Opinion ID: 2537835
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: review of the record on remand [6]

Text: On September 23, 2003, Montejo filed a brief boilerplate motion to suppress all inculpatory statements. [7] At hearings on the motion to suppress, Detective Wade Major testified that he and Detective Bobby Juge took Montejo out of jail on September 7, 2002, and transported him to the Hwy. 11 bridge to show them where he claimed to have thrown the murder weapon. Montejo accompanied them voluntarily to help them find the gun so that he could prove that he used the victim's own revolver, which he found in the course and scope of the burglary, rather than a weapon that he brought with him. At the same hearing, Detective Jerry Hall described three follow-up visits that he conducted with Montejo at the jail on September 10 after divers were unable to find the murder weapon. Detective Hall testified that on none of these visits did Montejo request a lawyer, mention that he was represented or had attended a 72-hour hearing that morning, or indicate that he did not wish to speak with detectives. In fact, on one of these follow-up visits, Detective Hall inquir[ed], have you been contacted by counsel? to which Montejo responded no, I don't need one.... I just want to clear all this up. The first two visits, at 8:45 a.m. and noon, were very brief. At some point during the third, 2:45 visit, Montejo agreed to accompany Detectives Hall and Dale Galloway on the next expedition, which may have commenced around 5:00 p.m. During that excursion, Montejo indicated that he had discarded the money bag in a garbage dumpster at a shell station in Gretna. The detectives transported Montejo to that Shell station and were preparing a warrant to search the dumpster when they discovered it had been emptied the previous day. Detective Hall also testified Montejo executed a handwritten statement during this expedition at 7:15 p.m. to memorialize his voluntary cooperation in these activities. [8] After Detective Hall completed his testimony on April 20, 2004, defense counsel informed the court that he would likely wish to call the defendant to testify at a subsequent hearing in support of his motion to suppress, but he would like to defer that decision until after the videotaped statement taken on September 6-7 [in which Montejo eventually confessed to the crime] was reviewed. At a subsequent suppression hearing on June 1, 2004, Detective Hall testified that he did not know on September 10, 2002, that an attorney had been appointed that morning to represent Montejo. He did not learn this until the early evening, when he received a call telling him that an attorney was looking for him. Detective Hall was in the sally port [9] bringing Montejo back to the jail when he received this call. According to Detective Hall, Montejo did not reveal that he had been to court that morning and never indicated that counsel had been appointed. Detective Hall testified that he had asked Montejo on September 10 whether he had been contacted by an attorney or whether his family had secured an attorney for him, and Montejo responded no, I haven't heard from anybody, nobody at all. Immediately after this testimony, Montejo's counsel declined the opportunity to re-examine Detective Hall and presented no witnesses to rebut this testimony. No other evidence was presented on the motion to suppress. At the close of the suppression hearings, defendant's arguments were directed solely at the statements obtained during the September 6-7 interviews, specifically that Montejo's clear invocation of his Fifth Amendment right to counsel during the September 6-7 interrogation was captured on video, that his request was not scrupulously honored, that detectives reinitiated questioning, and that the subsequent waiver was invalid. He made no arguments regarding the September 10 events or the letter. In response to further prompting from the district court to state ... the issue before the Court, defense counsel again focused solely on the September 6-7 mid-interrogation invocation without any reference to the events that occurred on September 10 or any Sixth Amendment claim. Therefore, the district court had to inquire whether there were not in fact two questions before the court: namely, should the statement of the defendant that was videotaped in Slidell, should that be suppressed, and secondly, should any statement or information obtained by Detective Jerry Hall on September 10th be suppressed.... Isn't that what is before the Court, gentlemen? Defense counsel simply agreed. In the ruling that followed, the district court ruled that the September 6-7 videotaped statements were admissible, and that the September 10 letter was also admissible, reasoning the fact that an attorney is appointed in a 72-hour hearing does not tacitly convey to all of the force [that] a defendant has an attorney or if he does have an attorney it certainly doesn't prevent that defendant from exercising his own constitutional rights and giving up those rights. The district court denied the motion to suppress. On the morning before trial, out of the presence of the jury, defense counsel remarked that his client's decision to testify was based, in part, on the denial of his motion to suppress, stating: First and foremost, I want to reiterate what I believe I have said on the record earlier in the week, that my decision regarding Mr. Montejo taking the witness stand and disclosing his prior criminal record to the jury was based upon the Court's rulings earlier in the week, and also upon the Court's ruling's early, earlier regarding the motion suppress. Had the motions been granted, I likely wouldn'tI certainly would not have put him on the witness stand. Trial commenced, and the following references to the letter and the events of September 10 were made. The State mentioned Montejo's apology letter once during opening remarks. Between a lengthy description of the September 6-7 interrogation (in which the State emphasized Montejo's delaying tactics, savvy alterations to his story, and bluffing) and a brief mention of the DNA evidence (as the last piece of the puzzle), [10] the State made the following comment: Detective Jerry Hallremember the Sheriff's Office? He's got the dive team out there trying to find the gun. The defendant has given them different versions of where this gun is. He signs out Montejo, gives him a rights form, three days of searching, no gun. He is directed by Montejo to a dumpster which is supposed to have the bank bag. And most importantly, on the way back in, I'm so sorry. The defendant executes, and asks, can I have a pen and some paper, I want to write a letter, I want to write a letter to this lady and tell her I'm sorry, I am so sorry. And the defendant proceeds in his own handwriting to write a heartfelt letter describing how it was all an accident, it shouldn't have happened this way and he feels sorry. The State then referred to the events of September 10 twice during the presentation of its case. A brief mention is made during the testimony of Deputy John Morris after he described the failure of divers to find the murder weapon: Q. Subsequent to that, were you aware of officers interviewing Mr. Montejo on September 10th, 2002? A. Yes. Q. What was the purpose of that follow-up interview? A. They were bringing him out to, I believe, to a gas station over in the West Bank at that particular time. On cross, Deputy Morris clarified that he, as lead investigator, sent the detectives to take Montejo out of jail on September 10 and he denied that he was aware that counsel was appointed that morning. The events of September 10 are not mentioned again during the State's case until their final witness, Detective Hall, testified. He testified that he conducted follow-up interviews with Montejo on September 10 because divers could not find the murder weapon in the location Montejo provided. He identified the signed waivers that Montejo had executed at the beginning of each visit. He described these visits as follows. First, Detective Hall visited Montejo in the morning, briefly inquired into his well-being, and did not press him at all on the investigation. Later in the afternoon, after the execution of the 2:45 p.m. waiver, Montejo accompanied him and Detective Galloway to the Hwy. 11 bridge. Detective Hall testified that while on the bridge, Montejo claimed he had disposed of evidence, that he previously claimed he burned, at a gas station in Gretna and he agreed to show the detectives the location. The detectives provided Montejo with paper and pen so that he could write a brief statement explaining that he was voluntarily accompanying the officers to search for evidence at the gas station. No evidence was recovered at the dumpster as it had recently been emptied. However, Detective Hall testified that on the ride back to jail, Montejo requested pen and paper again because he said he wanted to wanted to write something. Montejo then, at about 8:30 p.m., wrote the letter addressed to the victim's widow. Detective Hall identified this letter but did not describe its contents. When they arrived back at the jail, he was directed to meet with an upset public defender. Throughout his testimony, on direct and cross-examination, Detective Hall maintained that all waivers, statements, and handwritten notes were produced by Montejo voluntarily and without coercion, and that Montejo never requested the assistance of an attorney. On cross-examination, in suggesting that detectives dictated the letter Montejo wrote, which the defense described as either a confession or an apology, defense counsel directed the jury's attention to its contents: Q. Direct your attention to State's Exhibit Number 76, at the very bottom. I am so sorry, please forgive me. Would you read the next sentence that he writes, to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, after you have read it to yourself? A. May I Q. Where it says, four lines from the bottom, I am so sorry, please forgive me. A. Okay. Q. Would you read the next sentence to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury? A. I was going for a simple burglary, in and out, that someone put me on, and instead I found the gun so I Q. What is the simple burglary? A. Under the laws, simple burglary is when you break into an inhabited motor vehicle or dwelling or structure belonging to another. Q. It's a legal term, isn't it? A. Yes. Q. Simple burglary as opposed to aggravated burglary or unauthorized entry, it's a legal term contained in the law books? A. Yes. Q. You are telling me that this man over hereand it's a Louisiana term there's no simple burglary in Texas or Florida or Alabama, it's a term indigenous to Louisiana. You're telling me this man over here when he is writing that letter, without any prompting from any police officer, writes in the letter I was going for a simple burglary. Is that your testimony, sir? A. He wrote it, sir. On redirect, the State referred Detective Hall to more of the letter's contents: Q. let me show you that paper, the apology letter. We will call it an apology letter for purposes of this discussion. Did you also tell him, I promise you I didn't cold-blooded kill him, Mr. Lou, did you tell him to write that in his statement? A. I didn't tell the man to write anything, sir. Q. Did you tell him to write in his statement, forgive me, Mrs. Ferrari? A. No, sir. Q. Did you tell him to say, I need your forgiveness, Mrs. Ferrari, I am more sorry for what happened, please forgive me? Did you say put that in your letter, Mr. Montejo, make sure you write that in your letter? A. No, counselor, I did not. At the close of the State's case, the State's exhibits, which presumably included the apology letter, were published to the jury. The defense called three witnesses, Deputy Morris, [11] Montejo, and Mary Melancon. Montejo testified about the events of September 10 as follows: Q. All right. Now, on September the 10th, in the morning, do you remember being brought into the video room? . . . A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you remember having a seventy-two hour hearing? A. Yes. Q. You know what a seventy-two hour hearing is? A. Now, I do, toI know what it means now. At that time they advised me of what I was charged with, and told me I had appointed counsel. Q. And that was before Hall and Major came and got you later that day, isn't it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, the judge advised you, was he there in person or on the television? A. He was there in person, sir. Q. All right. And the, the IDP was appointed? A. (No response) Q. Did you know what that meant? A. No, sir. Q. Did you know that was a lawyer that was appointed for you? A. He said, he said he was appointing counsel in whichever words he said it in and basically got the message to me that somebody was appointed to me. Q. Now, when Major and Hall came to get you that afternoon, what did they tell you? A. They asked me if I would come with them to go clear up where I threw the gun at. So I said, Well, and I don't, I don't, I don't really want to go with you. He said, Do you have a lawyer? I said, yeah, I got a lawyer appointed to me. He said, No, no you don't. I said, Yeah, I think I got a lawyer appointed to me, and I guess that's where I messed up, when I said I think I got a lawyer appointed to me. He said, No, you don't. He said, I checked, you don't have a lawyer appointed to you. Q. Who said that? A. That was the one that was sitting here, Hall. Q. All right. What did you say when he said that? A. I was like, Well, I thought I had one appointed to me. He is like, No. He is like, I need you to come with me, will you come with me. At which time I was like, okay. Back then in them days, in the two-and-a-half years ago, I had a very gullible character, I was very easily led. I mean, it is obvious. Everybody seen it for their self. Everything that these police have said or did I followed right then. I was Q. All right. A. very easily taught. You could tell me anything. Montejo testified that he then went with detectives to the bridge and pointed out a different spot for them to search to placate Detective Hall. He tried to further placate them by taking them to the Shell station on the West Bank: Q. Now, did you point out a Shell gas station? A. Yes, I did. And the reason why I did that is because he told me, he said, look, we searched I-10, we searched the interstate, you know, there is not one sign of the bag being burnt nowheres as that dumpster, and there's nothing on I-10. And I told him, well, causes I really didn't have it, and that then again, he then got mad again. He said, where is it? And I told him, all right, it was at a Shell station. Finally, he described how detectives prompted him to write a letter of apology to the victim's widow: Q. Did they tell you what to write? A. Sir, it was Detective Hall's suggestion to write apology letter, and during his suggestion, he told me, you know, just let them know, why you are apologizing that it wasn't intended to be an aggravated burglary, that it was supposed to just be a simple burglary, and he popped up on it. Q. Do you know what a simple burglary is? A. At that time I did not. An when he said it, it sounded like just plain, you know, like Q. Like an easy burglary? A. A simple burglary, yeah. That's that's what it sounded like to me when he said that. I didn't realize until after I've been here so long that a simple burglary is actually a statute. Q. So that's his suggested words to you? A. Yes, sir, say that it was a simple burglary. And atwhen I wrote the letter, Hall didn't stand next to me, though. It was Galloway, Detective Galloway sat next to me, and at that time, when I am making this apology letter, I really do in my heart, I feel sorry for the family, and I apologize to the whole family for what happened. I swear to God I felt sorry for that. TheyI can't, I was really, really apologizing to the family in that letter, because I was really sorry for what happened, period. I know I didn't do it, but I am still very sorry for what happened. And I was writing that apology letter and Galloway was sitting next to me, and I would write a couple of lines, he would say just that you didn't have no intentions, and I would put that, but then I would keep going on apologizing, and that's when he said, remember what Hall said, just write that it was a simple, a simple burglary, meant to be a simple burglary, I came upon on it, that's when I wrote that. And then he began, on the next page, Galloway was telling me, well, just tell her a little bit about what happened, let her know that you was in there and you found the gun and he came home on you, and you tried to knock him out butwith the gun, but, you know, he kept fighting, and, you know, and so I wrote that asI was basically writing everything he was telling me, along with some of my own personal apologies. The third witness, Mary Melancon, a family friend, testified that she visited Montejo in jail and that he told her the same story then that he testified to at trial. [12] The State briefly referred to the apology letter during her cross-examination: Q. Do you recognize Jesse's handwriting? A. No, I couldn't tell you I would recognize it. I mean, I have gotten a couple, maybe two, two letters from Jesse. I couldn't tell you I would know it. I mean, if I saw it, I probably could tell you. It was kind of like a large print, very nice handwriting. Q. State 76 and 75, does that appear to be his handwriting? A. If I had my letter to compare it to, I could tell you, but I don't have the letter to compare it to. If I had know, I would have looked at the letter he has written me, because I do have it. Q. So you have never read these two letters that he wrote to the police and Ms. Ferrari? A. No, I didn't even know that these existed. If he told me, I don't remember. Finally, the State indirectly raised the specter of the apology letter in its closing remarks. The state depicted Montejo as a liar who was ironically truthful when he testified that his I am so sorry version of the crime was a lie because, according to the State, Montejo waited for the victim to arrive home to rob him and then killed him rather than leave a witness behind. The defense in closing accused the detectives of deception and then addressed the apology letter directly: It is amazing to me that this investigation had so many typos. Detective Hall, I have got the wrong day. Detective Morris, I have got the wrong time, which brings us to the State's Exhibit Number 76, the so-called apology letter. This to me, as someone who pretty much my entire legal career has been in the criminal justice system, this jumped out at me more than anything else that I saw. In this letter, at the very bottom, where he begs forgivenessand he tells you the police told him what to sayI was going for a simple burglary. I introduced Defendant's Exhibit Number 6, which is page 42 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure, has all the laws regarding procedure, the statutory laws. Title 14:62 is simple burglary. Now, folks, the judge told you none of these things you can take back. These written items, you can't take the tape back. So I am going to kind of remind you of this again. You all looked at it yesterday. You know, if somebody didn't know too much about law enforcement. You know, certain crimes in Louisiana have the preface simple. There's simple burglary, there is simple arson, there is simple robbery, you know. Those are pretty bad crimes, you know. Why the term simple? There's nothing simple about a burglary. But that's the way the legislature drafted it. It is not simple, like it's easy. It is simple because that's what the statue[statute] says. Do you think he reviewed the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure before he wrote that letter? Where did simple burglary come from? You know what? There is probably not one single person here, including the cops that took this statement, that knew what happened, that don't believe that that information was supplied to him. How else can you explain it? He writes simple burglary, somebody told him simple burglary. Somebody told him a lot of different things. There is no other way to explain that, ladies and gentlemen. If you take that one fact, and I don't expect that Mr. Gracianette is going to get up here and challenge this at all, like he did when he tried to sayto have Hall say, well, you mean, simple, like it was easy. Nobody, other than a child, is going to think, but that this is not what happened. So, folks, I will leave you with this: If you believe that simple burglary was provided to him by the police, then take that point in time and go backwards with it and think what else did they say and what else did they do in this case. Was that proper? It was absolutely improper. And proof of that is that they denied doing it, but they did it. There's simply, nofolks, when you go back, you know, at some point talk about what I am suggesting to you. And if they did that, is it so hard to believe that he told them he wanted a lawyer, they said you get a lawyer later, that they intimidated him, they suggested what to say. The State then rebutted the defense's argument as follows: [T]he last point that Mr. Williams made to you was that the finest of St. Tammany Parish police officers lied, deceived you, because they coerced an apology letter from the defendant. Now, you know that is not to be true, but what he claims is the basis for that conclusion is the reference in this letter to the term simple burglary and that admission by Mr. Montejo. You believe that? Because if you think the police officers are trying to extract a confession out of him to fit their case, you think they would do a better job of it. Because, you know, under the law, State of Louisiana, for the crime of first degree murder to be committed, it doesn't take place during the commission of a simple burglary. It requires the commission of an aggravated burglary. That's the law. And if the police officers really wanted to build their case and they really wanted to make this confession a good one, they would have included not a simple burglary, which doesn't fit the crime of first degree murder, they would have said, Jesse, put in aggravated burglary and armed robbery. The apology letter and the events of September 10 were never mentioned during in the jury instructions nor during the penalty phase. The admission of the apology letter was, however, one basis asserted in Montejo's motion for new trial: Defendant additionally claims as error the introduction of a handwritten statement taken from him by investigators on September 10, 2002. Prior to being questioned on this date, defendant had appeared in court for a 72 hour hearing and counsel was appointed to represent him. In Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387[, 97 S.Ct. 1232, 51 L.Ed.2d 424] (1977), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the right to counsel attaches when judicial proceedings have been initiated against the defendant and that once adversary proceedings have commenced, the defendant has a right to legal representation when the government interrogates him. The Williams court rejected the State's argument that the defendant's confession was legal because he had failed to explicitly assert this right to his interrogators. In light of Williams and progeny, it was illegal for interrogators to remove defendant from jail and interrogate him without counsel present, regardless of whether defendant asked for a lawyer. It was therefore error for this Court to admit such evidence, and this error should entitle defendant to a new trial. As noted above, the defendant did not present any evidence, or argument, at the motion to suppress that he asserted his right to counsel for Edwards purposes on September 10, that the police lied to him about not having a lawyer, or that the police kept him from seeing his lawyer. [13] However, Montejo contends that the only concern that was pertinent to the apology letter when he sought to suppress it pre-trial was whether he was entitled to the protection of Jackson. Now that the Supreme Court has eliminated this protection, he argues that this Court should remand to the district court for hearings in which he can inquire further into the following questions: (1) whether he requested counsel at his 72-hour hearing; (2) whether he invoked his right to counsel when he was approached at the jail on September 10; (3) whether he was properly Mirandized by detectives before he left the jail with them on September 10; (4) whether detectives knew that he had been appointed counsel at his 72-hour hearing; and (5) whether police removed him from the jail on September 10 to keep him away from appointed counsel. Montejo contends that the record is inadequate to answer these questions because he relied on the protection of Jackson and he suggests that this Court lacks jurisdiction under La. Const. Art. V, § 5(C) to make the factual determinations that are now necessary under the Supreme Court's ruling. Montejo emphasizes that the Supreme Court declined to resolve these issues, in part, because the relevant facts remain unclear. Montejo, supra, 129 S.Ct. at 2092. [14] The State, however, points out that the Supreme Court also recognized that Montejo's testimony came not at the suppression hearing, but rather only at trial, and we are unsure whether under state law that testimony came too late to affect the propriety of the admission of the evidence. Id. Thus, the State argues under state law, because Montejo has never claimed until now that he asserted his right to counsel on September 10 or the police misled him as basis for suppressing the apology letter, he is barred from pursuing those claims now. The State disputes Montejo's assertion that the only pertinent claim before the Supreme Court's ruling arose from Jackson and argues that, under the jurisprudence at the time of the suppression hearing, any clear invocation of his right to counsel or involuntary or unknowing waiver would have provided an independent basis to suppress the apology letter, which claims defense counsel would have pursued if facts existed to support them. In addition, the State claims that any error in admitting the letter was harmless.