Opinion
No. CR03-576603-T
December 23, 2005
MEMORANDUM ORDER RE MOTION TO SUPPRESS STATEMENTS
On November 28, 2005, the defendant moved this Court, under Section 41-12 of the Connecticut Practice Book and divers provisions of the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Connecticut, to suppress all post-arrest statements he allegedly made to investigating officers from the Hartford Police Department as evidence against him in the above-captioned case. As clarified by his counsel at the hearing on this Motion on December 20, 2005, the defendant has prosecuted the Motion on two particular grounds: (1) that he made the challenged statements without knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waiving his State and federal constitutional privilege against self-incrimination and his associated right to the assistance of counsel during custodial interrogation, as established in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 463-65, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and its progeny under the State and federal constitutions and (2) that he did not make such statements voluntarily, because they resulted from the use against him of coercive police procedures that overbore his will and deprived him of his capacity to not to speak, in violation of the Due Process Clauses of our State and federal constitutions.
At the hearing on the Motion, the Court heard testimony from three witnesses: (1) Detective Patricia Beaudin of the Hartford (CT) Police Department, who at all times relevant to this case has been the lead investigator therein; (2) Special Agent Ezequiel Laureano of the State Department of Revenue, who at all times relevant to this case was a Detective with the Hartford Police Department and the assigned partner of Detective Beaudin; and (3) the defendant, Julian Marquez. Based upon the testimony of these witnesses and the single exhibit introduced at the hearing, the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:
I. FINDINGS OF FACT
1. On December 30, 2003, Detective Beaudin arrested the defendant at the office of his parole officer in Hartford on a warrant charging him, inter alia, with felony murder, murder, robbery in the first degree, and burglary in the first degree in connection with an incident that allegedly took place at 134 Babcock Street in Hartford in the late evening hours of December 19, 2003.
2. After taking the defendant into custody, Detective Beaudin and other officers assisting her put the defendant in handcuffs and placed him in the back of a Hartford Police cruiser to be transported to the headquarters of the Hartford Police Department.
3. Upon arrival at the Hartford Police headquarters, Detective Beaudin and other officers escorted the defendant inside and brought him to the office of the Major Crimes Division. There he was placed in an interview room equipped with a bathroom, given a meal which included a hamburger from a fast food restaurant, and left alone, no longer in handcuffs, to use the bathroom facilities and eat his meal. As the defendant was not hungry, he ate very little of his meal.
4. Several minutes later, Detectives Beaudin and Laureano returned to the interview room, informed the defendant generally of the charges against him, and indicated that they wished to interview him about the incident on which those charges were based. Although neither Detective made any threat or promise to the defendant to secure his cooperation with their interview request, the defendant credibly recalls Detective Laureano telling him at some point, in reference to the claims against him, that "it's not looking good for [you]."
5. The defendant, who was 24 years old and had been educated to the 12th grade, was then asked if he could read and write English. Upon answering that he could, he was asked to demonstrate that ability by reading aloud from a City of Hartford "Rights Waiver Form" which was placed before him. After he had read from the Form without difficulty, either the defendant or Detective Laureano checked a box on the Form so indicating. Thereafter, the Detectives reviewed the Form with the defendant, line by line, to be sure that he understood all of his State and federal constitutional rights as a suspect about to undergo custodial interrogation, as set forth in Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436, and specifically listed on the Form. After each listed right was read aloud to him, the defendant acknowledged orally that he understood it, then complied with the Detectives' request that he signify his understanding, so communicated, by writing his initials, "JM," on the line adjacent to the listed right.
6. The defendant's attention was then directed to the final paragraph on the Form, which was separately labeled "WAIVER" and read as follows:
6. NOW THAT I HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF MY RIGHTS AND THAT I FULLY UNDERSTAND THESE RIGHTS I AM WILLING TO BE INTERVIEWED AND ANSWER QUESTIONS. I DO NOT WISH THE PRESENCE OF AN ATTORNEY AT THIS TIME. I AM WAIVING THESE RIGHTS FREELY AND VOLUNTARILY, WITHOUT ANY FEAR, THREAT, OR PROMISES BEING MADE TO ME.
(Emphasis in original.) After reading this paragraph aloud to the defendant, the Detectives asked him if he agreed to it, and if so, to sign it in their presence. When he so indicated and signed the Form, both Detectives witnessed his signature by signing the Form themselves.
7. In all, the entire rights-waiver process, as described in paragraphs 5 and 6 of this Order, took less than two minutes to complete, for as noted by Detective Laureano on the Form itself, it started at 1:25 pm and ended at 1:26 pm on December 30, 2003.
8. The defendant claimed in his testimony at the hearing that at some point in the rights-waiver process or shortly thereafter, before he made any statement to the Detectives about the incident under investigation, he asked if he could call his father but was told he could not until the interview was over. The Detectives denied that the defendant ever made such a request, much less that they refused to honor it. On this score, the Court credits the testimony of the Detectives.
9. The Detectives credibly described the sequence of events immediately following the rights-waiver process as follows: Upon executing the Form and agreeing to speak with them, the defendant freely told his entire version of the events of December 19, 2003, without detailed questioning by them, upon simply being asked to relate what had happened on that evening. In the course of his recitation, the defendant was responsive to the Detectives, communicated clearly with them, and voiced a willingness to sign a written statement that reflected his version of the evening's events.
10. At some point after relating his version of the incident to the Detectives, but before they made any effort to take a written statement from him, the defendant also informed the Detectives that he had information about certain other crimes that were then under investigation by the Hartford Police Department. Upon so indicating, the defendant told the Detectives that he would willingly speak to the officers who were then investigating those crimes. As a result of this offer, the defendant did later speak with at least two other police investigators, Detectives Gordon and Siemonko, before he left Police station on the day of his arrest.
11. In all, the Detectives' entire initial oral interview of the defendant, as described in paragraphs 9 and 10 of this Memorandum Order, took approximately one-half hour to complete. As soon as it was over, Detective Beaudin confirmed that the defendant was willing to sign a written statement and set about the process of preparing the statement by typing it up as the defendant restated his story to her. Starting at 1:57 p.m. and ending shortly after 3:00 p.m., this second phase of the interview took approximately 1 hour to complete. It resulted in the production of a two-page, single-spaced statement which the defendant was then shown, appeared to read, and signed after circling and initialing the first three words in the following sentence at the bottom of each page thereof:
I have read (or have read to me) the above statement and it is true to the best of my knowledge.
I fully understand that if I knowingly make a statement that is untrue and which is intended to mislead a law enforcement officer in the performance of his official function, I will be in violation of Section 53-157 of the Connecticut General Statutes, False Statement.
The defendant made no corrections, additions or deletions to the text of the typed statement, in which he admitted, inter alia, that he had participated in a robbery on Babcock Street in which several shots had been fired, but denied any involvement in planning or bringing a loaded firearm to the scene of the robbery or personally firing any shots in the course of the robbery or of immediate flight therefrom. At no time prior to or during the defendant's interview with the Detectives did he inquire about, or did the Detectives ever offer any explanation to him of, the felony murder doctrine, or make any suggestion to him that one or another version of the evening's events might somehow ease his current predicament, such as by lowering his bond, reducing his charges or lessening his probable sentence in the event of a conviction.
12. Prior to the date of the above-described interview, the defendant knew of his rights as a suspect undergoing custodial interrogation. Despite his relative youth, he had frequently been arrested for criminal offenses, had previously been questioned by investigating officers concerning such offenses and other crimes of which he had knowledge, and had voluntarily complied with prior requests for information about other crimes in the belief that his cooperation would earn him more lenient treatment by police, prosecuting authorities and/or the Court. In this case as well, the defendant admittedly cooperated with the Detectives in the hope it might help him to obtain his release on bond, although no promise or suggestion to that effect was ever made to him by anyone before he chose to cooperate. Here, then, the defendant's cooperation with the Detectives was entirely voluntary, motivated only by his own sense that it might be in his interest to offer such cooperation. The waiver of rights that preceded it, moreover, was made with full knowledge and understanding of the rights thereby surrendered and a fair and reasonable opportunity to assert and exercise these rights, unimpeded by threats, promises or other inducements to cooperate that in any way overbore the defendant's free will.
II. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW A. Claim that the Defendant's Waiver of His Miranda Rights Was Not Knowing, Intelligent and Voluntary
14. "`Pursuant to the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution, a statement made by a defendant during custodial interrogation is admissible only upon proof that he . . . waived his rights [under Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436] . . . To be valid, a waiver must be voluntary, knowing and intelligent . . . The state has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently waived his Miranda rights . . . Whether a purported waiver satisfies those requirements is a question of fact that depends on the circumstances of the particular case . . ." State v. Stevenson, 70 Conn.App. 29, 50, 797 A.2d 1 (2002) (quoting State v. Williams, 65 Conn.App. 59, 72-73, 782 A.2d 149, cert. denied, 258 Conn. 923, 782 A.2d 1251 (2001)).
15. "Whether the defendant has knowingly and intelligently waived his rights under Miranda . . . depends in part on the competency of the defendant, or, in other words, on his ability to understand and act upon his constitutional rights . . . Factors which may be considered by the trial court in determining whether an individual had the capacity to understand the warnings include the defendant's experience with the police and familiarity with the warnings . . . his level of intelligence, including his IQ . . . his age . . . his level of education . . . his vocabulary and ability to read and write in the language in which the warnings were given . . . intoxication . . . his emotional state . . . and the existence of any mental disease, disorder or retardation . . . Furthermore, [a] defendant's express written and oral waiver is strong proof that the waiver is valid . . . State v. Lewis, 60 Conn.App. 219, 244-45, 759 A.2d 518, cert. denied, 255 Conn. 906, 762 A.2d 911 (2000); State v. Fernandez, 52 Conn.App. 599, 610-11, 728 A.2d 1, cert. denied, 249 Conn. 913, 733 A.2d 229, cert. denied, 528 U.S. 939, 120 S.Ct. 348, 145 L.Ed.2d 272 (1999).' (Internal quotation marks omitted.)" State v. Stevenson, supra, 70 Conn.App. at 50 (quoting State v. Williams, supra, 65 Conn.App. at 72-73).
16. On the record before this Court, the State has clearly proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the defendant made his challenged statements to Detective Beaudin and Laureano as a result of the knowing, intelligent waiver of his Miranda rights. A man with considerable prior experience as an arrestee in our criminal justice system, the defendant admittedly knew his rights before the Detectives read them to him. The Detectives' review of his rights, moreover, was clear, correct and comprehensible, for it involved: (a) the careful, line-by-line reading of each such right to the defendant from a simply but appropriately phrased list on a standard Rights Waiver Form which the defendant could readily read and understand; (b) the initialing by the defendant of each such right after it was read to him; and, ultimately: (c) the signing of a clearly labeled, properly worded "WAIVER" at the bottom of the Form.
17. The defendant, then age 24, had been educated to the 12th grade, as indicated on the Rights Waiver Form. When he spoke to the Detectives, moreover, he spoke clearly and appropriately, exhibiting no signs at all of mental or physical impairment.
18. In fact, by his own description, the defendant was thinking clearly when he was interviewed by the Detectives, for throughout the interview he was considering the potential benefits he might gain from his cooperation. One possible benefit he admittedly hoped to gain was release pending trial on a bond he was able to post. A second benefit he impliedly sought by making his statements, moreover, was a reduction of the charges lodged against him, or at least the lessening of the possible punishment he might receive in the event of a conviction, for the story he told to the Detectives was exculpatory, at least as to punishment, in several ways. In this regard, he repeatedly told the Detectives that the robbery was the other participant's idea, that the other participant sprung the idea upon him as they approached the victim's doorstep for the unrelated purpose of buying drugs, that prior to that time he was unaware that the other participant was armed, and that once the robbery began, all shots fired at the victim were fired by the other participant.
19. Importantly, the defendant does not claim that either Detective ever promised to help him obtain his release on bond, whether or not he submitted to an interview and regardless of what, if anything, he told them. Nor, by his own account of the rights-waiver and interview processes, did they ever threaten him with a higher bond if he failed to submit to an interview. Instead, the defendant's sense that his cooperation might somehow help him with respect to his bond was based only upon his own prior experience dealing with police investigators, in which he had learned that benefits could sometimes be bad by providing useful investigative information to the police.
20. As for the defendant's self-described involvement in the offense, moreover, the defendant's belief that his description of the crime might cause the police, the prosecutor or the Court to deal more leniently with him, though obviously not based upon a lawyer's nuanced understanding of the felony-murder doctrine, was nonetheless rational, sensible and uncoerced. Although the facts admitted to by the defendant were not such as to relieve him of liability for felony murder, they clearly painted him in a far less damning light than did the arrest warrant, wherein he was identified as the ringleader of the robbery and the person who personally shot and killed the victim. If his version of events were accepted by the State or by the Court, it might well moderate the State's approach to the pressing of charges or the Court's approach to the setting of bail and/or the imposition of sentence in the event of conviction. See, e.g., Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) (where a prosecutor in a felony murder prosecution was held to have committed reversible constitutional error by withholding from the defense certain information deemed favorable on the issue of punishment because it suggested that another participant in the robbery, not the defendant, had been the one who shot and killed the victim). In this regard, it is also important to emphasize that the defendant's decision to impart such partially exculpatory information to the Detectives was not responsive to any suggestion made by them that such information would somehow aid him in seeking a reduction of his charges, his exposure to punishment, or his bail pending trial. The decision to speak thus appears to have been intelligent as well as knowing, for it was motivated by the defendant's rational, albeit untutored, assessment of his own self-interest in the unhappy circumstances he then faced.
21. The record also persuasively demonstrates that the defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights was not just knowing and intelligent, but completely voluntary as well. Under our State and federal Constitutions, it is well established that a waiver is not voluntary unless it is the product of the essentially unconstrained exercise of the defendant's own free will. To establish voluntariness, the State must therefore prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the waiver was not made in response to coercive police procedures that operated to deprive the defendant of his ability to decide whether or not to speak without fear of adverse consequences arising from threats, promises or other like inducements of any kind.
22. Here, there is not only no evidence that the defendant was ever harmed, threatened or mistreated in any way, but no evidence that he was otherwise induced to cooperate by the making of any promises or suggestions of possible benefits he might receive if he cooperated. Indeed, the defendant expressly so admitted in his testimony. In fact, the evidence shows that, although the defendant was arrested and transported to the Hartford Police Department in handcuffs, he was treated calmly and considerately throughout his stay there. Initially, he was placed without handcuffs in an interview room with a bathroom, which he could freely use, then he was given a meal and time alone to eat it, all with no strings attached. The ensuing waiver procedure itself was very short and uneventful, and the initial interview that followed it concerning the events of December 19, 2003 was also brief and to the point. In the course of that half-hour interview, the defendant spoke freely, without prompting, and communicated clearly.
23. The defendant's only claim of compulsion concerns his alleged request to speak to a lawyer after he had twice told his story orally and the statement had been typed up by Detective Beaudin for his final review and signature. At that juncture, claims the defendant, he was told that he could not speak to a lawyer because the statement had already been typed up. The Court simply does not believe this self-serving claim, for it is completely inconsistent with the defendant's admittedly uncoerced, uninduced motivation throughout the interview to cooperate with his interviewers, and thereby enhance his chance for release on a bond he could post as well as to provide the State with a less damning view of his involvement in the charged offenses. In short, the defendant, however ill-advisedly, made a free and unconstrained choice to waive his Miranda rights, and in so doing to make his challenged statements to Detectives Beaudin and Laureano. Insofar as the defendant's instant Motion claims otherwise, it must be DENIED.
B. Claim that the Defendant's Confessions Were Involuntary
24. The defendant's second claim on this Motion is that his statements are inadmissible under the Due Process Clauses of the State and federal constitutions because they were not made voluntarily. "`Irrespective of Miranda, and the fifth amendment itself . . . any use in a criminal trial of an involuntary confession is a denial of due process of law." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Hafford, supra, 252 Conn. 298. `In order to be voluntary a confession must be the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by the maker . . . If it is not, if his will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired, the use of the confession offends due process . . . The determination of whether a confession is voluntary must be based on a consideration of the totality of circumstances surrounding it . . . including both the characteristics of the accused and the details of the interrogation.' . . . State v. Correa, 241 Conn. 322, 328, CT Page 16994 696 A.2d 944 (1997)." State v. Reynolds, 264 Conn. 1, 54, 824 A.2d 611, 836 A.2d 224 (2003).
25. "`Under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, . . . in order for a confession to be deemed involuntary and thus inadmissible at trial, [t]here must be police conduct, or official coercion, causally related to the confession . . .' (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Lapointe, 237 Conn. 694, 728-29, 678 A.2d 942, cert. denied, 519 U.S. 994, 117 S.Ct. 484, 136 L.Ed.2d 378 (1996); see also Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 164, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986). Because of this `essential link between coercive activity of the [s]tate, on the one hand, and a resulting confession by a defendant, on the other'; Colorado v. Connelly, supra, 165; "mere examination of the [defendant's] state of mind [although relevant to an assessment of the defendant's susceptibility to police coercion] can never conclude the due process inquiry.' Id." State v. Reynolds, supra, 264 Conn. at 54.
26. Our Supreme Court has thus stated that "`the test of voluntariness is whether an examination of all the circumstances discloses that the conduct of law enforcement officials was such as to overbear [the defendant's] will to resist and bring about confessions not freely self-determined . . . Is the confession the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker? If it is, if he has willed to confess, it may be used against him. If it is not, if his will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired, the use of his confession offends due process. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, [ supra, 412 U.S. 225].' (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Hafford, supra, 252 Conn. 298-99." State v. Reynolds, supra, 264 Conn. at 54-55.
27. Understood as aforesaid, this Court's inquiry as to the voluntariness of the defendant's challenged statements must be identical in substance to its inquiry as to the voluntariness of his threshold waiver of Miranda rights. In both inquiries, the Court's essential concern is that the act in question was the uncoerced product of the defendant's free will.
28. Here, for reasons fully stated in paragraphs 21-23 of this Memorandum Order, the Court has already concluded that the defendant was never subjected to, and thus did not succumb to, any efforts by the police to coerce or induce him to make a confession or admission that was not freely self-determined. His rights, which he fully understood from the outset, were clearly and comprehensively explained to him. He suffered from no physical or mental illness, injury or disability that impaired his capacity to read and understand those rights. He was not subjected to physical or mental abuse of any kind, or to any lengthy interrogation of the sort that might have worn him down and overborne his will. To the contrary, he was treated with patience and respect, he was fed and given access to a bathroom, and the entire process of interviewing him and taking his written statement was completed in an hour and a half. The defendant, in short, is not a man whose will was overborne.
29. Finally, to reiterate, the defendant was personally desirous of cooperating with the Detectives who interviewed him because of his own strong sense, based upon personal experience as a cooperating witness, that there was potentially much to be gained by promptly cooperating with the police, both by providing partially exculpatory details about his own case and by offering potentially useful information about other crimes then under active police investigation. This belief on his part, which clearly motivated him to make his challenged statements, was just as clearly not the product of government overreaching, for neither Detective fostered it or made any effort to exploit it in any way. In sum, in the totality of the circumstances here presented, the Court concludes that each of the defendant's challenged statements was completely voluntary, and thus is admissible in evidence against him at trial, for it was a product of the defendant's essentially free and unconstrained choice.
30. For all of the foregoing reasons, the defendant's claim that his statements were involuntary must be rejected, and his Motion to Suppress based upon that claim must therefore be DENIED.
For all of the foregoing reasons, the Court hereby ORDERS, this 23rd day of December 2005, that the defendant's Motion to Suppress Statements be DENIED.