Court Opinion

ID: 9677471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:53:10.901971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:56.201905
License: Public Domain

Andree Layton Roaf, Justice, dissenting. I do not agree that the roadside confession of Stone constituted a spontaneous statement which was not made in response to the questioning by the sheriff. Certainly it was an in-custodial statement. The sheriff testified that there was a “big cluster” of other police vehicles in on the stop of Stone. Even though the officers were prepared to follow Stone as he drove his vehicle to his home, he was doing so in response to a request by the police to search his home; a reasonable person would not have believed that he was free from custody of the police under the circumstances. See Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S._, 128 L. Ed. 2d 293 (1994); Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420 (1984). The thrust of the questions posed by the sheriff — “What were you doing last night?. . . Can we go out to your house and look at your clothes from last night . . . can we look in your trunk?” made it clear that the sheriff suspected appellant was personally implicated in the killing of his co-worker. It was not mere “general informational-gathering type” questioning as characterized by an officer involved, but constituted interrogation for the purposes of Miranda. See 1 W. LaFave, Criminal Procedure, § 6.7(b) (1984, 1991 Suppl.)(and cases cited therein). Nor, therefore, could I say that appellant’s responses, “Are you Sheriff Blankenship? I’m the one you’re looking for, I stabbed David,” were spontaneous statements or were unconnected to the questions posed by the sheriff immediately prior to this confession. The majority further misconstrues Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) as holding any volunteered statement to be admissible, and wrongly concludes it is not necessary to resolve whether appellant was subjected to custodial interrogation in this instance. In fact, the directive of Miranda is that custodial interrogation must be preceded by the requisite warnings, because of its inherently coercive nature. Under Miranda, voluntary and spontaneous statements are admissible if made during custody, but not during custodial interrogation. Miranda states: In dealing with statements obtained through interrogation, we do not purport to find all confessions inadmissible. Confessions remain a proper element in law enforcement. Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence. The fundamental import of the privilege while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of counsel, but whether he can be interrogated. There is no requirement that police stop a person who enters a police station and states that he wishes to confess to a crime, or a person who calls the police to offer a confession or any other statement he desires to make. Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today. In this case, to say that the police engaged in custodial interrogation but the suspect’s response was spontaneous and voluntary, allows an impermissible contradiction to arise from the Miranda holding. As stated in LaFave, supra, at §6.7(b): Because Miranda found only custody-plus-interrogation coercive, a statement may qualify as “volunteered” even though made by one in custody [but where it did not also stem from interrogation]. . . . Shelton v. State, 287 Ark. 322, 699 S.W.2d 728 (1985), is also factually close to this case, and while the majority states the facts of Shelton, it fails to distinguish it from this case; indeed, the facts in this case are stronger than in Shelton for finding the police conduct constituted interrogation. The suspects in both Shelton and this case had been apprehended and surrounded by the police. In Shelton, the suspect ended up in a police car with the interrogating officer; in this case, the suspect was outside his own car, but was surrounded by a number of police cars and policemen. We found the situation custodial in Shelton and it is clearly custodial here. In Shelton very little was said to the suspect before he blurted out the incriminating statements. The officer had stressed the seriousness of the crime to the suspect and told him that if he knew anything about it or could help locate either suspect, he should talk to them. At that point the suspect blurted out, “We did it. We were there.” We found the policeman’s questions to be interrogation and the suspect’s resulting statements inadmissible. In the case before us there was more than just a general request for information as in Shelton. The questions were more pointed and focused on appellant’s possible implication in the crime. Here, after appellant acknowledged he knew the crime had occurred, he was asked the following questions as he was surrounded by policemen and police cars: Why was he driving so fast; what had he been doing the night before; what side of the Satterfield building [the murder scene] had he been the night before; could the police look over his house; could they look at the clothes he had worn the night before; and could they look in the trunk of his car. Based on the facts in Shelton and those in this case, I must conclude the questioning in this case constituted interrogation for purposes of Miranda. Appellant’s statements could not be considered spontaneous and voluntary under these circumstances and were inadmissible. Appellant’s subsequent confession made at the police station within an hour of his roadside stop should also be suppressed, even though appellant was given Miranda warnings and executed the proper waivers prior to this confession. When the original confession has been made under illegal influence, such influence will be presumed to continue unless the contrary is clearly shown. See Shelton supra at 331. Here, as in Shelton, there was not “sufficient dissipation of the coercive elements of the first confession” to render the second admissible. I would reverse. Newbern, J., joins in this dissent.