Opinion ID: 2234512
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: motion to suppress jon's initial statement

Text: In his motion to suppress, Jon also claimed that his initial statement to Detective Harberts at the scene of the crime should be suppressed. As noted above, when Spickard brought Jon over to Harberts, Harberts asked Jon why he had shot the people. Jon responded it was because they pissed me off. I couldn't take it anymore so I shot them. Jon argued that this statement should have been suppressed because he had not been given his Miranda warnings before Harberts asked the question. The trial court denied Jon's motion to suppress this statement, finding that the question was an appropriate on-scene general investigative question. The appellate court reversed the trial court, finding that the question was not a general on-scene investigative question, but instead was an interrogation. See 307 Ill.App.3d at 710, 240 Ill.Dec. 725, 718 N.E.2d 206 (unpublished material under Supreme Court Rule 23). The appellate court further found that Jon was in custody at the time the question was asked, so that the failure to give Miranda warnings rendered Jon's answer to the question inadmissible. The State appeals the appellate court's decision with regard to Jon's initial statement to Detective Harberts. The State maintains that Harberts' question was not interrogation. The State further argues that, in any event, Jon was not in custody when the question was asked, so that Miranda warnings were not required. We need not address whether the appellate court properly found that Harberts' question was interrogation and that Jon was in custody because we find that, even if the trial court erroneously denied Jon's motion to suppress his initial statement to Harberts, any error was, at most, harmless. During Jon's first and second interviews with Harberts, after Jon had received his Miranda warnings, Jon repeated the initial statement he had made to Harberts at the scene. Specifically, during the second, taped interview, the following exchange took place: [Harberts]: OK. Then you walked over to me and [Spickard] told me that you had just walked up and said that you had shot them or killed the, and, uh, you had given him the gun, and I asked you why. Can you tell my [ sic ] why? [Jon]: Yes sir, I said cause they pissed me off. I was upset and sick and tired of being treated the way I was. I couldn't take it any longer. Even if the initial statement to Harberts had been admitted into evidence erroneously, it is difficult to conceive of any prejudice to Jon when he repeated the statement to Harberts two more times after receiving his Miranda warnings. Although Jon claimed that any statements he made were coerced because he was conditioned to respond to authority, we find no evidence in the record that Jon's response to Harberts was not voluntary. It is noteworthy that the response came shortly after Jon of his own initiative confessed to Spickard that he was the shooter. Consequently, the subsequent reading of Miranda warnings cured the condition that the appellate court found made the initial voluntary but unwarned statement inadmissible. See People v. Wilson, 164 Ill.2d 436, 452, 207 Ill.Dec. 417, 647 N.E.2d 910 (1995) (reading of Miranda warnings cured prior voluntary but unwarned statement), citing Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 311-12, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 1294-95, 84 L.Ed.2d 222, 233-34 (1985). In Wilson, this court held that, once a defendant is warned of his rights, he is free to exercise his own decision of whether to make a second statement. Wilson, 164 Ill.2d at 452, 207 Ill.Dec. 417, 647 N.E.2d 910. We noted that two hours had passed from the end of the defendant's first, unwarned statement until he was read his Miranda warnings, and during that two-hour time period, the defendant was not subject to police interrogation, force, threats, harassment or questioning. Wilson, 164 Ill.2d at 452, 207 Ill.Dec. 417, 647 N.E.2d 910. Here, Jon's initial statement to Harberts was made shortly after Harberts arrived on the scene at 8:38 p.m. Jon received his Miranda warnings and was interviewed the first time from 9:05 p.m. until 9:37 p.m., and received the second set of Miranda warnings and was interviewed the second time from 11:07 p.m. until 11:30 p.m. Jon was not subjected to police interrogation, force, threats or harassment prior to the first interview or between the time of the first and second interviews. Jon was free to make his own decision of whether to repeat his initial statement during the first and second interviews. As those statements, which repeated and in fact enlarged upon Jon's initial response to Harberts, were admissible, we find that any purported error in admitting Jon's initial statement to Harberts was harmless.