Opinion ID: 2168236
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Crimes and Defendant's Interrogation

Text: On the night of May 28-29, 1983, shortly after midnight, 17-year-old Tony Long was fatally shot and robbed of a radio he was carrying. On the evening of May 30, police received an anonymous telephone call implicating the 18-year-old defendant by name. On the basis of the call, their records on defendant, and descriptions by crime witnesses of a suspect's height, police called at defendant's home at about 11 p.m. and asked him to accompany them to the police station. There, they gave him Miranda warnings and questioned him at length. Defendant initially denied knowing anything about the crimes. When asked, he agreed to take a lie detector test, which could not be scheduled until the next day at the earliest. He remained at the police station overnight and until the evening of May 31, when he was taken to another police station for the test. Upon completing the test, he was told by the examiner that his answers were suspect, whereupon he replied that it was because he actually knew who had committed the crimes. Upon being returned to the first police station, he was given another set of Miranda warnings and informed that he had failed the test. He then told investigating officers that he had seen two persons named Kuykendoll and Gito in the act of shooting and robbing the victim. He said that afterward he had gone to the apartment of Ruthie Jackson and there had told Loneill Davis and his and Davis' girlfriends, Leatha Erving and Kelly Adams, what he had seen. While police searched for Kuykendoll and Gito, defendant remained for a second consecutive night in the police station. On the following day, June 1, defendant's friend Leatha Erving arrived at the police station and, at about 5 p.m., told investigating officers that, at about the time of the crimes, defendant and Davis had left her company and that, when they later returned, defendant was carrying a large radio. At about 9 p.m. on June 1, police gave defendant another set of Miranda warnings and informed him of Erving's statement, whereupon he told them that, after he and Davis had left Erving's company, Davis disappeared, then later reappeared carrying the radio, after which they returned to the house where Erving was waiting. Later in the evening of June 1, police received a telephone call from Davis, met him at a certain location, and escorted him and his friend Kelly Adams to the police station. There, at about 12:30 a.m. on June 2, Davis was given Miranda warnings and gave the police a statement. According to the statement, Davis had been with defendant when defendant had said that he had to have the victim's radio. Davis told the police that defendant had then shot and robbed the victim during a struggle. Police thereupon informed defendant of Davis' statement, and defendant confessed to the crimes, some 50 hours after the police first encountered him. Defendant also told the police that he had taken the gun and radio to the apartment of Debra Glenn. Shortly afterward, police called at Glenn's apartment and recovered a radio. Later the same day, police again called at Glenn's apartment in search of a gun, and she and Patricia Barnes took police to another dwelling some distance away, where the police took possession of the gun.