Court Opinion

ID: 9579515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:55:54.602621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:34.006258
License: Public Domain

Wahls, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent because I would hold that defendant’s inculpatory statements were made involuntarily and should have been suppressed. Although I find People v Bender, 208 Mich App 221; 527 NW2d 66 (1994), to be more persuasive than People v Armstrong, 207 Mich App 211; 523 NW2d 878 (1994), I agree that this panel is bound under Administrative Order No. 1994-4 to follow Armstrong as the earlier of two conflicting opinions published after November 1, 1990.
In this case, even applying Armstrong, I believe that reversal is required. The voluntariness of a confession is a question of law for the trial court’s *643determination. People v Johnson, 202 Mich App 281, 287; 508 NW2d 509 (1993). In reviewing the trial court’s determination of voluntariness, this Court examines the entire record and makes an independent determination of voluntariness. Id. The factors that this Court should consider include:
The age of the accused; his lack of education or his intelligence level; the extent of his previous experience with the police; the repeated and prolonged nature of the questioning; the length of the detention of the accused before he gave the statement in question; the lack of any advice to the accused of his constitutional rights; whether there was an unnecessary delay in bringing him before a magistrate before he gave the confession; whether the accused was injured, intoxicated or drugged, or in ill health when he gave the statement; whether the accused was deprived of food, sleep, or medical attention; whether the accused was physically abused; and whether the suspect was threatened with abuse. [Id., pp 287-288.]
Here, the refusal of the police to inform defendant of the attorney’s attempt to contact him is a crucial factor in the calculus of circumstances. In People v Wright, 441 Mich 140; 490 NW2d 351 (1992), Justice Mallett and Justice Levin agreed that such a refusal was enough to warrant a reversal.
Chief Justice Cavanagh indicated that he agreed with Justice Mallett’s opinion "as far as it goes,” but indicated that reversal was even more clearly supported because of police conduct that violated the defendant’s right to counsel. Id., p 156. Chief Justice Cavanagh explicitly stated that he agreed with Justice Mallett’s reliance on the decisions of other state courts that rejected the reasoning of Moran v Burbine, 475 US 412; 106 S *644Ct 1135; 89 L Ed 2d 410 (1986). Wright, supra, p 156, n 1. Indeed, Chief Justice Cavanagh went further than Justice Mallett not only by adding the rationale regarding the right to counsel, but also by including within the rule’s ambit an attorney’s attempt to contact a defendant at the police station by telephone. Id., p 163. Accordingly, Chief Justice Cavanagh provides a third vote that the failure of the police to inform a defendant of attempts by counsel to contact the defendant renders inculpatory statements involuntary.
In Wright, Justice Brickley cast the deciding fourth vote , to reverse the defendant’s conviction. Although he chose to write separately, Justice Brickley nevertheless saw the police inaction as a critical factor in determining the voluntariness of the defendant’s statements. Justice Brickley wrote:
Many cases recognize that incommunicado interrogation — the practice of consciously isolating a suspect from all friendly contact with outsiders to coerce a waiver of the right to remain silent — can undermine a person’s will and make him highly susceptible to police assertiveness. [Id., p 168.]
Justice Brickley continued, quoting People v Cavanaugh, 246 Mich 680, 686; 225 NW 501 (1929):
"[A] confession, extorted by mental disquietude, induced by unlawfully holding an accused incommunicable, is condemned by every principle of fairness, has all the evils of the old-time lettre de cachet, is forbidden by the constitutional guarantee of due process of law, and inhibited by the right of an accused to have the assistance of counsel.” [Wright, supra, p 168.]
Justice Brickley opined that "[i]ncommunicado *645interrogation affects the voluntariness of a waiver because it suggests that cooperation will be advantageous whether or not the statements are true.” Id., p 169. "Statements made under these circumstances,” Justice Brickley believed, easily "lose their quality as conscience-laden admissions of guilt,” and "become an attempt to please the interrogating officer.” Id. Justice Brickley wrote of the dilemma that faces an accused held incommunicado:
Although interrogation may cease, a defendant’s isolation from friendly contact with the outside world does not; it continues unabated. Continued isolation only increases the defendant’s incentive to speak with the police and to comply with their demands. Failing to inform the defendant that retained counsel is available immediately leaves a suspect with two unpalatable options: waive the right to remain silent or wait in police custody, not knowing how long it might be before counsel arrives. Seen in this light, a waiver is not the product of a free and deliberate choice. Rather, it derives from a cruel Hobson’s choice imposed as a result of the conscious exclusion of friendly contact with others. [Id., pp 169-170.]
Although Justice Brickley proceeded to examine the other circumstances pertaining to the voluntariness of the defendant’s confession, it is clear that the incommunicado nature of the defendant’s interrogation played a crucial role in his thinking.
Here, the circumstances of defendant’s detention are significantly more troublesome than those in Wright. Defendant’s inculpatory statement was taken at 6:40 p.m. on September 10, 1991. Defendant was arrested at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. the previous night. This twenty-one-hour detention contrasts with the eleven-hour detention in Wright.
Moreover, Sergeant Lee Caudill testified that it *646was very possible that the police department’s policy was that if the suspect does not request an attorney, an attorney is not allowed to see him. The accused, rather than a family member or another third party, would have to ask for an attorney. Justice Brickley found this kind of official coerciveness critical in Wright. Id., p 171. Here, defendant did not make any incriminating statements until confronted with the results of the polygraph examination, well after the attorney asked to speak to defendant at the police headquarters. As in Bender, supra, pp 231-232, had defendant been informed that an attorney had been retained for him and was waiting to speak to him, defendant might not have waived his right to counsel or his right to remain silent. See also Wright, supra, pp 153-154.
Other circumstances lend strong support to the unreliability of defendant’s statements. During his twenty-one-hour detention before making the incriminatory statements, defendant’s only food was a snack of Twinkies and soft drinks. No food was provided for breakfast. The Twinkies and soft drinks were given on defendant’s request around lunch time the day after his arrest. Incredibly, defendant was given nothing else for lunch and nothing for dinner until after he made the incriminating statements at 6:40 p.m. After adding the six hours before his arrest,1 defendant subsisted on one serving of Twinkies and soft drinks in the twenty-seven hours before his inculpatory statements!
In addition, defendant’s lack of sleep is a proper *647factor suggesting the involuntariness of defendant’s statement. The focus is on whether defendant was "deprived” of sleep. Johnson, supra, pp 287-288. Here, defendant was taken to a cell that contained only a wooden bench, and no bed, cot, mattress, or other sleeping accommodations. Regardless of whether somebody is likely to get a restful night’s sleep after being arrested, the furnishings of this cell made that impossible. This too is a factor militating against the holding that defendant’s confession was voluntary.
In Wright, supra, p 172, Justice Brickley, as the critical fourth and deciding vote, found that the circumstances of incommunicado interrogation, along with the deprivation of food and sleep, made the defendant’s confession involuntary. Here, too, considering the circumstances of the incommunicado interrogation, along with the deprivation of food and sleep, I would hold that defendant’s statements were involuntary, his convictions should be reversed, and the matter should be remanded for a new trial. Id.; Armstrong, supra, p 215.

 The majority would like to disregard these six hours. However, the police conduct here exhibits an utter lack of interest regarding whether defendant was properly fed. This is clearly shown when, after fifteen hours of detention, they provided defendant with the "meal” of Twinkies and pop.