Opinion ID: 1256193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant's Statement to his Wife

Text: {18} Defendant's wife disclosed to police and later testified at trial that Defendant told her he had raped and killed a girl, and that Defendant said he killed the girl because she threatened to report the rape to the police. According to his wife, Defendant probably made this statement one night in the summer of 1994. Investigators learned of the statement when they questioned Defendant's wife later that year. They incorporated the statement into affidavits that they used to show probable cause to obtain a warrant for Defendant's arrest and for a search of his vehicle. {19} In December 1994, investigators interviewed Defendant and questioned him about the statement at issue. Before the interview, they read Defendant his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 470, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1.6 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), but did not inform him that the statement he made to his wife was privileged. In response to their questions, Defendant admitted that he had made the statement to his wife, but he claimed that the statement was a lie. {20} Shortly after the interview, investigators executed the search warrant and gave Defendant a copy of the affidavit containing the statement at issue. Defendant showed the affidavit to a co-worker and acknowledged to the co-worker that he had made a statement similar to the one contained in the affidavit. Later, he discussed the statement again with a jail inmate. {21} Defendant objected to the admission of the statement at trial and asserts on appeal that the trial court erred in admitting his statement to his wife because it is a confidential communication that is subject to the husband-wife privilege under Rule 11-505 NMRA 1999. The State concedes that the statement falls under the privilege contained in Rule 11-505 but contends that Defendant waived this privilege prior to trial by disclosing the statement to third parties. In response to this contention, Defendant asserts that the investigative tactics used by the State to elicit his waiver of the husband-wife privilege were so improper that they rendered any waiver invalid. {22} In light of the State's concession, we agree with Defendant's initial assertion that his wife's statement was subject to the husband-wife privilege, and that Defendant was in a position to claim the privilege notwithstanding his wife's initial disclosure of the statement to police. Rule 11-505(B) gives a person a privilege in any proceeding... to prevent another from disclosing a confidential communication by the person to that person's spouse while they were husband and wife. Under Rule 11-512 NMRA 1999, [e]vidence of a statement or other disclosure of privileged matter is not admissible against the holder of the privilege if the disclosure was A. compelled erroneously or B. made without opportunity to claim the privilege. Thus, the fact that Defendant's statement was disclosed to police and included in a search warrant does not necessarily render the statements admissible, because the disclosure occurred before Defendant had the opportunity to claim the privilege. See State v. Compton, 104 N.M. 683, 687, 726 P.2d 837, 841 (1986). {23} Defendant contends that the husband-wife privilege under Rule 11-505 applies to statements that are introduced in the courts of the State of New Mexico to support an application for a warrant. We acknowledge that in New Mexico [t]he rules with respect to privileges apply at all stages of all actions, cases and proceedings. Rule 11-1101(C) NMRA 1999; cf. State v. Hart, 391 N.W.2d 677, 679 n. 1 (S.D.1986) (interpreting a similar rule to mean that the husband-wife privilege applies to search warrant affidavits); but cf. People v. Morgan, 207 Cal.App.3d 1384, 255 Cal.Rptr. 680, 682 (1989) (reaching the opposite conclusion). However, we need not reach this issue. Defendant does not challenge the validity of the search warrant or the arrest warrant, and in any case, the erroneous admission of a privileged statement within a search warrant does not require reversal if the remaining, non-privileged information in the affidavit is sufficient to establish probable cause. See, e.g., Hart, 391 N.W.2d at 679. {24} Moreover, and most importantly, we determine that after Defendant was given the opportunity to claim the husband-wife privilege, he waived that privilege by disclosing the statement at issue to third parties. See Rule 11-511 NMRA 1999; 25 Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure § 5602, at 828 (1989). This waiver was not rendered invalid by the prior use of the statement in the search warrant affidavit. Regardless of whether communications protected by Rules 11-505 and 11-512 are admissible in warrant-application proceedings, law enforcement officers are not prohibited from using information that is voluntarily provided by a suspect's spouse for investigative purposes outside the courtroom. See United States v. Harper, 450 F.2d 1032, 1045-46 (5th Cir.1971); State v. Kunkel, 137 Wis.2d 172, 404 N.W.2d 69, 78-79 (Wis.Ct. App.1987). In this case, we see no reason to hold that investigators were precluded from questioning Defendant outside the courtroom about the statement they obtained from his wife, provided that the investigators complied with Miranda, 384 U.S. at 470, 86 S.Ct. 1602. The privilege stated in Rule 11-505 is not an exclusionary rule used to protect a fundamental right guaranteed by the United States Constitution, see Lefkowitz, 618 F.2d at 1319; Muetze, 243 N.W.2d at 397, and Defendant has not preserved the question whether the husband-wife privilege involves a fundamental right under our state constitution, see State v. Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006, ¶ 23, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1. Under these circumstances, we cannot conclude that the disclosure in this case was compelled erroneously under Rule 11-512(A). The record reveals no basis for holding that Defendant's waiver of the husband-wife privilege was tainted by a violation of his constitutional rights or that Defendant was coerced into waiving the privilege by the inclusion of the statement at issue in the affidavits supporting the search warrant or the arrest warrant. Therefore, we conclude that the district court did not err in admitting the statement Defendant made to his wife.