Roark v. State

• Decision Date: 19 December 1994
• Docket Number: No. 45S00-9302-DP-234,45S00-9302-DP-234
• Citation: 644 N.E.2d 565
• Parties: Dennis R. ROARK, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 565

644 N.E.2d 565

Dennis R. ROARK, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

No. 45S00-9302-DP-234.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Dec. 19, 1994.

Rehearing Denied March 22, 1995.

Marce Gonzalez, Jr., Hilbrich, Cunningham & Schwerd, Merrillville, for appellant.

Pamela Carter, Atty. Gen., Arthur Thaddeus Perry, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

SULLIVAN, Justice.

We review and affirm the murder convictions of defendant Dennis R. Roark. We reverse defendant's death sentence and sentence defendant to 200 years in prison, consisting of three consecutive sentences of fifty years for each of the murder convictions, such terms to be served consecutively to the 50 year sentence for voluntary manslaughter already imposed by the trial court in this case. ¹

Facts

The defendant, age 25, lived in Betty Waggoner's home in Hammond, Indiana, with Betty Waggoner, Mary Waggoner, age 19, who was defendant's girlfriend, and defendant's and Mary Waggoner's two children, son Dennis Waggoner, age 20 months, and daughter Elizabeth Waggoner, age four months. The defendant recounted the following events in his statement to the police that was admitted at trial. On February 3, 1989, at about 5:00 a.m., the defendant returned home after a night of drinking. Mary Waggoner informed him that her mother would yell at him for staying out all night. The defendant told Mary Waggoner that he would rather leave than be yelled at by her mother. Mary Waggoner decided that she and her children would leave with him. Betty Waggoner approached the defendant and Mary Waggoner as they were about to leave, grabbed their son, and stated that she would kill herself if they left. She then lunged toward the defendant with a knife. The defendant wrestled the knife away from Betty Waggoner and stabbed her. He then stabbed Mary Waggoner and their two children multiple times each and left the house.

Later that same morning, firemen were called to the Waggoner home. The dead bodies of Betty, Mary, Dennis, and Elizabeth Waggoner were found in the home. Although the bodies of Betty and Mary Waggoner were burned, autopsies revealed that they had been stabbed to death before the fire broke out. Dennis Waggoner died from smoke inhalation and internal injuries due to stab wounds. Elizabeth Waggoner died from burns suffered during the fire and external injuries due to stab wounds.

Defendant was charged with the knowing or intentional murders ² of each of Betty Waggoner, Mary Waggoner, Dennis Waggoner, and Elizabeth Marie Waggoner. The State also sought the death penalty. ³ As aggravating circumstances justifying the death penalty, the State charged that defendant murdered two or more persons ⁴ by knowingly or intentionally killing Mary Waggoner, Dennis Waggoner, and Elizabeth Marie Waggoner and that two of the victims, Dennis Waggoner and Elizabeth Marie Waggoner were less than twelve years of age. ⁵

Following trial, a jury found defendant guilty of the voluntary manslaughter of Betty Waggoner, ⁶ and the murder of Mary Waggoner, Dennis Waggoner, and Elizabeth Marie Waggoner. Following the death penalty phase of the trial, the jury recommended that defendant not be sentenced to death.

At a subsequent sentencing hearing, the trial court reviewed and weighed aggravating and mitigating circumstances, considered the jury's recommendation against death, and then sentenced defendant to death. Defendant appeals his convictions for Murder and his death sentence. He does not appeal his conviction for Voluntary Manslaughter.

Issues on Appeal

In addition to challenging the imposition of a sentence of death in this case, defendant contends that (1) the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress his confession and (2) the evidence does not support beyond a reasonable doubt the verdict that he committed murder as opposed to voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of Mary Waggoner and the two children.

1. Motion to Suppress Confession.

Defendant contends that the trial court committed reversible error in when it denied the motion to suppress defendant's confession because defendant did not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waive his Miranda rights. Following his arrest, defendant was interrogated by Officer Mancielwicz. At the outset of the interrogation, Officer Mancielwicz presented defendant with a waiver of rights form, which defendant read. After defendant read the form, Officer Mancielwicz told defendant, "Okay, what this means Denny, you're not waiving your rights." Defendant then signed the waiver form and gave a statement incriminating himself. The trial court denied defendant's motion to suppress this statement. At trial, the statement was read to the jury over defendant's objection.

In order for defendant to have waived or relinquished his right against self-incrimination, the record must show that he knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily relinquished that right. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966); Edwards v. State (1980), 274 Ind. 387, 390-91, 412 N.E.2d 223, 225. The burden is on the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the waiver was knowingly and voluntarily made. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 475, 86 S.Ct. at 1628; Burton v. State (1973), 260 Ind. 94, 105, 292 N.E.2d 790, 797-98. Such claims are reviewed considering the totality of the circumstances, based on a review of the entire record. Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U.S. 199, 206, 80 S.Ct. 274, 279-80, 4 L.Ed.2d 242 (1960). Here, defendant argues, there is insufficient proof that he appreciated both the gravity of the waiver and the meaning of the words. He points out that, while reading from a form with a correct statement of his rights, an authority figure was assuring him that he really would not be giving up any of his rights if he gave a statement. This scenario, defendant contends, would be confusing to a person of average intelligence, let alone a man of defendant's limited intelligence.

We first observe that defendant's limited intelligence alone does not render his confession involuntary. Indeed, in Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986), the United States Supreme Court said that the purpose of the Fifth Amendment's testimonial privilege against self-incrimination and the requirements of Miranda are to protect against police misconduct. Although a person's mental condition is relevant to the issue of susceptibility to police coercion, where the person voluntarily makes a confession without police coercion the confession may be considered in spite of the mental condition. Connelly, 479 U.S. at 167, 107 S.Ct. at 522; Pettiford v. State (1993), 619 N.E.2d 925, 928. Thus the issue here really turns on whether Officer Mancielwicz's statement to defendant was coercive within the meaning of Connelly.

The State contends this situation is similar to that faced by this court in an earlier death penalty case, Wisehart v. State (1985), Ind., 484 N.E.2d 949 reh'g denied, cert. denied 476 U.S. 1189, 106 S.Ct. 2929, 91 L.Ed.2d 556 (1986). In that case defendant also claimed the trial court erred in failing to grant his motion to suppress his confessions. His argument was based on the statement made by a detective during the suppression hearing. At that hearing, the detective stated: "I advised him by signing it [the waiver] he was not admitting or denying any guilt or giving up any rights." Defendant contended that this indicated he was fooled or tricked into thinking that signing of a rights waiver did not constitute the waiver of any rights and therefore was an improper solicitation of his confession. In analyzing this claim, we examined the record and found that the defendant had been fully advised of all of his Miranda rights prior to having given any statements to the police. We concluded that the detective's statement at the suppression hearing did not purport to be a direct quotation of what he may have told Wisehart, but was only a paraphrase of the standard rights advisement, in particular stressing that Defendant could still terminate the interrogation and retain counsel. Over the dissent of Justice DeBruler, we decided that because there was no showing that the police had extracted the confession by threats or violence or obtained it by any direct or implied promises or by the exertion of any improper influence, the trial court had committed no reversible error in denying the motion to suppress. Wisehart, 484 N.E.2d at 952.

After carefully reviewing the record here, we find this situation is controlled by Wisehart. The defendant had a full advisement of his rights and acknowledged that he understood that he was agreeing to the use of his statements against him at trial. Even after receiving what defendant now terms a "mixed message," he showed no hesitancy or apprehension about proceeding. In this respect the case differs from our recent opinion in Lynch v. State (1994), Ind., 632 N.E.2d 341, 343, in which we held a confession inadmissible where, after defendant expressed reluctance about signing a waiver form, the interrogator misled defendant about the meaning and consequences of "waiver," and that behavior by the interrogator led to the subsequent statement. The confession here was properly admitted.

2. Sufficiency of Evidence of Murder.

As described above, following the stabbing death of Betty Waggoner, for which defendant was convicted of Voluntary Manslaughter, defendant went on to stab to death the other three victims. To find the defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter, the jury was required to find that all of the elements of the crime of Murder existed except that the defendant acted under "sudden heat." Ind.Code § 35-42-1-3(a) (1988). Defendant contends that the subsequent three stabbings were part of a continuing reaction to the provocation caused by Betty Waggoner. The knife used in the stabbings was first produced by Betty Waggoner, and once d...