Opinion ID: 835638
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: motions to exclude defendant's statements

Text: Defendant sought to exclude various statements that he made to the police on the ground that the statements either (1) were made under custodial compelling circumstances without warnings like those required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), or (2) were the product of interrogation after defendant had asserted his right to counsel. The trial court found that, with certain specified exceptions, defendant's various statements were admissible. Defendant challenges that ruling in three separate assignments of error. Defendant loosely identifies three groups of statements that he asserts should have been suppressed.
The first group of statements were made to Washington County Investigator Bowman and his associates over a nine hour period on February 28, 1998. Bowman and the others came to defendant's home at 8:30 p.m. to execute warrants to search defendant's home and car and to obtain DNA samples from his person. Defendant did not answer the door when the police knocked and rang, but he did finally respond when the investigators called to him by means of a police car hailer. When defendant came out of his house, several officers had drawn their guns. Defendant was told to get down on his knees and to keep his hands up. Defendant was searched and then was advised that the police were there to execute search warrants, including a warrant to obtain DNA evidence from his person. At that point, weapons holstered, investigators asked defendant if he would come to the sheriff's office for that purpose and otherwise to assist in the investigation. Defendant agreed to do so. He was driven to the sheriff's office by a police detective and was told by another detective that he was not under arrest. At the sheriff's office, defendant agreed to be interviewed and to allow the interview to be recorded. A few minutes into the interview, however, defendant said that he wished to terminate the interview. The investigators stopped the interview and the taping and proceeded to take samples of defendant's hair and saliva. Midway through that process, the investigators discovered that their warrant was defective. They asked defendant to provide the samples voluntarily, but he replied that he would not provide them without first talking to a lawyer. The investigators then left defendant alone in the interview room while they attempted to amend the defective warrant. After a period of time they returned, reactivated the tape recorder, and accused defendant of erasing part of the tape. Defendant told the investigators that he wanted to go home and did not want to talk to them. The investigators left the room again and then returned and activated the tape in order to confront defendant about looking through notes that an investigator had left in the room. Finally, after assuring defendant again that he was not under arrest, the investigators searched and photocopied the contents of defendant's wallet, took photographs of him, and drove him back to his home, where the house search still was going on. Defendant spent the next several hours outside of the house with an investigator, McKinney, waiting for the house search to end. During that time, defendant asked McKinney about Fraser's death, but McKinney told him that he could not talk to defendant about it. Defendant then commented that he wished [McKinney] was either a lawyer or a priest. Before the trial court, defendant argued that all the statements that he made to the investigators in the course of the foregoing events were inadmissible, primarily because he was in custody or, at least, in compelling circumstances and had not been read the usual Miranda warnings. The trial court, however, expressly found that defendant was not in custody on February 28, 1998, that the circumstances were not compelling, that defendant's statements to police detectives on that date were freely and voluntarily made, and that his statements to McKinney were spontaneous and not the result of questioning. Significantly, the court also found that defendant was sophisticated in the ways of the criminal justice system and that when he didn't want to talk, he didn't talk. Defendant challenges the foregoing findings, albeit in very general terms. However, we have reviewed the record and are satisfied that the trial court's rulings were correct. It is true that defendant reasonably could haveindeed, may havebelieved that he was in custody when police officers summoned him from his home with a bullhorn and met him outside with drawn guns. However, we think that any such belief (assuming that defendant even had it) would have been dispelled when the investigators then presented defendant with apparently lawful search warrants, asked him to come down to the station to assist in an investigation, and told him explicitly that he was not under arrest. Other aspects of the interlude also support the conclusion that the circumstances were neither custodial nor compelling. Most telling are the facts that defendant very actively controlled the interrogation once he was at the station and that, when he asked the investigators to terminate the interview and to return him to his home, they did so. The evidence also verifies the trial court's conclusion that defendant's statements to McKinney while waiting outside his home for the police to finish their search were spontaneous on his part and not the product of any interrogation. In sum, defendant's assignment of error respecting his February 28, 1998, statements is not well taken.
Defendant also challenges the admissibility of statements that he made to Bowman on February 24, 1999. Defendant was arrested in Florida on February 20, 1999, on a parole violation warrant. Bowman flew to Florida a few days after that arrest in order to collect body fluid samples from defendant's person. When he met with defendant, Bowman did not question him about the murder but, instead, merely explained to him that a detainer would be filed in connection with Fraser's death and that, although the detainer stated that defendant was charged with murder, it was possible that the charge would be upgraded to aggravated murder. As Bowman executed the warrant, defendant told him that he (Bowman) had made a mistake in February 1998, by letting defendant go, and he asked Bowman if he had gotten in trouble for doing so. Bowman told defendant that he could not speak to defendant about those matters. Bowman acknowledged that he had not given defendant Miranda warnings during that meeting. The trial court clearly found Bowman's testimony to be credible and, according to that testimony, defendant's statements were made freely, voluntarily, and spontaneously, and were not the result of questioning by Bowman. Defendant suggests, however, that, even if Bowman did not overtly question defendant, his actions were the functional equivalent of interrogation. It is true that interrogation need not always involve overt questioning, but may instead be accomplished by other words or actions by police that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. See, e.g., Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291, 300-01, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980) (for purposes of determining whether police violated a criminal defendant's right to counsel or right to remain silent under Fifth and Sixth Amendments, interrogation includes words or actions that police know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response). However, defendant does not explain how that principle applies to his February 24, 1999, interaction with Bowman, and we cannot divine from the record anything that Bowman did or said that could be deemed a functional equivalent of interrogation. We therefore reject defendant's contention that admission of the statements violated his constitutional rights to counsel and to remain silent. [9]
Finally, defendant challenges the admissibility of statements that he made to police officers on March 4, 1999. On that date, Bowman and McKinney accompanied defendant on a flight back to Oregon from Florida. Shortly after the three men boarded the plane, McKinney advised defendant of his Miranda rights. McKinney then told defendant a story that obviously was geared toward inducing defendant to waive those rights. However, defendant did not respond to the inducement. Defendant told the investigators that he planned to make a statement about the case through an attorney but that he was willing to talk to them about what he had done after leaving Oregon the year before. When pressed, defendant stated unequivocally that he wanted an attorney before he made any statements. Thereafter, McKinney and Bowman did not attempt to talk to defendant about Fraser's murder and the conversation turned to other topics. In the course of the ensuing conversation, defendant made certain comments that the state sought to introduce at trial, specifically: (1) defendant told Bowman and McKinney that he wanted to be out of prison before he reached Social Security age and that he had worried about his retirement while he was on the run; and (2) defendant asked McKinney if he (defendant) would be charged with a sex crime as well as murder, stating that he was concerned because he knew that people who committed sex crimes often had a more difficult time in prison. The trial court concluded that the statements were admissible. Defendant argues that McKinney's and Bowman's actions were the functional equivalent of interrogation and, more particularly, of continued interrogation after his invocation of the right to counsel. But, again, defendant does not point to any particular actions or words by Bowman or McKinney as being aimed at eliciting an incriminating response. And, as we previously noted, the trial court earlier had found that defendant was sophisticated in the ways of the criminal justice system and, when he didn't want to talk, he didn't talk. In sum, we perceive nothing in the record to support defendant's arguments. The trial court did not err.