Court Opinion

ID: 9795586
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:31:58.850286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:29:58.009568
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Despite concluding that the trial court failed to apply the correct legal standard, maj. op. at 856, and "overstated" some of its factual findings, maj. op. at 356 n. 7, the majority nevertheless concludes that additional findings of fact by the trial court are sufficient to establish custody under the correct standard. Because I believe the existing record is wholly inadequate to support a de novo determination of custody by this court, I would reverse the trial court's clearly flawed ruling and remand for further pro*358ceedings. I therefore dissent from that portion of the majority opinion upholding suppression.
As the majority readily acknowledges, the trial court misapprehended the legal significance of the arrest warrant in this case. Its ruling left no doubt that it considered relevant to the determination of custody the fact that the detectives already had judicial authority to arrest the defendant and therefore must bave intended to arrest him and, similarly, must have been dishonest in telling him that he was free to leave. As the majority points out, the totality of cireumstances test for assessing the question of custody turns on the perceptions of a reasonable person in the defendant's position rather than the subjective intent of the officers. The trial court's legal conclusion was therefore fatally flawed.8
Nevertheless, the majority concludes that the police created "an atmosphere equivalent to that of formal arrest by questioning a suspect who [was] isolated in a small room, by effectively blocking his access to the room's only exit, by confronting him repeatedly with the weight of the evidence against him, and by telling him that he [was] free to leave when all the external cireum-stances appear[ed] to the contrary." Maj. op. at 357. In fact, these propositions are either completely unsupported by the record or are insufficient, to the extent that some find partial support, to justify a legal conclusion of custody.
Initially, the defendant was "isolated" only in the sense that the detectives were the only other persons in the room with him. Nothing in the record suggested that he was deceived or had not come into the room voluntarily. (He had been directed to that location by the nurses.) Nor did anything suggest that he wanted to have, or was in any way prevented from having, anyone else in the room with him. Hospital staff, rather than the detectives, closed the door as they left, and it was clearly not locked. When the defendant eventually asked for his wife, one of the officers immediately located her, and she was permitted to come in.
Similarly, the record did not indicate that the interview took place in a small room but rather in a comparatively large one. The only evidence concerning the nature of the room and the positioning of those present indicated that, unlike a typical police interrogation room, it was a hospital meeting room (as distinguished from a "private room"), large enough to house a table seating twelve, in addition to a television and other chairs positioned for watching. Nowhere was the location of the table described, relative to the door, nor was there any evidence to support a finding that the detectives were effectively blocking the defendant's access to the door, or even that they were sitting between him and the door. The only reference in the record to the relative positions of the participants indicated that the defendant was sitting some ten feet away from Detective Pur-vis and that Purvis and Detective Archuleta were nearer than the defendant to the door.
As the majority concedes, the undisputed testimony indicated the defendant was told that he need not talk to the detectives and that he was free to leave at any time, and the trial court made factual findings to that effect. The majority's qualification that "all external cireumstances appear[ed] to the contrary," maj. op. at 357, was neither a finding of the trial court nor a permissible inference from the testimony. The trial court, in fact, found only that the detectives were dishonest in indicating to the defendant that he would be allowed to leave, and it was actually criticized by the majority for failing to appreciate that the question of custody turned on appearances rather than the intent of the detectives.
To the extent that the majority's inference is drawn from the trial court's finding that the detectives sat between the defendant and the doorway and the fact that the defendant was confronted with the evidence against him, the former was no more supported by the record than the trial court's finding that *359the defendant was directed to the chair furthest from the door, see maj. op. at 356, n. 7, and the latter, in itself, does not imply that the defendant must have felt that he was no longer entitled to withdraw from the interview.9 The record is undisputed that only after the defendant made clear his wish to talk ("No, I'm talking") to the detectives and made several attempts to allay their suspi-clons by giving explanations that they knew to be medically impossible, did they challenge his account.10
Unlike the majority, I would not hold that two plainclothes detectives,11 without visible weapons,12 verbally confronting an unrestrained suspect,13 in an unlocked hospital TV room,14 after notifying him that he is free to leave rather than talk to them,15 with the lies he has voluntarily told them in an attempt to shift suspicion away from himself, amounts to an infringement on his liberty to such an extent that it is commensurate with a formal arrest. At such a point, concessions by a suspect are, in my mind, more naturally explained by his realization that his attempts at deception have not only failed but have actually increased police suspicions, and that further fabrication will not improve his position, rather than because of any reasonable perception that he has, in effect, already been arrested.
Apprehending and punishing those who commit crimes, is not a contest requiring the perpetrator to be given a sporting chance to evade detection. In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), the United States Supreme Court squarely rejected the notion that confessions are in some way unworthy evidence or an undesirable way of solving crimes. Instead, it sought only to provide an additional protection from police coercion in situations comparable to the inherently coercive atmosphere of the stationhouse interrogation. Because the defendant asserted and the trial court erroneously found it to be improper for officers to attempt a consensual interview with a suspect whom they already had grounds to arrest, the record in this case not surprisingly fails to address or support a finding of custody under the correct legal standard. Rather than attempt to pour the trial court's old findings into new bottles, I would remand for reconsideration in light of the proper legal standard.
I therefore concur in part and dissent in part.
I am authorized to state that Justice KOURLIS joins in this partial concurrence and partial dissent.

. See Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 326, 114 S.Ct. 1526, 1530, 128 L.Ed.2d 293 (1994)(Remand required despite consideration of a number of appropriate factors, where trial court regarded officers' subjective focus on defendant as a suspect as significant in and of itself).

. See Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 497, 97 S.Ct. 711, 714, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) ("Any interview of one suspected of a crime by a police officer will have coercive aspects to it, simply by virtue of the fact that the police officer is part of a law enforcement system which may ultimately cause the suspect to be charged with a crime. But the police officers are not required to administer Miranda warnings to everyone whom they question. Nor is the requirement of warnings to be imposed simply because the questioning takes place in the station house, or because the questioned person is one whom the police suspect."); see also Matheny, 46 P.3d at 468 (quoting Mathiason ).

. Cf. Matheny, 46 P.3d at 466 (noting significance of fact that the "initial tone" was conversational).

. Cf. Matheny, 46 P.3d at 456 (noting significance of fact that officers were not uniformed).

. Cf. People v. Polander, 41 P.3d 698, 705 (defendant not confined at police station nor did officers draw guns, use handcuffs or otherwise demonstrate the kind of force typically associated with an arrest); see generally 2 Wayne R. La-Fave, Jerold H. Israel & Nancy J. King § 6.6(F) (West Group, 1999 & Supp.2003)(A court is more likely to find custody for Miranda purposes if there is physical restraint such as handcuffing, drawing a gun, holding by the arm, or placing into a police car.).

. Id.

. Cf. Matheny, 46 P.3d at 466 (noting significance of unlocked interview room).

. Cf. Matheny, 46 P.3d at 466 (noting such advisement as one indication that the defendant's freedom of action had not been curtailed).