Opinion ID: 1968515
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Miranda Objection

Text: The defendant next contends that his confessions were obtained pursuant to an invalid waiver of his Miranda rights and were not given voluntarily. In reviewing the trial justice's decision, we review his findings of fact deferentially under the clearly erroneous rule but yet reserve review of his findings to determine whether those findings overlook any constitutional violation under a de novo standard. See State v. Campbell, 691 A.2d 564 (R.I.1997) (adopting the standard of review announced in Ornelas v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996) for Miranda issues). A defendant's confession is only admissible against him if the state can first prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his constitutional rights expressed in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). See State v. Leuthavone, 640 A.2d 515, 518-19 (R.I.1994); State v. Bello, 417 A.2d 902, 904 (R.I.1980). Here the trial justice recognized that the defendant had been arrested at least some thirty to forty times prior to the arrests involved in this case and as a result was thus intimately familiar with the criminal justice system. Additionally the trial justice found that the police had in fact advised the defendant of his Miranda rights on both occasions prior to obtaining any incriminating statements from him. With those facts and findings in mind we are satisfied that the defendant was fully aware of his Miranda rights and that the fully understood them as they were read to him, and that his voluntary waivers thereof were both knowing and intelligent. With respect to the voluntariness of the defendant's waivers and his subsequent confessions, he claims here as he contended below that he had been physically assaulted prior to making his confessions and that at the time he gave them he was suffering from symptoms of cocaine withdrawal. He suggests that the police took advantage of his drug dependency, which when coupled with their physical abuse of him, enabled them to overcome his free will. The trial justice found the defendant's claims to be incredible. He accepted instead as credible the testimony of the investigating police officers, who in their testimony denied that any physical abuse had taken place and denied the existence of any withdrawal symptoms. We accept the trial justice's findings, and we conclude that the trial justice properly found that the defendant's waivers and his subsequent confessions were freely, intelligently, and voluntarily given. [A] confession made by a person in custody is not always the result of an overborne will. The police may be midwife to a declaration naturally born of remorse, or relief, or desperation, or calculation. Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 576, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 1864, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037, 1043 (1961).