Opinion ID: 1762922
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: admission into evidence of the recorded confessions

Text: Defense counsel contends that the trial judge committed error in failing to suppress the tape recorded confessions obtained by the police, allegedly as a direct exploitation of an illegal arrest. This argument is based upon the claimed deprivation of defendant's rights under the Fourth Amendment rather than under the Fifth Amendmentwhich is to say that the claim is focused upon the alleged illegal seizure of evidence rather than upon the concept of self-incrimination. More specifically, it is argued, statements made during custodial interrogation, even though preceded by Miranda warnings, nonetheless must be excluded if the detention was not supported by probable cause and if the statements were obtained by exploitation of such illegal detention. We are required, therefore, to view the defendant's inculpatory statements, presented to the jury, against the backdrop of events leading up to his making them. The defendant was first interviewed by police on May 22, 1978, two days after the murder. Many other people were also interviewed at the Fireman's Hall, as well as the defendant, and no notes nor recordings were made of any of these interviews. In the course of scouring the scene of the murder, police recovered a fingerprint and on the morning of June 11, 1978, the defendant was called down to the Sheriff's Office to be fingerprinted. [1] Afterwards, Officer Froreich was assigned to the task of interviewing the defendant in order to determine whether the defendant's fingerprint could have been left in the victim's trailer innocently prior to the murder. With this objective in mind, according to his testimony, he and Officer Rogers went to the defendant's, where he lived with his parents and his wife, at approximately 6:00 p. m.still on the 11th. The defendant agreed to talk with the officers and informed them that he had been a friend of the victim's husband and had played cards in the victim's trailer possibly as recently as three weeks prior to the murder. This conversation was recorded by the police at the defendant's home. Later that evening, the officers again sought to question the defendant and found him driving around in his car with his wife. This time they requested that he meet them at the courthouse. When he arrived there he signed a standard pre-printed waiver of rights form. Again the defendant was questioned by Officer Froreich and on that occasion informed the police that he had been at the victim's trailer the evening before she was killed. [2] The defendant then agreed to take a voice analyzer stress-test and to allow his car to be checked by the State Crime Lab for blood. Thereafter, he returned home. On June 12, 1978, the defendant wrote out and signed a statement to this effect, once more stating that he had been in the victim's trailer briefly on the Thursday afternoon before her murder on Friday night. On June 13, 1978which is to become the crucial day with regard to the defendant's confessionsthree police officers went to his residence and requested that he accompany them to the courthouse for further questioning. He agreed and this time was transported in the police vehicle. The defendant again signed a waiver of rights form at the courthouse at 6:20 p. m. and the officers began interrogating him concerning the written statement, which he had made the day before. Officer Froreich accused the defendant of lying about the Thursday visit to the victim's trailer, pointing out that the victim had not been home at that time. Then the defendant broke down, crying and admitted that he had been at the trailer on Friday night, but he claimed he had arrived after the murderer and that he had found the victim already dead. At this point the officer asked the defendant why his fingerprints were on all the murder weapons although the only print actually left by the defendant was found on the handle to the oven door. The defendant's reply was that he was so angry about what had been done to Roxie, the victim, that he went crazy and touched everything. It is important to observe that this first conversation of June 13th appears to be the first clearly inculpatory statement made by the defendant during the course of the investigation. Unfortunately, there is no tape recording of this statement. According to Officer Froreich, he merely took notes on this particular occasion. By that time, as he testified at the motion to suppress hearing, the defendant had become a target suspect. The only concrete evidence then connecting the defendant to the crime was the single fingerprint. Officer Froreich testified that the defendant still had not been placed under arrest and would have been allowed to leave if he had requested to do so. It was later that evening at 8:25 p. m. that agent Gros arrived at the courthouse and conducted a tape recorded interview with the defendant. It was in this session that the defendant finally admitted the murder and explained in detail how it had occurred. It was at the conclusion of this interview that the defendant was placed under arrest. Later that evening and early the next morning the defendant gave three more tape recorded statements, in which he amended and refined with additional detail his earlier confession. Counsel for the defense sought to suppress all five taped statements on the ground that they were the direct product of illegal detention of the defendant.