Opinion ID: 1914912
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The 1984 Interrogations and Indictment

Text: While they were at Gopher Liquor questioning the store's owner, Detectives Snobeck and Nelson spotted Bailey walking across the adjacent parking lot and entering his apartment building. According to Detective Snobeck, when they saw him reemerge and begin walking toward the corner, the detectives returned to their car and drove close to Bailey, cutting off his path. The detectives exited the car, shouted to Bailey to stop and put his hands up, and approached him, one of them with his gun drawn and the other with his hand on his gun. They identified themselves as police, put Bailey against their car for a pat-down weapons search, handcuffed his hands behind his back and put him in the backseat of the car. The detectives interrogated Bailey in the car without providing any Miranda warning and then told him they would take him to the station. At the station, the same two detectives continued to interrogate Bailey without providing any Miranda warning. Midway through the station interrogation, they read Bailey his Miranda rights. [1] When the detectives testified at the hearing conducted on Bailey's motion to suppress both the warned and unwarned statements, neither of them provided any explanation of why they did not give a Miranda warning in the car or on arrival at the station. According to Detective Nelson, Bailey told the detectives in the car that Fafrowicz made out the check to him on May 18 for work that he had done on her lawn and the brakes of her car on the previous day. After they brought Bailey to the police station but before he was informed of his Miranda rights, he elaborated: he claimed that he had done a brake job on Fafrowicz's car on May 17, cut her grass on May 14, and at some point cleaned up her battery posts on her car and cleaned the engine compartment up. As the detectives realized, Bailey's story was riddled with doubtful assertions. Bailey claimed that Fafrowicz had written him the check on May 18, whereas there was considerable evidence that Fafrowicz had died on May 16. The detectives noticed several inaccuracies in Bailey's description of Fafrowicz's car and lawn mower, and they believed his claims to have cut her grass and cleaned her car battery to be demonstrably false. The culmination of the police-station interrogation, according to the detectives, came when Bailey misidentified the side of Fafrowicz's car on which the battery was located. At this point, the detectives told Bailey that he was under arrest for murder, and Detective Nelson gave Bailey the standard Miranda warning. [2] He agreed to waive his Miranda rights. The interrogation continued immediately, with no significant pause. Bailey largely recounted his story but added the further detail that he had arranged to paint Fafrowicz's house. Challenged by the officers to explain how Fafrowicz could write him a check on May 18, when she was already dead, Bailey responded, That's a good question. Bailey was charged under Minn.Stat. § 609.185(2) (1982) [3] with first-degree murder while committing criminal sexual conduct. He was indicted on June 6, 1984. About 6 months later, the state dismissed the indictment under Minn. R.Crim. P. 30.01, stating: [S]ince the Grand Jury indictment, all of the physical evidence has been processed by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension laboratory. The results of that examination tend to negate some of the evidence upon which the Grand Jury indicted this defendant. This recently obtained evidence makes it highly unlikely that this case could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The state took no further action on the case for several years.