Opinion ID: 1113569
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Use of Bogard's Statement for Impeachment Purposes

Text: The defendant testified on his own behalf. During cross-examination, the State sought to impeach Bogard's credibility as a witness with a prior inconsistent statement given to Oxford Police Lieutenant Andy Waller in Flint, Michigan, seven (7) months earlier. Bogard objected at the trial court and complains on appeal that the statement could not be used for any purpose because it was taken in violation of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Bogard seeks to benefit from the rule that a statement or confession which in truth and in fact was not voluntary, which came about as a result of threats, physical mistreatment, or the promise of reward to make it, cannot be used at all, either in the state's case-in-chief or for impeachment purposes. Powell v. State, 483 So.2d 363, 368 (Miss. 1986). On direct examination, Bogard testified that Sandra Dean gave him a key to her house and instructed him to let himself in and wait for her because they needed to talk. He further testified he entered and waited. On cross-examination, Bogard was asked if he had ever told anyone else a different story about how he had gotten into the house. He replied, Yes, I have. After the judge overruled Bogard's objection to any further questions concerning this matter, Bogard testified that on December 19, 1989, he told Detective Waller that he, Sandra, and Lamont had entered the house as a group, that Sandra had opened the door and they then entered the house together. In response to further inquiries by the prosecution, Bogard admitted that the statement made to Detective Waller was not true. He acknowledged that the correct version of his entry into Sandra's house was embodied in his trial testimony given on direct examination. It is well settled that otherwise voluntary statements, even when taken in violation of a defendant's Fifth or Sixth Amendment rights, may be used to impeach the defendant if he elects to take the witness stand. Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 95 S.Ct. 1215, 43 L.Ed.2d 570 (1975); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971). See also Michigan v. Harvey, 494 U.S. 344, 110 S.Ct. 1176, 108 L.Ed.2d 293 (1990). In other words, if the only objection to use of the statement or confession, or portions thereof, is that it was a product of a defective Miranda warning or no warnings at all, the State may use it to impeach the defendant's trial testimony without first establishing that the statement or confession was freely and voluntarily given. Booker v. State, 326 So.2d 791, 793 (Miss. 1976). See also Murphy v. State, 336 So.2d 213, 216 (Miss. 1976) and Day v. State, 382 So.2d 1071 (Miss. 1980). Here Bogard's objection went to the denial of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights when Waller allegedly continued to question him after he had plead[ed] the Fifth and/or requested counsel. No hearing on the voluntariness of the statement made to Detective Waller was required because Bogard raised no genuine issue of voluntariness that the State was required to refute. We wholeheartedly concur with the language found in Day, supra, that the shield provided by Miranda is not to be perverted [in]to a license to testify inconsistently, or even perjuriously, free from the risk of confrontation with prior inconsistent utterances. Day, 382 So.2d at 1074.