Opinion ID: 1518670
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Voluntariness of Davis's April 28 Statement.

Text: At the suppression hearing, Chief of Police Everett Cox testified that at 5:47 a.m. on April 22, after Davis was read his Miranda rights, Davis said that he would not make a statement. Later that morning, Davis was taken to Dumas Municipal Court for his arraignment. Cox was aware that at the time, attorney Bing Colvin was appointed as Davis's public defender. Cox conceded that any subsequent contact with Davis would have been after the appointment of counsel for Davis. Cox testified that at 1:54 p.m. on April 22 he initiated contact with Davis in an attempt to take a statement from him. On April 23, Cox recalled that someone from the police again initiated contact with Davis in an attempt to take a statement. Cox was not sure who initiated this contact, but believed it was Investigator Donigan. Cox testified that on April 28, Davis contacted him through the jail, saying that he wanted to talk with him. When asked whether anyone made contact with Davis prior to that request, Cox answered in the negative. After Cox received this request, he conducted a videotaped interview with Davis. Cox testified that on the videotape, he asked [Davis] to state why he wanted to talk and he said that he did make initial contact with me before anything was done. Cox added that he read Davis his Miranda rights, and that no threats or other coercive acts were directed toward Davis off of the camera. Additionally, Davis was not restrained, and he made no requests that were denied him. Davis also executed a rights-waiver form that was filled out by Cox as Davis answered the questions; Davis initialed the individual responses. Cox also wrote out the substance of Davis's statement; Davis signed this statement at the end. Officer Michael Donigan testified that on the afternoon of April 22, at 1:54 p.m., he came into contact with Davis to question him about the homicide. Donigan read Davis his Miranda rights from a rights form, which Davis executed. Donigan wrote down the substance of Davis's statement. Donigan also testified that he was present at 1:19 p.m. on April 23, when he and Officer Monty Kilibrew again executed a rights waiver with Davis, however Davis declined to make a statement at this time. Chester Lee James, Jr., an inmate at the Dumas City Jail while Davis was also incarcerated there, testified that the police contacted Davis. James recalled that either Officer Donnahoe [sic?] or Kilibrew consulted with [Davis] at one time ... asked [Davis]... why he killed the girl. James testified that Davis became upset at this questioning. After this, the officer told Davis that he want[ed] to make sure you get the chair. When asked to recall how long Davis had been in jail when this contact occurred, James answered three or four days. James also testified that on April 28, he contacted the chief of police at Davis's request. Prior to trial, the State conceded that the statements taken at 1:54 p.m. on April 22 and the one taken at 1:19 p.m. on April 23 [1] were inadmissible because the interrogating officers could not recall who initiated the questioning with Davis. However, the trial court overruled the motion to suppress with respect to the April 28 statement, which was ultimately admitted at trial. On appeal, Davis contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress his April 28 statement. He first argues that this court's holding in Bradford v. State 325 Ark. 278, 927 S.W.2d 329 (1996), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 583, 136 L.Ed.2d 513 (1996), mandates suppression of his April 28 statement, and alternatively argues that his waiver of rights and subsequent statement on April 28 was not voluntarily made due to the intervening police-initiated contacts. Davis initially relies on Bradford v. State, supra , where this court held that an inculpatory statement taken without the presence of counsel, but after counsel had been appointed at a probable cause hearing, was a violation of the appellant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Bradford involved an analysis of Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986), where the United State Supreme Court held that if police initiate interrogation after a defendant's assertion, at an arraignment or similar proceeding, of his right to counsel, any waiver of the defendant's right to counsel for that police-initiated interrogation in invalid. [2] In Bradford , the appellant had not requested counsel, but counsel had nonetheless been appointed. This court concluded that the appellant's unawareness that she had been appointed counsel was irrelevant, Just as a police officer who wishes to initiate an interrogation during the custody stage must determine if a request for counsel has been made [citation omitted], simple diligence requires that police officers take pains to learn whether counsel was appointed at a probable cause hearing. Bradford, supra . In the present case, Davis appears to concede that the holding in Michigan v. Jackson is limited to police-initiated interrogation, yet maintains that this court in Bradford v. State, supra , did not specify that its ruling was based on the fact that police officers rather than Bradford initiated the contact. This argument is misplaced. A plain reading of Bradford v. State suggests that this court had no intention of broadening the Supreme Court's holding found in Michigan v. Jackson . Rather, the question presented in Bradford was whether the appellant's failure to actually request counsel affected her right to counsel under Michigan v. Jackson , and if knowledge of the municipal court's appointment of counsel could be imputed to police. Davis concedes that on April 28, 1995, it was undisputed that [Davis] initiated the contact with Chief Everett Cox. Because Davis himself initiated contact with the police on April 28, nothing in Bradford v. State or Michigan v. Jackson mandates a result opposite of that reached by the trial court. As one treatise has noted, Even after counsel is appointed at arraignment, a defendant may choose to waive counsel without notice or consultation with an attorney. Under Jackson, police cannot initiate the contact, but the defendant is free to initiate the contact. DAVID M. NISSMAN & ED HAGEN, LAW OF CONFESSIONS § 7:10 (2d ed.1994) (citing Missouri v. Owens, 827 S.W.2d 226 (Mo.Ct.App. 1991)). Davis alternatively argues that even if he effectively waived his right to counsel, this action was coerced by the police efforts in contacting him after the appointment of counsel on April 22 and 23. A custodial confession is presumptively involuntary and the burden is on the State to show that the waiver and confession was voluntarily made. Clark v. State, 328 Ark. 501, 944 S.W.2d 533 (1997). In examining the voluntariness of confessions, this court makes an independent determination based on the totality of the circumstances, and reverses the trial court only if its decision was clearly erroneous. Kennedy v. State, 325 Ark. 3, 923 S.W.2d 274 (1996). As explained in Mauppin v. State, 309 Ark. 235, 831 S.W.2d 104 (1992), the inquiry into the validity of the defendant's waiver has two separate components: whether the waiver was voluntary, and whether the waiver was knowingly and intelligently made. In determining voluntariness, we consider the following factors: age, education, and intelligence of the accused, lack of advice as to his constitutional rights, length of detention, the repeated and prolonged nature of questioning, or the use of physical punishment. Hood v. State, 329 Ark. 21, 947 S.W.2d 328 (1997). Other relevant factors in considering the totality of the circumstances include the statements made by the interrogating officer and the vulnerability of the defendant. Id. In addition, the accused must have a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it in order for his waiver to be knowingly and intelligently made. Esmeyer v. State, 325 Ark. 491, 930 S.W.2d 302 (1996). In the present case the thrust of Davis's argument is that the intervening police contacts on April 22 and 23 rendered his waiver and statement on April 28 involuntary. Davis emphasizes that after his initial expression of his intent not to make a statement and his appointment of counsel on the morning of April 22, the police made two separate attempts to take a statement from him. Chief Cox himself testified that this occurred at 1:54 p.m. on April 22 and later on April 23. The encounter at 1:54 p.m. on April 22 yielded a statement, not admitted at trial, while Davis did not give a statement at the interview at 1:19 p.m. on April 23. In the present case, the immediate fruits of the two police-initiated contacts were not admitted at trial. Additionally, there was a five-day gap between the police-initiated contact on April 23, and the defendant-initiated contact on April 28. To the extent that it can be argued the police-initiated contacts were an attempt at repeated questioning designed to wear down Davis's resistance or change his mind, this five-day gap would serve to avoid the effects of repeated questioning. See Hatley v. State, 289 Ark. 130, 709 S.W.2d 812 (1986). Some courts have refused to recognize a defendant's initiation of contact with police when it is the result of an earlier, illegal interrogation. Nissman & Hagen, supra, § 6:35 at n. 91. For example, in Wainwright v. Delaware, 504 A.2d 1096 (Del.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 869, 107 S.Ct. 236, 93 L.Ed.2d 161 (1986), the defendant initiated a conversation and gave an inculpatory statement some forty-five minutes after an illegal police-initiated interrogation under Edwards v. Arizona, supra . That the defendant's response came forty-five minutes afterward did not sanitize it. Wainwright v. Delaware, supra . The Delaware Supreme Court further explained: Nor does the fact that the defendant's statement was made after he was placed alone in a cell render it a purely spontaneous one. Indeed, the opportunity to mull over the effect of [the codefendant's] accusatory statements could reasonably have had the opposite effectto impress upon the defendant the seriousness of his predicament and the need to rebut his codefendant's accusations. Any attempt to spark the accused's initiative to make a statement in the absence of counsel through presentation of evidence will contaminate the waiver. [citations omitted]. Wainwright v. Delaware, supra . In the present case, the record does not show that the police were attempting to spark Davis's initiative in making the April 28 contact. Significantly, the defendant-initiated contact came some five days after the last police-initiated contact. The evidence also suggests that Davis voluntarily waived his rights and elected to make a statement on April 28. Davis was nineteen years of age at the time of the statement. He had completed at least the ninth grade, and could read and write. A forensic mental evaluation showed that Davis's intellectual functioning was within the low-average range. The record also demonstrates that Davis was fully advised of his constitutional rights, as is evidenced by the execution of the rights-waiver form as well as Chief Cox's testimony. There was little or no evidence of threats of physical violence against Davis, promises of leniency, or other misrepresentations of fact. Based on the foregoing, we cannot say that the trial court was clearly erroneous in denying Davis's motions to suppress.