Opinion ID: 1551205
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Whether Admission of the Defendant's Statement at the Police Station Violated Miranda and Doyle

Text: The defendant next asks for suppression of a comment that he made to Officer Bryan Schneider after his arrest at the police station, claiming that: (1) the statement was unwarned and in response to custodial interrogation in violation of Miranda ; and (2) admission of the statement violated Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S. Ct. 2240, 49 L. Ed. 2d 91 (1976), because it resulted in using the invocation of silence against the defendant. The record reveals the following additional relevant facts. After he was arrested, Schneider drove the defendant to Stonington police headquarters where he took the defendant into the booking area and removed his handcuffs. Schneider testified that he informed the defendant that he was looking to take a voluntary statement from him, and brought the necessary paperwork, including a Miranda consent form, and the defendant into an interview room. Schneider and the defendant sat down, and Schneider explained the process, including the notice of rights form, to the defendant. Schneider testified that the officers read the warnings out loud to the defendant, and asked him to initial next to each warning after the defendant indicated that he understood the warnings. When asked whether he understood the warnings, the defendant was silent and did not respond to Schneider. When asked again whether he understood the warnings, the defendant then told Schneider that he was not interested in filling out paperwork because [h]e stated that he knew what he had done was wrong, that we had what we wanted and that he wasn't gonna go around and around with paperwork. He just wanted to get it over with. Beebe then entered the room, explained the form to the defendant again, and the defendant just bowed his head and closed his eyes. The officers then stopped any questioning altogether. They did not question the defendant at all about the specifics of the events of that night, and attempted only to explain the warnings to him. The trial court concluded that admission of these statements did not violate Miranda because they were not the product of an interrogation, and did not violate Doyle because they were statements and not silence or the invocation of the right thereto. [23] Schneider subsequently testified to this effect at trial. 1 The defendant claims that Schneider's questioning of the defendant as to whether he understood his rights constituted custodial interrogation requiring the reading of his Miranda rights because those inquiries constituted express questioning that also were  `reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect.'  We disagree. In Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300-302, 100 S. Ct. 1682, 64 L. Ed. 2d 297 (1980), the United States Supreme Court concluded that, the Miranda safeguards come into play whenever a person in custody is subjected to either express questioning or its functional equivalent. That is to say, the term `interrogation' under Miranda refers not only to express questioning, but also to any words or actions on the part of the police ( other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody ) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect. The latter portion of this definition focuses primarily upon the perceptions of the suspect, rather than the intent of the police. This focus reflects the fact that the Miranda safeguards were designed to vest a suspect in custody with an added measure of protection against coercive police practices, without regard to objective proof of the underlying intent of the police. A practice that the police should know is reasonably likely to evoke an incriminating response from a suspect thus amounts to interrogation. But, since the police surely cannot be held accountable for the unforeseeable results of their words or actions, the definition of interrogation can extend only to words or actions on the part of police officers that they should have known were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. (Emphasis added.) Questions about whether a suspect understands his or her rights do not, without more, constitute  `interrogation'  as that term was defined in Rhode Island v. Innis, supra, 446 U.S. 301-302, but rather are considered words or actions that are normally attendant to arrest and custody. . . . See Shields v. State, 269 Ga. 177, 179, 496 S.E.2d 719 (1998) (trial court properly denied motion to suppress defendant's statement following question about whether he understood his rights, which was a routine and appropriate inquiry and we cannot conclude that it constituted interrogation [internal quotation marks omitted]); State v. Lescard, 128 N.H. 495, 496-97, 517 A.2d 1158 (1986) (questioning about whether defendant understood his rights under implied consent statute was in no way calculated to produce an incriminating response); Commonwealth v. Lark, 505 Pa. 126, 133, 477 A.2d 857 (1984) (fact that the police read appellant his rights and questioned him concerning his understanding of those rights did not violate his apparent wish to remain silent because those actions were normally attendant to arrest and custody); accord State v. Dobson, 221 Conn. 128, 133, 602 A.2d 977 (1992) (serving arrest warrant on suspect in custody is a procedural formality not tantamount to an initiation of interrogation); State v. Evans, 203 Conn. 212, 225-27, 523 A.2d 1306 (1987) (discussing Innis and concluding with respect to routine booking questions, that not every express question posed in a custodial setting is equivalent to interrogation when routine, noninvestigatory questions were unrelated to the crime and were objectively neutral . . . [and] there is nothing in the record to suggest an improper motive on the part of the . . . police [internal quotation marks omitted]). We, therefore, reject the defendant's claim that Schneider's attempt to ensure that he understood his rights constituted impermissible custodial interrogation. 2 The defendant also claims that the state's introduction of Schneider's testimony constituted use of the defendant's invocation of his right to silence against him in violation of Doyle v. Ohio, supra, 426 U.S. 610, wherein the United States Supreme Court held that the impeachment of a defendant through evidence of his silence following his arrest and receipt of Miranda warnings violates due process. The court based its holding [on] two considerations: First, it noted that silence in the wake of Miranda warnings is insolubly ambiguous and consequently of little probative value. Second and more important[ly], it observed that while it is true that the Miranda warnings contain no express assurance that silence will carry no penalty, such assurance is implicit to any person who receives the warnings. In such circumstances, it would be fundamentally unfair and a deprivation of due process to allow the arrested person's silence to be used to impeach an explanation subsequently offered at trial. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Cabral, 275 Conn. 514, 523, 881 A.2d 247, cert. denied, U.S. , 126 S. Ct. 773, 163 L. Ed. 2d 600 (2005). [I]t also is fundamentally unfair, and, therefore, a deprivation of due process, for the state to use evidence of a defendant's post- Miranda silence as affirmative proof at trial. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 524, citing State v. Plourde, 208 Conn. 455, 468, 545 A.2d 1071 (1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 1034, 109 S. Ct. 847, 102 L. Ed. 2d 979 (1989). Under Doyle, silence . . . does not mean only muteness; it includes the statement of a desire to remain silent, as well as of a desire to remain silent until an attorney has been consulted. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Cabral, supra, 524. We conclude that the defendant has failed to establish a Doyle violation in the present case. With respect to the defendant's statement, specifically, that he knew what he had done was wrong and that he did not want to deal with paperwork, this statement as testified to by Schneider was neither itself silence nor the invocation of the right to silence. Accordingly, [t]he Doyle decision . . . is not applicable to the facts of this case. The crucial distinction is that, here, the defendant did not remain silent after he was arrested and advised of his rights. After being given Miranda warnings, the defendant clearly chose to [forgo] his right to remain silent. State v. Talton, 197 Conn. 280, 295, 497 A.2d 35 (1985); id. (defendant cannot use selective silence to tell police only exculpatory parts of story); see also State v. Joly, 219 Conn. 234, 256-57, 593 A.2d 96 (1991) ([t]he factual predicate of a claimed Doyle violation is the use by the state of a defendant's postarrest and post Miranda silence either for impeachment or as affirmative proof of his guilt, and concluding that the state offered [a police officer's] testimony for the permissible purpose of presenting the defendant's statements, not his refusals to speak, as evidence of his guilt). Moreover, to the extent that any silence by the defendant after he made that statement was implicated in the present case, it is not a Doyle violation because we have permitted the state some leeway in adducing evidence of the defendant's assertion of that right for purposes of demonstrating the investigative effort made by the police and the sequence of events as they unfolded . . . as long as the evidence is not offered to impeach the testimony of the defendant in any way. (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Cabral, supra, 275 Conn. 525. Inasmuch as the defendant has not demonstrated any reliance by the state on his poststatement silence, such as its use in cross-examination or summations, we conclude that there is no Doyle violation in this case.