Court Opinion

ID: 9745521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 23:07:01.049449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:29.879141
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE COOK, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. The trial court saw and heard the witnesses in this case and we should give deference to its evaluation unless it is contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. The fact that one portion of the evidence consisted of a videotape does not allow us to substitute our view of the facts for that of the trial judge. The court was entitled to make its decision based on all the evidence it saw and heard, not just the videotape. Based on all of the evidence, the court concluded that the officers intended to question defendant until he incriminated himself and only then give Miranda warnings. Once the officers issued Miranda warnings, defendant did not expressly waive his rights as his physical movements did not indicate defendant understood the warnings. The majority holds that Seibert does not apply because the trial court found that defendant was not in police custody when he first confessed. Because the State appealed after the trial court granted, in part, defendant’s motion to suppress statement, the finding regarding the custodial nature of the first statement is not on appeal. In his brief, defendant states that he believes the first statement should also be suppressed based on the trial court’s Seibert finding but acknowledges that the finding is not on appeal. Even though the majority acknowledges that the custodial finding is not “before this court,” the majority uses that custodial finding to reverse the Seibert finding. The parties have not had a chance to argue the correctness of the court’s custodial finding and the trial court did not have the chance to reconsider the seemingly contradictory custodial finding and Seibert finding. Despite this, the majority reverses the Seibert finding assuming that the custodial finding was correct. If the trial court reconciles the findings, the court may determine that the Seibert finding should control as it erred in deciding defendant was not in custody. Alternatively, if defendant is convicted and files an appeal alleging the custodial finding was incorrect and therefore so was the Seibert finding, this court may be in the position of finding after arguments from both parties that the custodial decision was incorrect and so was our decision in this case. The majority gives deference to an isolated factual finding made by the trial court but no deference to the trial court’s ultimate decision. That approach is incorrect. “The propriety of the trial court’s judgment, not its reasoning, is before us on appeal. We may affirm the trial court’s judgment on any ground warranted, regardless of whether the trial court relied on it and regardless of whether the trial court’s reasoning was correct.” People v. Campos, 349 Ill. App. 3d 172, 176-77, 812 N.E.2d 16, 20-21 (2004); People ex rel. Waller v. 1990 Ford Bronco, 158 Ill. 2d 460, 463, 634 N.E.2d 747, 748 (1994). Facts in the record support the trial court’s decision in this case even though the trial court opined that defendant was not in police custody when he first confessed. In the Seibert finding currently before this court, the trial court determined that the police deliberately pursued a “question-first” strategy: “this is basically a [‘] confession first[’] process, get the statement and give the warnings and then interview again.” The trial court also acknowledged that in shaken-baby cases, the police always focus on family members and caregivers as suspects. The evidence in this case indicates that the police suspected only two people: (1) the father (defendant) and (2) the mother. To narrow down the field of suspects, the police intended to take each of them to the station to question them. Defendant, who had no prior police contact, happened to be the first to be interviewed and unwittingly implicated himself before being warned that he could remain silent and anything he said could be used against him. Once the police had something they could use against him, they warned defendant that he had the right to remain silent and anything he said could be used against him. The officers did not tell defendant that his initial inculpatory statement could not be used against him if a court later determined that he was legally “in custody” when he made the statement. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that the warnings meant nothing to defendant at this point as he had already admitted something. The Seibert plurality was concerned with instances “when Miranda warnings are inserted in the midst of coordinated and continuing interrogation.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 613, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 656, 124 S. Ct. at 2611. If a defendant confesses because he does not understand his rights, is told his rights, and then asked to repeat the confession so that the police can get an admissible confession, “would [it] be reasonable to find that in these circumstances the warnings could function ‘effectively’ as Miranda requires[?]” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 611-12, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 655, 124 S. Ct. at 2610. An Illinois court has recognized that when police officers wait to warn a suspect of his Miranda rights until after he has confessed, the police are obviously deliberately trying to circumvent Miranda. People v. Montgomery, 375 Ill. App. 3d 1120, 1128-29, 875 N.E.2d 671, 678 (2007), quoting United States v. Williams, 435 F.3d 1148, 1159 (9th Cir. 2006) (“ ‘there is rarely, if ever, a legitimate reason to delay giving a Miranda warning until after the suspect has confessed. Instead, the most plausible reason for the delay is an illegitimate one, which is the interrogator’s desire to weaken the warning’s effectiveness.’ (Emphasis in original.)”) When a “question-first” strategy is deliberately used, postwarning statements must be excluded absent specific curative steps. Seibert, 542 U.S. at 621, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 661, 124 S. Ct. at 2615 (Kennedy, J., concurring). The Seibert plurality determined that the postwarning statements before it were inadmissible after considering a series of relevant facts that showed whether the Miranda warnings delivered midstream were effective in accomplishing their objective. The relevant facts were as follows: “the completeness and detail of the questions and answers in the first round of interrogation, the overlapping content of the two statements, the timing and setting of the first and second, the continuity of police personnel, and the degree to which the interrogator’s questions treated the second round as continuous with the first.” Seibert, 524 U.S. at 615, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 657, 124 S. Ct. at 2612. In the present case, the police took one of two suspects to the police station, put him in an interview room with two officers, asked him if he shook his baby, and pressed him until he admitted he did. At this point, the same officers “warn” defendant and, without a break, the same officers in the same setting continue the interrogation covering the same issues. It is not unreasonable to believe that defendant considered both interrogations “as parts of a continuum, in which it would have been unnatural to refuse to repeat at the [later] stage what had been said before.” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 617, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 658, 124 S. Ct. at 2613. Since defendant already implicated himself by the time the officers issued the Miranda warnings, defendant may not have understood the warnings as applying in light of his confession and defendant’s physical motions may have been reactive responses and not meaningful waivers. The trial court had the benefit of observing the police and defendant both in court and on tape and determined that defendant’s movements were not responsive and did not indicate he understood his rights. This determination was not against the manifest weight of the evidence.