Court Opinion

ID: 9741983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:04:56.757024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:27.676907
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE APPLETON, dissenting: I dissent because the majority lays the burden of proof on defendant rather than the State. The majority says: “[W]e find the facts in this case require us to follow Elstad, as Seibert is distinguishable. Based on a review of the record, no inference can be made that Stark deliberately employed a two-step interrogation technique to undermine the warnings set forth in Miranda or to evade its requirements.” 378 Ill. App. 3d at 993. When penning those lines, the majority seems to have forgotten what it said at the beginning of its analysis. See 378 Ill. App. 3d at 988, quoting Braggs, 209 Ill. 2d at 505, 810 N.E.2d at 481, citing 725 ILCS 5/114 — 11(d) (West 2006). Section 114 — 11(d) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 provides as follows: “The burden of going forward with the evidence and the burden of proving that a confession was voluntary shall be on the State.” The lack of evidence that the two-step interrogation was a deliberate attempt to thwart Miranda is significant only if defendant had the burden of proving it was a deliberate attempt to thwart Miranda. Defendant had no such burden. The absence of an inference of deliberateness is significant only if defendant had the burden of proving that inference. Instead, the majority should be asking if the State presented any evidence that the two-step interrogation procedure was inadvertent. The State presented no evidence of inadvertence. Placing the burden on defendant violates section 114 — 11(d). Section 114 — 11 speaks of the voluntariness of a confession (725 ILCS 5/114 — 11 (West 2006)), and, therefore, at first glance, the statute might seem inapplicable. Defendant does not allege his second confession was involuntary but only that the police obtained it in violation of Miranda. Because Miranda’s prophylactic rule sweeps more broadly than the. fifth amendment (U.S. Const., amend. V), a violation of Miranda does not necessarily entail compulsion. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 306-07, 84 L. Ed. 2d at 230-31, 105 S. Ct. at 1291-92. Even “unwarned statements that are otherwise voluntary within the meaning of the [fjifth [ajmendment must nevertheless be excluded from evidence under Miranda.” Elstad, 470 U.S. at 307, 84 L. Ed. 2d at 231, 105 S. Ct. at 1292. The supreme court has interpreted section 114 — 11, however, as applying to Miranda cases, even though the standards oí Miranda “go beyond what has been considered ‘involuntary in traditional terms.’ ” People v. Costa, 38 Ill. 2d 178, 182, 230 N.E.2d 871, 873 (1967), quoting Miranda, 384 U.S. at 457, 16 L. Ed. 2d at 713, 86 S. Ct. at 1618; see also People v. Longoria, 117 Ill. App. 3d 241, 252, 452 N.E.2d 1350, 1357 (1983) (applying section 114 — 11 to a Miranda objection); People v. Hughes, 181 Ill. App. 3d 300, 303, 536 N.E.2d 71, 72 (1989) (same). “The word ‘voluntary’ *** has become a word of art in a constitutional sense, and the references in section 114 — 11 to an ‘involuntary’ confession and to a confession ‘not voluntarily made’ must be read as embracing the constitutional standards that govern admissibility.” Costa, 38 Ill. 2d at 183, 230 N.E.2d at 874. Thus, section 114 — 11 applies to this case, and under subsection (d), the State had the burden of proving the admissibility of defendant’s second confession. (It conceded the inadmissibility of the first confession on the ground of noncompliance with Miranda.) Indeed, the prosecutor expressly acknowledged, at the beginning of the hearing, that the State had the burden of proof. To prove the admissibility of the second confession, the State had to prove what Seibert required, namely, that the two-step interrogation procedure was inadvertent rather than deliberate — or, if it was deliberate, adequate curative measures intervened before defendant made his postwarning statement. Seibert, 542 U.S. at 622, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 661, 124 S. Ct. at 2616 (Kennedy, J., concurring). The circuit court stated from the bench: “To me[,] it’s obvious the police officers were not improperly trying to solicit information from Mr. Lowenstein when they spoke with him to get the consent to search ***.” Given the record before us, that statement is inexplicable. Of course the police improperly tried to solicit information from defendant in the first interview. They not only improperly tried to solicit information from him; they improperly did solicit information from him. That is why the State conceded the first confession was inadmissible under Miranda, and that is why the court ruled it was inadmissible. Detective Stark was the only witness to testify in the hearing, and his testimony was uncontested and unrebutted. He testified that at the time of the first confession, defendant “had already been arrested and was in the interview room.” That fact alone makes Elstad distinguishable. In Elstad, “the officer’s initial failure to warn was an ‘oversight’ that ‘may have been the result of confusion as to whether the brief exchange [in the living room] qualified as a “custodial interrogation.” ’ ” Seibert, 542 U.S. at 614, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 656, 124 S. Ct. at 2611 (plurality op.), quoting Elstad, 470 U.S. at 315, 84 L. Ed. 2d at 236, 105 S. Ct. at 1296; see also Seibert, 542 U.S. at 619, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 659, 124 S. Ct. at 2614 (Kennedy, J., concurring). In the present case, defendant was under arrest and sitting in the police station when the police interrogated him without Miranda warnings. Defense counsel asked Stark: “Q. So the — conversation at 12:20 [p.m. on February 20, 2005,] involved the contents of the safe and his knowledge of the contents of the safe[,] is that correct? A. Yes. Q. And you asked him questions],] and he responded],] is that correct? A. Yes.” Of all people, Stark best knew why he used the two-step interrogation procedure, but he never offered any explanation in the hearing. Unless the majority’s citation of section 114 — 11(d) is merely decorative, the silence of the record on this crucial point should be fatal to the State’s appeal. For all we know, Stark was following the Illinois Police Law Manual, condemned in Seibert. The manual says: “ ‘[0]f-ficers may conduct a two-stage interrogation. *** At any point during the pre-Miranda interrogation, usually after arrestees have confessed, officers may then read the Miranda warnings and ask for a waiver. If the arrestees waive their Miranda rights, officers will be able to repeat any subsequent incriminating statements later in court’ ” (emphasis in original) (Seibert, 542 U.S. at 609-10, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 653, 124 S. Ct. at 2608-09 (plurality op.), quoting Police Law Institute, Illinois Police Law Manual 83 (January 2001-December 2003)). The State failed to come forward with any evidence that the two-stage interrogation was not a deliberate attempt to subvert Miranda. The second confession dealt with the same subject matter as the first. Were there sufficient curative measures? The circuit court mentioned the passage of time — 24 hours — between the first and second confessions, but, given its decision to suppress the second confession, the court evidently did not deem those 24 hours as a sufficient curative measure to ensure that a reasonable person in defendant’s situation would understand the import and effect of the Miranda warnings and of the Miranda waiver. Seibert, 542 U.S. at 622, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 661, 124 S. Ct. at 2616 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Whether a Miranda waiver was knowing and intelligent is a question of fact (People v. Bernasco, 138 Ill. 2d 349, 367, 562 N.E.2d 958, 966 (1990); People v. Kolakowski, 319 Ill. App. 3d 200, 212, 745 N.E.2d 62, 74 (2001); In re M.W., 314 Ill. App. 3d 64, 68, 731 N.E.2d 358, 361 (2000)), and, as the majority says, we should give great deference to the court’s findings of fact, upholding them unless they are against the manifest weight of the evidence. “[A] substantial break in time and circumstances between the prewarning statement and the Miranda warning may suffice in most circumstances” as a curative measure. (Emphases added.) Seibert, 542 U.S. at 622, 159 L. Ed. 2d at 661, 124 S. Ct. at 2616 (Kennedy, J., concurring). A rational trier of fact would not necessarily have to regard 24 hours as a “substantial break in time.” Even if 24 hours were, as a matter of law, a “substantial break in time,” there was no “substantial” change of “circumstances”: defendant was still in jail, and the same police officer, Stark, was interrogating him about the contents of the safe, as he did the day before. Because the State failed to carry its burden of proof — both as to the inadvertence of the two-stage interrogation procedure and the intervention of adequate curative measures — I would affirm the judgment.