Opinion ID: 2382899
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admissibility of Defendant's Statements to DHS agent Ann Levesque

Text: Defendant next contends, for the first time on appeal, that her statements to DHS agent Ann Levesque resulted from an interrogation that violated the rule of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and her Sixth Amendment right to counsel. She argues that the admission of Levesque's testimony concerning her statements, albeit unobjected-to at trial, constitutes obvious error and hence requires a new trial. Levesque's interrogation of defendant was in blatant disregard of both of defendant's Fifth and Sixth Amendment right to counsel; thus, because the trial court had before it all the information necessary to draw that conclusion, and the admission of that confession in the circumstances of this case was prejudicial to defendant, we hold that it was obvious error to admit that testimony. During defendant's trial the State called Ann Levesque as a witness. Levesque identified herself as a child protective worker for the Department of Human Services and explained that on June 19, 1989, three days after defendant was arrested, she went to [defendant's] arraignment at the District Court ... [and] made arrangements with [a detective] to speak with [defendant] before she was taken back to the County Jail after her arraignment. At her arraignment, defendant had filed a motion for appointment of counsel. The District Court (Houlton, Griffiths, J. ) at that time appointed counsel to represent defendant. Levesque's testimony showed that she did converse with defendant for between 15 minutes to a half hour in a closed conference room at the District Court building. Although no one else was present in the room, a detective stood guard outside the door, which didn't have a doorknob on it in the inside, so somebody had to be outside to let [them] out. Levesque testified about that conversation and its purpose as follows: I got the sense throughout the weekend that [defendant] wasn't taking the situation seriously. I was concerned about what was going to be happening with the kids. I just felt that there had to be something more going on; and I asked her to level with somebody about what was happening, if there was more than what was being said ... about the murder... to let somebody know. We were talking about the seriousness of this, what was going to happen to the children if she was convicted of murder. I told her that I felt that if she had more information, she needed to tell somebody. . . I mentioned that we had [defendant's daughter's] statement and that was very damaging and I also told her I believed [her daughter] ... I told her that they had found a body in the wood shed. Levesque testified on direct examination that during their conversation, after she had told defendant that [her daughter's] statement was extremely serious and things did not look good, ... [defendant] swore that she didn't kill him, but she did say she helped to bury the body. Defense counsel raised no objection to Levesque's testimony but merely cross-examined her regarding the details of the conversation. As stated by the Supreme Court: The arraignment signals the initiation of adversary judicial proceedings and thus the attachment of the Sixth Amendment; thereafter, government efforts to elicit information from the accused, including interrogation, represent critical stages at which the Sixth Amendment applies. Michigan v. Jackson, 475 U.S. 625, 629-30, 106 S.Ct. 1404, 1407-08, 89 L.Ed.2d 631 (1986) (citations omitted). There is no question that Levesque's conversation with defendant, during which Levesque was eliciting incriminating responses from defendant, qualified as government initiated interrogation and was commenced after her Sixth Amendment rights had attached. Id. Moreover, by virtue of having requested appointed counsel at her arraignment, defendant also invoked the prophylactic rule [3] of Michigan v. Jackson that would have invalidated any waiver of her Sixth Amendment rights that defendant might have given to Levesque. See State v. Rose, 604 A.2d 24, 27 (Me.1992) ([d]efendant's Sixth Amendment right to effective representation at trial was significantly impaired because the State ignored his formal and unequivocal request for counsel after proceedings had been initiated ... Michigan v. Jackson requires that his subsequent waiver for the police-initiated interrogation be declared invalid). In the context of the Fifth Amendment, the Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), held that the privilege against self-incrimination prohibits admitting statements made by a suspect during custodial interrogation without a prior warning. As the Court explained in Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420, 430, 104 S.Ct. 1136, 1143, 79 L.Ed.2d 409 (1984): To dissipate the overbearing compulsion... caused by isolation of a suspect in police custody United States v. Washington, 431 U.S. 181, 187 n. 5 [97 S.Ct. 1814, 1819 n. 5, 52 L.Ed.2d 238] (1977), the Miranda Court required the exclusion of incriminating statements obtained during custodial interrogation unless the suspect fails to claim the Fifth Amendment privilege after being suitably warned of his right to remain silent and of the consequences of his failure to assert it. There is no indication that Levesque provided defendant with Miranda warnings prior to their conversation. Although a failure to give Miranda warnings does not abridge a defendant's constitutional privilege against compulsory self-incrimination but departs only from the prophylactic standards laid down by the Supreme Court in Miranda designed to safeguard that privilege, see Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 444, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 2364, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974), statements taken in violation of Miranda 's prophylactic rules may nonetheless not be used to prove the prosecution's case at trial. Id. 417 U.S. at 445, 94 S.Ct. at 2364. Moreover, even if Miranda warnings were given defendant by Levesque, that defendant had previously invoked her right to counsel would raise a per se bar against government-initiated interrogation, and any waiver she might have made would be invalid. See Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884-85, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981); State v. Rose, 604 A.2d at 27-28. Although, it is inescapable that in the circumstances of this case, there was, in addition to a Sixth Amendment violation, either a Miranda or an Edwards violation, the unpreserved nature of those errors renders them reviewable only for obvious error. See State v. True, 438 A.2d 460, 467-69 (Me.1981). The True test of obvious error requires this court to look to both the obviousness of the error and the injustice actually worked on defendant to determine whether it cannot in good conscience let the conviction stand. Id. at 469. Turning first to the obviousness prong, it is evident that the admission of Levesque's testimony constituted error of the most clear-cut variety. The only factor that would have made her interrogation of defendant more plainly in violation of the Sixth Amendment and Miranda would be if she had been a uniformed law enforcement officer. In any event she is clearly a government agent. [4] That fact along with all of the other necessary facts for the court itself to see the error being committed were squarely before the court Levesque told the court that at the time of her interview, defendant had already been arraigned. The court would surely know that her counsel had been appointed at that time and could infer by Levesque's attendance at the arraignment, that she was even aware of defendant's request for appointed counsel. Levesque's testimony showed that the conversation was held at her initiative and that she was saying things to defendant that were clearly likely to elicit an incriminating response. That the admission of Levesque's testimony violated defendant's Sixth Amendment rights and the rules set down in Miranda was indeed quite obvious. We find that the admission of defendant's confession worked a serious injustice on the defendant and so taints the proceedings as to virtually deprive Harper of a fair trial. We can not allow her conviction to stand. The State argues that the overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt prevented any serious prejudice to defendant and that the proper admission of another confession [5] rendered the tainted confession merely cumulative. That argument is belied by the State's use of the Levesque confession in its closing argument wherein the prosecutor remarked: [I]f Ann Levesque were going to lie, if she is proposing something other than the truthful testimony, why wouldn't she just go the whole route and say, oh, yeah, I talked with Pat Harper and she said, oh, sure, I killed Ricky Pinard. It doesn't make sense that Ann Levesque's testimony would be in that way unless it was a true accounting of that conversation. Rather, the State was quite convincing in its argument that the Levesque confession was the most reliable due to its nature as a half-confession. In addition, the defense presented evidence to explain the other potential confession as merely referencing defendant's past abortion. Although we certainly cannot say that in the absence of the Levesque confession there would have been insufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction, neither can we say that the admission of the constitutionally tainted confession did not contribute to the jury's verdict. As such this error was prejudicial to defendant. Accord Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) (federal constitutional error cannot be held harmless unless beneficiary of error proves beyond a reasonable doubt that it did not contribute to the verdict). Together with the obviousness of the error in admitting Levesque's testimony, the prejudice to defendant resulting from that testimony requires that we vacate defendant's conviction. The entry is: Judgment vacated. Case remanded for new trial. ROBERTS, GLASSMAN and COLLINS, JJ., concurring. WATHEN, C.J., with whom CLIFFORD, J., joins, dissenting. I respectfully dissent. I disagree with the second prong of the Court's obvious error analysis. In my judgment, no serious injustice resulted from receiving in evidence defendant's admission that she did not kill him, but ... she helped to bury the body. Other evidence of defendant's knowledge that she had a body buried in the floor of her shed is overwhelming. Defendant's oldest daughter, Melissa, testified that she saw defendant shoot Ricky Pinard and then helped defendant bury Pinard with ashes in the shed. She testified that from that day forward, the shed, formerly used as a children's play house, was converted to a storage area for wood and ashes. She testified further that after the burial, the shed was kept padlocked and defendant wanted only Melissa to retrieve wood from it. Blood stains were found on the mattress and on the wall in the bedroom where Melissa said the shooting occurred. Ricky Pinard's body was found buried in the wood shed, in ashes, exactly where Melissa said it was buried. Defendant made reference to having killed and buried Ricky Pinard to other people stating, What do they thinkthat I killed him and buried him on the property? In a letter to a boyfriend, defendant admitted that I did kill somebody. Against the factual backdrop presented in this case, defendant could not possibly have been harmed, nor could the fundamental fairness of the proceedings have been affected by evidence that she acknowledged some involvement in the burial. Even without her admission, any trier of fact would be compelled to conclude that she had some involvement in the burial of Ricky Pinard. Her admission added nothing to a conclusion that was otherwise ineluctable. I would affirm.