Opinion
No. 59743-4-I.
May 12, 2008.
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court for King County, No. 06-8-04558-2, Ronald Kessler, J., entered March 23, 2007.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
D.T. appeals his juvenile conviction for one count of residential burglary, contending that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of his custodial statements and that he had a right to jury trial under the state and federal constitutions. Because he waived any challenge to the admissibility of his post-Miranda statements, and both federal and state courts have consistently held that juveniles do not have a constitutional right to a jury trial, we affirm.
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966).
FACTS
On October 17, 2006, Teresa Mason, the manager of an apartment complex in Kent, noticed two teenagers walking past her office. A short time later, one of the tenants notified Mason that the apartment of another tenant, Harvey Poff, had been burglarized. According to the reporting tenant, he heard loud noises and when he went to investigate, he saw the door to Poff's apartment had been kicked and that the back sliding glass door was open. When Mason went to the apartment, she saw that the door had been kicked in and had a muddy footprint on it.
Police responded and Mason gave a description of the two teenagers she had seen in the area earlier. While conducting a check of the area, one of the officers drove by a bus stop near the apartment complex and saw D.T. and another teenager who matched the suspect descriptions. D.T. was carrying a red backpack over his shoulder. As the officer drove by, D.T. looked at the officer, quickly turned his back to him and flipped up the hood of his jacket. The officer then turned around and pulled near the bus stop and saw D.T. crouched down near the backpack, which was now on the ground.
The officer asked D.T. whose backpack it was, and D.T. told him it was not his backpack. The officer told D.T. he had just seen D.T. carrying it and again asked whose it was. D.T. then told him that it was his backpack, but when the officer asked why it was on the ground, he again denied that it was his. The officer then asked D.T. to identify himself and asked him where he had just been. D.T. admitted that he had been on the trail that led to the apartment complex. The officer then discovered that D.T. had an outstanding warrant and placed him under arrest. He read D.T. his Miranda rights and asked him again about being on the trail near the apartments. This time, D.T. denied having been on the trail and claimed instead that he had just walked to this bus stop from another route's stop nearby. Meanwhile, another officer brought Mason to the bus stop where D.T. was being detained, and she positively identified the two teenagers as the ones she had seen walking near Poff's apartment just before the burglary. Poff identified the red backpack as an item that was missing from his apartment after the burglary.
The State charged D.T. with one count of residential burglary. At a combined CrR 3.5 and fact finding hearing, the arresting officer testified that he read D.T. his Miranda rights and asked him if he understood his rights. D.T. challenged the admissibility of his pre-Miranda statements, arguing that they were made while in police custody. The trial court rejected his argument and ruled that the statements were admissible. The court further found that D.T. was "properly advised of his Miranda warnings and the juvenile clause," but also noted: "While it's a better practice for the prosecutor to elicit what those warnings were, specifically the officer testified that they were Miranda rights and the court will accept that as an adequate advisement." The trial court found D.T. guilty as charged and imposed a standard range disposition of six months of supervision, 40 hours of community service and credit for two days served in custody.
DISCUSSION
I. Custodial Statements
D.T. first challenges the trial court's admission of his post-Miranda statements to the arresting officer. He assigns error to the trial court's findings that he was properly advised of his Miranda rights and that he made a knowing intelligent waiver of those rights because there was no testimony at the CrR 3.5 hearing about the specific rights Page 4 the arresting officer read to D.T. in his Miranda advisement. But because D.T. did not challenge the admissibility of his post-Miranda statements or the adequacy of the Miranda rights in the trial court and fails to allege an error of constitutional magnitude, he has waived this issue, and we do not consider it.
We generally do not consider issues raised for the first time on appeal, unless the claimed error is a "manifest error affecting a constitutional right." But this exception "is not intended to afford criminal defendants a means for obtaining new trials whenever they can identify some constitutional issue not raised before the trial court." In State v. Spearman, we held that the defendant could not challenge for the first time on appeal the adequacy of the advisement of his constitutional rights following his arrest. There, the defendant argued for the first time on appeal that part of the advisement of rights was misleading and therefore prevented him from knowingly and voluntarily waiving his right to remain silent. While we recognized that the issue implicated the defendant's constitutional rights, we concluded that it was "not of such truly constitutional magnitude" to be considered for the first time on appeal. We noted that while the advisement "could [have been] clearer," it was not constitutionally defective.
RAP 2.5(a)(3); State v. McFarland, 127 Wn.2d 322, 333, 899 P.2d 1251 (1995) (citing State v. Scott, 110 Wn.2d 682, 686-87, 757 P.2d 492 (1988)).
59 Wn. App. 323, 325, 796 P.2d 727, review denied, 115 Wn.2d 1032 (1990).
Id. at 324.
Id. at 325.
Id.
Likewise here, D.T. challenges for the first time on appeal the adequacy of the Miranda warnings. He argues that because the arresting officer did not testify to the Page 5 specific rights he included in hisMiranda advisement, there was no basis for the trial court to find that he knowingly and voluntarily waived those rights. But he did not challenge the adequacy of the Miranda warnings or his post-Miranda statements at the CrR 3.5 hearing. And as in Spearman, this issue was "not of such truly constitutional magnitude" that it could be raised for the first time on appeal.
We disagree with D.T.'s assertion that because that trial court made a finding about the post-Miranda statements and the State bore the burden of proving the admissibility of those statements, the issue was sufficiently raised below to preserve it for appellate review. A trial court's ruling on an issue does not automatically raise an issue for appeal; D.T. had to affirmatively challenge the ruling below to properly preserve it for appellate review. See RAP 2.5(a).
See Spearman, 59 Wn. App. at 325.
While we agree with the trial court that a more specific recital of theMiranda warnings would have been the "better practice," there is nothing in the record to suggest that the warnings given were in fact constitutionally defective. Rather, the officer testified that he advised D.T. of his Miranda rights, that D.T. did not ask any questions about his rights or about waiving his rights, that D.T. in fact waived his rights, and that he did not make any threats or promises to D.T. And with no evidence to the contrary, the trial court was satisfied from the officer's testimony that D.T. was adequately advised of his rights and knowingly and voluntarily waived them. D.T. therefore fails to allege an error of constitutional magnitude that warrants our review.
See id. (concluding that the fact that the advisement of rights "could have been clearer" did not render it constitutionally defective).
Nor has D.T. demonstrated that the alleged error was "manifest" and that in the context of the trial, the alleged error actually affected his rights. For a claimed error to be "`truly of constitutional magnitude'" to allow appellate review, there must be a showing of actual prejudice that makes the error "`manifest.'" Here, even if the trial court found that the warnings were defective and suppressed D.T.'s post-Miranda statement, the remaining evidence supports the trial court's finding of guilt. The apartment manager positively identified D.T. as one of the teenagers that was near the apartment at the time of the burglary, D.T. was at a bus stop outside of the apartment complex shortly thereafter carrying a backpack that was taken from the apartment, and pre-Miranda, admitted to being at the apartment complex and gave conflicting statements about whether the backpack was his. Thus, any error in admitting the post-Miranda statements was harmless. D.T. therefore fails to allege a manifest error of constitutional magnitude that warrants review for the first time on appeal.
McFarland, 127 Wn.2d at 333.
Id. (quoting Scott, 110 Wn.2d at 688); see also Scott, 110 Wn.2d at 687 ("[T]he exception [in RAP 2.5] does not help a defendant when the asserted constitutional error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.").
See State v. Mace, 97 Wn.2d 840, 843, 650 P.2d 217 (1982) (proof of recently stolen property combined with other circumstantial evidence may prove the entry element of burglary).
II. Right to Jury Trial
D.T. next argues that he was denied a jury trial in violation of both the federal and state constitutions. He argues that the United States Supreme Court's recent decisions in Crawford v. Washington andBlakely v. Washington support the conclusion that jury trials for juveniles are constitutionally required. We have already considered this argument and soundly rejected it in State v. Tai N., and D.T. raises no new compelling arguments that warrant reconsideration of our decision. As we noted in Tai N., both the United States Supreme Court and our state courts have consistently held that juvenile offenders do not have a right to a jury under either the federal or state constitutions. And since the briefs were filed, our state Supreme Court issued an opinion in State v. Chavez and held "that the juvenile justice system has not been so altered that juveniles charged with violent and serious violent offenses have the right to a jury trial." We adhere to our conclusion that "recent decisions do not compel a change to well-established precedent holding that nonjury trials of juvenile offenders are constitutionally sound."
541 U.S. 36, 124 S. Ct. 1354, 158 L. Ed. 2d 177 (2004).
542 U.S. 296, 124 S. Ct. 2531, 159 L. Ed. 2d 403 (2004).
127 Wn. App. 733, 113 P.3d 19 (2005), review denied, State v. Nguyen, 156 Wn.2d 1019 (2006).
Id. at 738-39.
State v. Chavez, No. 79265-8, slip op. at 14 (Wash. March 20, 2008).
We affirm.
For the Court: