State v. Seibert

Decision Date10 December 2002
Docket NumberNo. SC 84315.,SC 84315.
Citation93 S.W.3d 700
PartiesSTATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Patrice SEIBERT, Appellant.
CourtMissouri Supreme Court

Amy M. Bartholow, Assistant State Public Defender, Columbia, for Appellee.

Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Atty. General, Shaun J. Mackelprang, Asst. Attorney General, Jefferson City, for Respondent.

MICHAEL A. WOLFF, Judge.

The question presented here is whether a law enforcement officer's intentional violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), in obtaining a statement requires suppression of a second statement, secured after a Miranda warning was given, where the second statement was based on the first. Essential to this inquiry is whether the presumption that the first statement was involuntary carries over to the second statement. In the circumstances here, where the interrogation was nearly continuous, the Court holds that the second statement, clearly the product of the invalid first statement, should have been suppressed.

Patrice Seibert was convicted of second-degree murder for her role in the death of Donald Rector in a fire intentionally set in the mobile home where Rector resided. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, Seibert asserts the trial court committed reversible error when it allowed the State to introduce inculpatory statements she made while in custody. Seibert did not testify at trial.

After opinion by the Court of Appeals, Southern District, this Court granted transfer. This Court has jurisdiction. Mo. CONST. art. V, section 10. The judgment of the trial court is reversed, and the case is remanded.

Facts — The Mobile Home Fire and Death of Donald Rector

Seibert lived in a mobile home in Rolla with her five sons. The victim, Donald Rector, 17, who was on medication for a mental disorder, also lived with them. Jonathan, 12, one of Seibert's sons, was seriously handicapped with cerebral palsy. He could not walk, talk or feed himself. On February 12, 1997, Jonathan died in his sleep. Seibert was afraid to report his death. He had bedsores, and she was afraid authorities would believe she had been neglecting him.

In Seibert's presence, two of her teenaged sons and two of their friends discussed a plan to set the mobile home on fire to cover up Jonathan's death. They decided Donald should be present in the fire so it would not look as though Jonathan had been left alone. In her statements, Seibert admitted that Donald, who died in the fire, was supposed to die in the fire. According to the trial testimony of Jeremy, one of her son's friends, Seibert was crying, "pretty much in hysterics," during the discussion with her two sons and their friends. She suggested sending her two younger sons, Patrick and Shawn, to church during the fire. Seibert was not present when the fire started.

Darian, age 17, the oldest of Seibert's sons, and his friend Derrick were to set the fire. Darian testified that Derrick poured gas around the trailer and then hit Donald, who was having a seizure and convulsing on the floor. Derrick set the fire before Darian was out of the trailer. Darian suffered serious burns to his face. Donald's dead body was found kneeling in front of and partially lying on a sofa in the west bedroom with a penetrating wound on the back of his skull. The cause of death was asphyxiation secondary to exposure to fire.

The Two-Step Interrogation

On February 17, 1997, five days after the trailer fire, St. Louis County officer Kevin Clinton woke Seibert at 3:00 a.m. She was at a hospital in St. Louis County, where Darian was being treated for burns. Rolla officer Richard Hanrahan arranged for Officer Clinton to arrest Seibert. Officer Hanrahan specifically instructed Officer Clinton not to advise Seibert of her Miranda rights.

Once at the police station, Seibert was left in a small interview room for 15 to 20 minutes to "give her a little time to think about the situation." Without issuing a Miranda warning, Officer Hanrahan then questioned her for 30 to 40 minutes. He squeezed her arm and repeated the same statement, "Donald was also to die in his sleep," throughout much of the interview. After she made an admission indicating that she knew Donald was to die in his sleep, she was given a 20-minute break for coffee and a cigarette. Officer Hanrahan then resumed the interview, this time using a tape recorder, and advised Seibert of her Miranda rights. Seibert signed a waiver form.

Officer Hanrahan began the second stage of the interview by referring to the first stage: "Ok, `trice, we've been talking for a little while about what happened on Wednesday the twelfth, haven't we?" Then, with occasional reference back to the first stage, pre-Miranda interview, Officer Hanrahan continued to question Seibert. She repeated statements she had made prior to receiving Miranda. This tape-recorded interview was played to the jury at trial.

Officer Hanrahan testified that he made a conscious decision to withhold Miranda hoping to get an admission of guilt. He testified that an institute, from which he has received interrogation training, has promoted this type of interrogation "numerous times" and that his current department, as well as those he was with previously, all subscribe to this training. In the second stage of the interview, Officer Hanrahan began by reminding Seibert that they had been "talking for a little while" about the trailer fire, which occurred on February 12. Thus, he was able to link together the unwarned interview with the warned interview. Seibert was reminded of the statements she made during the first stage, which occurred before he gave Seibert a Miranda warning. He also used Seibert's pre-warning statements to phrase his questions. For example, consider the following excerpt from the second stage of the interview (emphasis added):

Officer Hanrahan: Now, in discussion you told us, you told us that there was an understanding about Donald. (Here, he is referring to the unwarned portion of the interview.)

Seibert: Yes.

Hanrahan: Did that take place earlier that morning [February 12, 1997]?

Seibert: Yes.

Hanrahan: Ok. And what was the understanding about Donald?

Seibert: If they could get him out of the trailer, to take him out of the trailer.

Hanrahan: And if they couldn't?

Seibert: I, I never even thought about it. I just figured they would.

Hanrahan: Trice, didn't you tell me that he was supposed to die in his sleep?

Seibert: If that would happen, `cause he was on that new medicine, you know....

Hanrahan: The Prozac? And it makes him sleepy. So he was supposed to die in his sleep?

Seibert: Yes.

Officer Hanrahan, in order to secure an admissible confession, used information he gained from Seibert's previous inadmissible confession. As a result, Seibert's post-warning statements were closely tied to the lengthy unwarned interrogation.

The Purpose and Protections of Miranda

To preserve the Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination where an accused is subjected to custodial interrogation, which "exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals," the United States Supreme Court created the now well-known safeguard: the Miranda warning. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 455, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694. Miranda provided that, "prior to any questioning" a person must be informed of certain rights, including the right to remain silent, which can only be waived knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently. Id. at 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602 (emphasis added).1

The Miranda requirement serves several purposes. "For those unaware of the privilege, the warning is needed simply to make them aware of it — the threshold requirement for an intelligent decision as to its exercise. More important, such a warning is an absolute prerequisite in overcoming the inherent pressures of the interrogation atmosphere." Id. at 468, 86 S.Ct. 1602. Beyond providing these protections, the Miranda decision and its progeny serve to guide police and deter improper conduct.2 The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Miranda, to "give concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow."

Failure to give a Miranda warning does not result in exclusion of a statement for all purposes. An unwarned custodial statement may be used for impeachment. Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971). The prosecution may use the testimony of a witness who was identified by the defendant in a statement given without a Miranda warning. Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 444, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974). And, most pertinent to this case, the Court in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985), held that a defendant's prior remark, in answer to a question during the police investigation, does not — "without more" — make a subsequent statement inadmissible after a Miranda warning was given. Elstad, 470 U.S. at 300, 309, 105 S.Ct. 1285.

As Elstad and Tucker reiterate, the goals of Miranda are to deter improper police conduct and to assure trustworthy evidence, specifically evidence that has not been obtained in circumstances that appear to be coercive. Elstad dealt with what the Court described as "a simple failure to administer the warnings." 470 U.S. at 309, 105 S.Ct. 1285. There was no intentional violation of Miranda in Elstad, and the Court held "the admissibility of any subsequent statement should turn in these circumstances solely on whether it is knowingly and voluntarily made." Id.

But what about circumstances such as this case where the violation of Miranda was intentional? An intentional violation of Miranda shifts the focus from the goal of gaining trustworthy evidence — though that is still a major concern — to the goal of deterring improper police conduct.

Intentional Miranda Violations

The police officer in this case purposefully withheld a Miranda warning as part of a...

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