Court Opinion

ID: 9567449
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:54:00.58228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:36.988045
License: Public Domain

Justice MARTIN
dissenting in part.
I respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority that defendant’s inculpatory statements were admissible; otherwise, I concur in the majority opinion, including specifically, the resolution of the issue arising under Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. ---, 100 L.Ed. 2d 384 (1988).
With respect to the confession issue, the majority approves the admission of inculpatory statements by a sixty-five-year-old black man with an I.Q. of 74, blind in one eye, his other eye injured and bandaged so that he could not see, wounded and treated at the hospital, with a blood alcohol level of .264, afraid for his life, travelling in a van with officers for over two hours from An-son County to Raleigh, at times cold and thirsty, suffering from his wounds, and being, in the opinion of Dr. Rollins, incapable of appreciating the waiver of his constitutional rights. In this I cannot concur.
Perhaps by finecombing the record, as the majority has done, some evidence can be found which when isolated may support some of the trial court’s findings of fact. The true test of the voluntariness of a confession, though, is found in the totality of the circumstances. State v. Jackson, 308 N.C. 549, 304 S.E. 2d 134 (1983). Once it is established that the procedural requirements of *64Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 16 L.Ed. 2d 694 (1966), have been met, the determination of whether defendant’s confession was knowingly and voluntarily made must be found from considering all of the circumstances of the case. State v. Corley, 310 N.C. 40, 311 S.E. 2d 540 (1984).
What were the totality of the circumstances when defendant confessed?
The Environment
First, it is to be noted that defendant was in a sheriffs van, being transported to Raleigh “for safekeeping” without the issuance of a judicial order authorizing the transfer. N.C.G.S. § 15A-521 (1983). Although an officer testified that “warrants” were served on defendant while in the van, no warrants appear in the record on appeal. The crime occurred and defendant was taken to Raleigh on 22 December 1984. The order of arrest in the record on appeal was served on defendant on 24 January 1985. So we have a defendant being unlawfully transported in a van through the black of night by hostile officers, alone, with no way to contact anyone outside the van as a witness or otherwise.
The trial court failed to consider the actions of the officers in removing defendant from the hospital and interrogating him in the isolated and coercive environment of a moving police van. Compelling a suspect to travel during interrogation, or interrogating a suspect during travel, is a factor which suggests involuntariness. Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707, 18 L.Ed. 2d 423 (1967). Here, the defendant was completely incommunicado and isolated from the police station or the jail. This was obviously done for the purpose of interrogating the defendant in an environment conducive to producing inculpatory statements. These are factors indicating involuntariness. This is particularly true when the defendant is susceptible to coercion. Vernon v. Alabama, 313 U.S. 547, 85 L.Ed. 1513 (1941) (per curiam); White v. Texas, 310 U.S. 530, 84 L.Ed. 1342 (1940). The officers were fully aware that the defendant had been badly wounded by gunfire shortly before the interrogation. They knew that defendant had been extremely intoxicated when he was brought to the hospital. They knew he was blind and in a severely weakened physical condition. Having this knowledge, the officers took the defendant from the hospital on a gurney, placed him into a police van containing three of*65fleers, and commenced the nighttime ride from Wadesboro to Raleigh. In so doing, the officers deliberately cut defendant off from the outside world, leaving him in a position of extreme vulnerability to their interrogation. It is difficult to conceive of a fact situation more conducive to overbearing a defendant’s will than the one existing in this case.
The Defendant
The defendant at the time of this offense was sixty-five years of age. He was suffering from serious gunshot wounds sustained in the preceding hours. He was blind, mentally disordered, had a borderline intellect, and was under the influence of alcohol. He expressed to the officers that he was afraid for his life at the time they were interrogating him in the police van. Dr. Perry, an emergency room physician, testified that defendant was brought to the hospital by ambulance around 6:30 p.m. Dr. Perry treated him in the trauma facility for two serious gunshot wounds, one a laceration through the forehead down to the skull, the other a puncture wound to the buttocks. The head wound was about six centimeters long and very deep, the bullet passing through the entire thickness of the forehead down to the skull. The wound to the buttocks was a through-and-through injury, about ten to twelve centimeters in length. Defendant was semiconscious at the time of his arrival and unable to respond coherently to the doctor’s attempts to communicate with him. Such wounds are normally very painful, but defendant did not indicate that he was suffering the normal degree of pain, which the doctor attributed to the degree of defendant’s alcoholic intoxication, which was a blood alcohol level of .264. Dr. Perry treated defendant’s wounds for some forty minutes, closing them with sutures. They were heavily bandaged, completely closing the defendant’s good eye, he being blind in the other eye. During the treatment defendant was administered intravenous fluids for the purpose of elevating his blood pressure, according to Dr. Perry.
Dr. Rollins is an expert medical witness, a forensic psychiatrist, and employed by the state. He examined the defendant several times with respect to this incident. He testified that defendant had multiple personality disorders, including paranoid and delusional thinking, with impaired judgment and perception. In 1980 he had scored 89 on an I.Q. examination, but later, at the *66time of this event, his I.Q. test score had deteriorated to 74, which placed defendant in the borderline range of intellectual functioning. Dr. Rollins further testified that defendant was substantially intoxicated at the time of the interrogation and that this condition would exacerbate defendant’s mental disabilities. He expressly testified that defendant, because of his mental disorders and his physical condition at the time, was incapable of knowingly and voluntarily waiving his constitutional rights at the time that he was interrogated by the officers.
The trial judge failed to make any findings as to the defendant’s mental condition and completely overlooked the deteriorating mental and psychotic condition of the defendant which had occurred over the past five years as evidenced by the decline in his I.Q. scores. The court’s determination that defendant had an I.Q. at the time of the interrogation between 74 and 89 is unsupported by the evidence. The only relevant evidence indicates that at the time of the interrogation defendant’s I.Q. was 74, having deteriorated from the 89 that he had scored some five years previously. Mental handicaps which make a defendant particularly susceptible to the influence of others are an important factor in weighing voluntariness. Jurek v. Estelle, 593 F. 2d 672 (5th Cir. 1979). Further, a defendant’s physical condition is an important factor in determining whether a confession is voluntary. Cooper v. Griffin, 455 F. 2d 1142 (5th Cir. 1972). See also State v. Dailey, 351 S.E. 2d 431 (W. Va. 1986).
In Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. ---, 93 L.Ed. 2d 473 (1986), the United States Supreme Court held that ordinarily a defendant’s mental impairment, standing alone, is not a sufficient basis for ruling a confession involuntary. However, in this case, we have not only the defective mental condition of the defendant, but also the coercive environment in which the officers placed the defendant, together with his impaired physical condition. These factors considered together are sufficient to show involuntariness.
The Interrogation
After placing the defendant in the police van and beginning the journey to Raleigh, the officers informed the defendant of his rights as they were leaving the Wadesboro city limits. To this the defendant responded: “I was tried for my life and I understand all this stuff. I was tried for my life back in 1951.” Interestingly, *67Miranda warnings were not required until 1966, fifteen years after defendant’s earlier court experience. The officers testified that after being read his rights defendant said “[h]e did understand but he did not want to sign anything because he couldn’t see.” From this testimony, the trial court found that the defendant made an “express” statement that he did not want an attorney present. A fair reading of this testimony, however, only shows that the defendant responded that he understood his rights, but he did not want to sign anything because he could not see. There is no indication in this testimony that the defendant expressly waived the presence of counsel. He did not go the additional step and say: “I don’t want a lawyer now.” Of course, it is not essential that there be an express waiver by defendant. However, the court must presume that the defendant did not waive his rights. State v. Connley, 297 N.C. 584, 256 S.E. 2d 234, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 954, 62 L.Ed. 2d 327 (1979). The trial court’s finding of an express waiver is unsupported by the evidence. Nowhere does the trial court find an implied waiver under all the circumstances of the case, and none can be so found. For this reason, I think the trial judge’s order is fatally flawed.
The interrogation continued for some two hours, and during this time the officers obtained admissions from defendant that proved to be critical to the state’s case. During the interrogation, the defendant stated, “I’m fearing for my life now.” Although the officers testified that they assured defendant that he had nothing to fear, the defendant could not see the officers and had no way of knowing what they were doing in the van. He also had no way of knowing where they were taking him, even though one officer said he was being taken to Raleigh for safekeeping. Certainly, in view of the environment in which he was situated and his physical and mental condition, it is reasonable that the defendant was fearful for his life at the time that he was being interrogated. That fact alone is sufficient to refute any finding of voluntariness.
During the interrogation the defendant was suffering from his painful bullet wounds. There is no evidence that he had been given any sedatives or painkillers to alleviate his suffering. The record shows that defendant voiced numerous complaints during the interrogation and that he was experiencing physical discomfort.
*68At one point defendant told the officers that he was tired and wanted to stop the interrogation. He also complained at that time that he was cold, and the heat in the van was turned up and he was given a sheet to cover himself. After a short period, one of the officers asked defendant if he wanted to talk. Defendant stated that he did not want to talk to Officer Jackson. One of the other officers asked defendant if he would talk with him, and defendant agreed. This procedure by the officers violates the ruling of Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 68 L.Ed. 2d 378, reh’g denied, 452 U.S. 973, 69 L.Ed. 2d 984 (1981). In Edwards, the Court held that when a suspect indicates his desire to stop the interrogation, the officers rtiust terminate it and the interrogation cannot be resumed until initiated by the suspect. Here, the evidence clearly shows that defendant desired to terminate the interrogation. He said that he was tired and wanted to stop. The officers stopped for a short time and then, without any initiation of the interrogation by the defendant, the officers resumed the process of examining the defendant. For this reason, the confession was not admissible.
Thus, I find defendant’s statement to be involuntary and the result of his being unlawfully placed in a coercive environment while severely handicapped, both mentally and physically, and interrogated in violation of Edwards v. Arizona while fearful for his life. Defendant is entitled to a new trial.
Chief Justice Exum and Justice Frye join in this dissenting opinion.