Opinion ID: 3006428
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Booking Video

Text: For his first point on appeal, Griffin argues that the circuit court erred in admitting a portion of the booking video depicting incriminating statements made by Griffin. Griffin contends that his incriminating statements were obtained in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. As noted above, Griffin filed a pretrial motion to suppress all of his statements made during the booking video. The circuit court granted Griffin’s motion to suppress his statements made during the first portion of the video, which comprised approximately the first five minutes of the video, but admitted the latter five minutes of the video. In its order, the circuit court held as follows: The next question is whether the police officer’s actions at the booking room which are reflected in the video constitute an interrogation which requires a suppression of all of Griffin’s statements reflected on the video. During the first 5 minutes of the video, most of the conversations are between and among Griffin and Investigators Bethell and Dixon. My interpretation of this part of the video is that Investigators Bethell and Dixon are observing and interacting with Griffin in order to make a final decision about whether to postpone an interview of Griffin until the following day due to Griffin’s intoxication. During this time, Bethell and Dixon posed some questions to Griffin. For example: GRIFFIN: Hey man, that dude’s dead? DIXON: What dude? ... BETHELL: Do you want to talk to us about what happened tonight? 4 Cite as 2015 Ark. 340 GRIFFIN: Yeah, I don’t care. I will just spill my guts. Yeah, just spill them out. But I need a cigarette. BETHELL: Do you understand why you’re under arrest? GRIFFIN: Yeah, I understand why I’m under arrest. Cause I loaded a shotgun and pointed it point blank at a person’s head and tried to kill him. BETHELL: Tried to kill him? GRIFFIN: And they need to be dead. Bethell and Dixon chose to postpone the formal interview with Griffin until the next day. They clearly communicated that decision to Griffin as evidenced by the following statements: BETHELL: We’re gonna let some of the alcohol get out of your system. GRIFFIN: Alright BETHELL: We’ll come back and talk to you some more, okay. Okay? UNKNOWN: We want you to be a little clearer. GRIFFIN: Yeah, I think it’d be better for you to talk to me right now. BETHELL: Well, if the courts would allow us to do that we would love to. GRIFFIN: Well, I think you’d be better off if you talked to me a little right now. DIXON: Can’t do it brother. Shortly after this exchange (approximately 5 minutes into the video), Bethell and Dixon left the booking room and never returned. The remaining 5 minutes of the video reflects conversation between Griffin and Deputy Robbie Plyler who is not an investigating officer. As stated earlier, Plyler’s primary purpose during this time was to facilitate Griffin’s booking-in process. Plyler did not ask Griffin any questions about the shooting incident. Instead, Plyler tried to convince Griffin to stop making statements. For example, Plyler told Griffin: “. . . we’re not asking you what happened. We don’t want your statement right now.” After the departure of Bethell 5 Cite as 2015 Ark. 340 and Dixon, Griffin continued to make spontaneous and unsolicited statements to Deputy Plyler and the other two deputies in the booking room about the shooting incident. ... Griffin’s motion to suppress his statements made after Investigators Bethell and Dixon departed the booking room is denied. Griffin’s motion to suppress his statements made from the time Dixon said “What dude?” until the time Bethell and Dixon left the booking is granted. Accordingly, the statements at issue are the statements Griffin made after Investigators Bethell and Dixon left the booking room. On appeal, Griffin asserts that these statements should have been suppressed as they were also the product of custodial interrogation. Griffin contends that the statements at issue occurred prior to any attempts to diffuse the situation by the remaining officers. Griffin further argues that his statements were obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 348 U.S. 436 (1966). Therefore, the circuit court should not have considered his statements during sentencing. The State responds that the circuit court correctly admitted the last five minutes of the booking video because even though Griffin made his statements while he was in custody, he did not do so in response to interrogation; rather, he spoke spontaneously. We now turn to the relevant admitted portions of the booking video. The following colloquy is at issue: [GRIFFIN]: Did it to save this child, save -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Give me your top shirt off. [GRIFFIN]: I’ve been there with this child and with his mother. Thank you. I’ve been with here -- I’ve been with this mother and with this child for a long time. And he is -- 6 Cite as 2015 Ark. 340 he’s never been there. He has no reason to be there. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: {Inaudible.} [GRIFFIN]: And he’s a -- he’s a long-term felon. He is a -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Come, come -- [GRIFFIN]: -- a sorry son of a bitch. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: -- do a memo on what you were told and what {inaudible} -- [GRIFFIN]: And I fucking killed him. I drank too much, and I fucking killed him. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I need you to come to the -- [GRIFFIN]: I did. He’s a sorry son of a bitch, does not deserve to live, and I fucking killed him. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And -- and -- Chad. Come up here to the fucking jail, do your memo and tell {inaudible} to get his handcuffs, please. Now, I’m frustrated. Bye. Listen -- okay, man, the Supreme Court won’t let them interrogate you when you’ve been drinking. They won’t let them talk to you -- or any of the investigators. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Hello? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Here’s the deal - UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Hey -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Right now we don’t -- we’re not asking you what happened, we don’t want your statement right now. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: {Inaudible.} UNKNOWN SPEAKER: The investigators, they’ll take it -- they’ll take it in the 7 Cite as 2015 Ark. 340 morning. Okay. A bad -- [GRIFFIN]: {Inaudible.} UNKNOWN SPEAKER: -- a bad, bad, situation. [GRIFFIN]: Man, I know. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I know. Listen to me. A bad, bad, bad situation has happened. Okay? [GRIFFIN]: All right. Yeah. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I think when you sober up, you’ll realize -- [GRIFFIN]: Yeah. The fucking -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: -- this here’s been something -- [GRIFFIN]: No, I won’t. Who -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Well -- [GRIFFIN]: How can you realize the civil -- civilization of blowing somebody’s brains out? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Well, here’s -- [GRIFFIN]: I mean -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: -- here’s the deal -- [GRIFFIN]: -- what is that? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: -- we don’t -- [GRIFFIN]: That’s the end. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: -- we don’t -- 8 Cite as 2015 Ark. 340 [GRIFFIN]: That’s the end of times. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: We don’t -- we don’t -- well, right now we cannot take your statement. We don’t -- we haven’t read you your rights -- [GRIFFIN]: I know. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: [A]nd {inaudible} I’m not asking you any questions. So anything you use -- you say at this time -- you’re not being asked any questions; you’re voluntary giving information that -- that -- it would be best that you don’t. The only thing we need to do right now is we need -- I’m assuming we need to get him dressed out -- [GRIFFIN]: That guy needed to die -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Okay. [GRIFFIN]: -- and I killed him. A statement made while in custody is presumptively involuntary, and the burden is on the State to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that a custodial statement was given voluntarily. Bell v. State, 371 Ark. 375, 266 S.W.3d 696 (2007). When we review a trial court’s ruling on the voluntariness of a confession, we make an independent determination based upon the totality of the circumstances. Grillot v. State, 353 Ark. 294, 107 S.W.3d 136 (2003). We review the trial court’s findings of fact for clear error, and the ultimate question of whether the confession was voluntary is subject to an independent, or de novo, determination by this court. Clark v. State, 374 Ark. 292, 287 S.W.3d 567 (2008). In Sweet v. State, 2011 Ark. 20, 370 S.W.3d 510, we explained that a suspect’s spontaneous statement while in police custody is admissible, and it is irrelevant whether the 9 Cite as 2015 Ark. 340 statement was made before or after Miranda warnings because a spontaneous statement is not compelled or the result of the coercion under the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination. When this court determines whether a defendant’s custodial statement was spontaneous, we focus on whether it was made in the context of a police interrogation, meaning direct or indirect questioning put to the defendant by the police with the purpose of eliciting a statement from the defendant. Stone v. State, 321 Ark. 46, 900 S.W.2d 515 (1995). Here, the record speaks for itself. The officers repeatedly instructed Griffin to cease talking and informed him numerous times that they were not taking his statement. Based on the totality of the circumstances before us, we cannot say that the circuit court clearly erred in denying Griffin’s motion to suppress. Therefore, based upon the record before us and our standard of review, we affirm the circuit court.