Court Opinion

ID: 9515044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:53:19.924935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:24.267301
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(concurring in result).
[¶ 111.] I concur in result, but write specially on Issue 6 to point out the deceit and trickery used by the interrogating detective. The majority opinion concludes that Owens had no objective or subjective expectation of privacy in the phone call to his mother. While it may be true that Owens discovered that he was being taped and that any admissions he made thereafter were not protected, the detective clearly engaged in deceit and trickery in getting him to call his mother and in taping the conversation, contrary to his prior assurances.
[¶ 112.] The actions of this detective cross the line of permissible interrogation. See Stanga, 2000 SD 129 at ¶25, 617 N.W.2d at 492 (Sabers, J., concurring specially). The detective first assured Owens that he was not recording or taping their conversation. Early on in the September 4, 1999 interview, Owens said to the detective: “You ain’t got no tape recorder or nothin on ya do ya?” The detective said no and even lifted up his shirt to prove to Owens that he was not wired.
[¶ 113.] The detective then played on Owens’ emotions and persuaded him to call his mother and confess his actions. The detective asked Owens: “If I were you, you want to know what I would do?” He then stated that he would call his mother because “she [was] going to hear about *760this one way or another and I think she should hear it from you.” The detective also made the following comments to Owens during the course of the interview:
Now you’ve got to decide how you want to deal with it. [Regardless] and let me tell you, this is just between us, / mean man to man, [regardless] on what you decide to tell me, you need to tell your mom before she finds out some other way. Okay? And you told me that you loved your mother. I know from experience of doing this job, let her know first, before somebody calls her and says ‘Tour son really [ ] up and he is in big trouble.” You know. You’ve got to understand that your family’s never gonna, you know, your mom is still going to love you. I want you personally to contact your mother. Let her hear it from you. Don’t let her hear it from somebody else. She deserves that much.
(emphasis added). As indicated, the detective clearly used deceit and played on Owens’ emotions in an attempt to elicit a confession from Owens knowing it was being recorded.
[¶ 114.] In State v. Dickey, Justice Henderson warned:
I vote hereby to affirm this conviction but with a singular warning to the Sioux Falls Detective Bureau that there is a limit to which it can proceed, in order to obtain incriminating statements. I truly hope that this affirmance does not spawn further similar practices.
459 N.W.2d 445, 450 (S.D.1990) (Henderson, J., concurring specially). It is readily apparent that this officer of the Sioux Falls Detective Bureau has not heeded this warning.
[¶ 115.] In State v. Oltmanns, this Court affirmed the suppression of incriminating statements obtained through coercion. 519 N.W.2d 602, 606 (S.D.1994). See also Stanga, 2000 SD 129 at ¶ 1, 617 N.W.2d at 487 (holding that admission of an improperly obtained confession was harmless error). “Apparently, the trampling of a suspect’s rights is of little concern to some members of law enforcement as long as a conviction will be upheld.” Stanga, 2000 SD 129 at ¶26, 617 N.W.2d at 492 (Sabers, J., concurring specially). “Maybe they will persist in their present practice. If so, it won’t be long before the results necessarily required in Oltmanns will revisit them.” Darby, 1996 SD 127 at ¶ 52, 556 N.W.2d at 323 (Sabers, J., dissenting).9

. There are many ways to obtain proper evidence against such monstrous acts as this. The use of trickery and deceit should not be principally relied upon to produce proper evidence. I write to encourage the use of the right ways so that, in the future, such monstrous acts as this will not go unpunished.