellant's birth, visited appellant at the holdover on the afternoon of April 8th. During the course of this visit, appellant told Williams that he had gotten mixed up with the wrong people, and that they had gotten drunk and raped two girls. Appellant said that one of the other boys pushed the girls into the river, out of concern that the girls might later identify him. Appellant now contends that the trial court should have suppressed this statement as the fruit of a custodial interrogation before which he had not waived his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. Appellant observes that he was in custody, that Williams was a police officer (although dressed in plain clothes at the time), and that appellant knew that Williams was a police officer. The state, on the other hand, counters that Williams acted as a concerned friend of the family, not in his official capacity as a police officer, when he met with appellant that afternoon. Furthermore, appellant had previously received the Miranda warnings and had waived his rights at that time. Even if Williams were acting as a police officer, the state contends, it was unnecessary for him to read appellant the Miranda warnings again. Miranda warnings are not so ephemeral that they evaporate between questionings. Once received, and the constitutional rights they protect waived, the waiver remains in effect until undone by the person in custody. The point is denied.
On a related point, appellant also alleges that his counsel ineffectively presented his suppression motion to the trial court. Appellant judges the motion itself insufficient and counsel's representation deficient in failing to call three witnesses to testify at the suppression hearing. Appellant first charges that his counsel failed him in neglecting to cite what he characterizes as controlling precedent in the motion to suppress filed with the trial court. This controlling precedentapparently Miranda (appellant never specifies) allegedly establishes that once appellant said no, all questioning had to cease. As we have said, appellant overlooks the further teachings of Miranda that allow continued questioning in an effort to clarify a suspect's intent when that intent is not clear. For the reasons previously stated, appellant's argument on the merits is incorrect. The motion court properly did not fault counsel for failing to argue a legally-insufficient point more vociferously. Appellant next contends that his counsel's failure to call Dr. Reynal Caldwell, Cedric Richardson, and Marie Hicks to testify about appellant's facial injuries at the suppression hearing was ineffective. To support a claim of ineffective assistance, appellant must show that the witnesses would have testified if called and that testimony would have aided appellant's defense. State v. Johnson, 901 S.W.2d 60, 63 (Mo.1995). As the following discussion shows, the testimony of none of these witnesses would have made any difference in the outcome of the suppression hearing. At the Rule 29.15 hearing, Dr. Caldwell testified that it appeared appellant had been injured in that there was apparent swelling in the facial area. This testimony was based upon his review of hospital records and photographs of the appellant, not on actual examination of the appellant. Dr. Caldwell testified that he could not offer an opinion as to how or when the injuries occurred. His testimony would have added nothing to the evidence already presented at the suppression hearing. Appellant cannot be prejudiced by a failure to present cumulative testimony. See, e.g. State v. Kinder, 942 S.W.2d 313, 336 (Mo. banc 1996). Cedric Richardson is a personal friend of appellant and the brother of Antonio Richardson, one of appellant's codefendants. The motion court, in its findings of fact, found that his testimony was not credible, in large part due to these relationships. Our review of his testimony leads to a similar conclusion. The testimony is grossly inconsistent with that of other parties. For example, Richardson testified that he was in the car with police when they arrived at appellant's house; that the appellant came outside to talk to the police; that while the police were talking to him, appellant's mother arrived home; and that Richardson accompanied appellant and the officers to police headquarters. This testimony is completely at odds with testimony of appellant's mother on this point. Other testimony indicated that no one was in the car with the police when they arrived at appellant's home; that appellant's mother let the police into the house; that the detectives encountered appellant only after they entered the house; and that appellant rode alone in the back seat of the detectives' car when they left for the police station. Finally, appellant avers in his brief that Marie Hicks would have testified that she observed swelling on appellant's face at the end of the 48 hour period. Ms. Hicks served as an intake officer at the St. Louis County jail. First, the 48 hour period is not sufficiently described to know the 48 hours to which appellant refers. Assuming that the 48-hour period began when appellant arrived at the police station that Sunday night, Hicks' testimony cannot establish exactly how or when appellant received his injury. Her testimony would have been cumulative, at best. The motion court did not err in overruling the Rule 29.15 motion on this point.