State v. Montoya
| Citation | 304 Neb. 96,933 N.W.2d 558 |
| Decision Date | 27 September 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. S-18-342.,S-18-342. |
| Parties | STATE of Nebraska, appellee, v. Carla MONTOYA, appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Nebraska |
Ronald E. Temple, of Fitzgerald, Vetter, Temple & Bartell, Norfolk, for appellant.
Douglas J. Peterson, Attorney General, and Austin N. Relph, Lincoln, for appellee.
Heavican, C.J., Miller -Lerman, Cassel, Stacy, Funke, Papik, and Freudenberg, JJ.
Stacy, J. Carla Montoya was convicted of knowing and intentional child abuse resulting in death, in violation of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-707(1) and (8) (Reissue 2016). She was sentenced to prison for a term of 55 to 75 years. Finding no merit to any of her assignments of error, we affirm her conviction and sentence.
At approximately 1 a.m. on March 13, 2016, Montoya brought her 4½-year-old daughter, C.H., to the emergency room at Faith Regional Health Services (Faith Regional) in Norfolk, Nebraska. C.H. was unresponsive, tremoring, and posturing, and she had bruising on her body. A CT scan
revealed bilateral bleeding between the brain and the skull. C.H. was "life-flighted" to Children’s Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, where she subsequently died from her injuries. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
Shortly after C.H. was brought to the emergency room, staff there contacted police to report possible child abuse. The police conducted a series of three interviews with Montoya; two of those interviews occurred the same day that C.H. was taken to Faith Regional, and the third interview occurred the next day.
When police arrived at Faith Regional, an officer asked to speak with Montoya in a private area. They proceeded to a family waiting room where the officer questioned Montoya about how C.H. had sustained her injuries. This interview, which was recorded on the officer’s body microphone, was suppressed by the trial court. That suppression ruling has not been challenged on appeal.
Shortly after the first interview ended, the lead investigator, Josh Bauermeister, arrived at Faith Regional. After C.H. was life-flighted to Children’s Hospital in Omaha, Bauermeister was introduced to Montoya and told her he wanted "to find out a little bit about what happened." He asked whether Montoya would allow police to search and photograph her apartment and whether she would give a recorded interview at the police station. Montoya agreed to both requests. Montoya’s boyfriend then took officers to the apartment, and Montoya—who did not have a car available—rode with Bauermeister to the police station in the front seat of his unmarked patrol car.
The recorded interview occurred in an interview room at the police station, and lasted about 1 hour. At the beginning of the interview, Bauermeister told Montoya that she was not under arrest, that she did not have to speak with him, and that she could leave at any time. Bauermeister also explained how to leave the police station from the interview room.
During the interview, Montoya explained that around noon on March 12, 2016, she became frustrated that C.H. would not stay in her bed and would not stop crying, so she squeezed C.H.’s torso hard enough to leave marks and then threw C.H. onto her bed three times. Montoya said that C.H. struck her head on the wall the third time she was thrown. After that, C.H. fell asleep around 1 p.m. and slept until around 4 p.m., when she woke briefly before falling asleep again. Around 9 p.m., C.H. began to vomit. Montoya put C.H. into the bathtub to wash her off, but C.H. would not stand; Montoya described C.H.’s body as "Jell-O." Montoya said that when she turned on the cold water, C.H. became responsive and was able to answer questions. Montoya asked C.H. whether her head hurt, and C.H. answered yes. Montoya also asked whether C.H. wanted ice cream, and C.H. again answered yes.
Montoya and her boyfriend put C.H. in the car to get some ice cream. They proceeded to drive several places with C.H., including to Montoya’s mother’s house, a grocery store, a discount department store, and a fast-food restaurant. When they returned home, C.H. was unresponsive. Montoya called a friend who convinced her to take C.H. to the hospital.
At the end of the recorded interview, Bauermeister asked Montoya to write a statement summarizing her interview, and she complied. When Montoya finished writing out her three-page statement, she left the police station.
Bauermeister subsequently obtained an arrest warrant, and Montoya was arrested at Children’s Hospital in Omaha on March 14, 2016. She was transported to the downtown Omaha police station, where she was interviewed a third time.
Montoya’s third interview was conducted by Bauermeister on March 14, 2016, at 1:30 p.m. and lasted 1¼ hours. Before questioning Montoya, Bauermeister spoke about the importance of telling the truth during the interview, saying, "Whatever you do today though, don't lie about it, because if you lie about anything or fail to tell me anything, it’s going to look really bad for you when you go to court." Bauermeister also advised Montoya of her rights under Miranda v. Arizona1 before questioning her. Throughout the interview, Bauermeister continued to emphasize the importance of being truthful. His statements in that regard are addressed more fully in our analysis of Montoya’s assignment of error relating to the third interview.
During the third interview, Montoya admitted she slammed C.H. into the wall as hard as she could and held her there. Montoya explained that she also pushed C.H. against the wall three or four times to stop her from getting away, all while screaming and yelling at her to "shut up" and to stop crying. Montoya said that C.H.’s head slammed into the wall and that Montoya pressed C.H. so hard against the wall that she worried it would break her ribs. Additionally, Montoya said that when she threw C.H. onto her bed, she did it forcefully and C.H. hit her head on the bedframe both the first and last time she was thrown. Montoya said she did not take C.H. to the hospital sooner, because she was afraid what people might think about the bruises and because she was in denial about hurting C.H. and was hoping she might recover.
Toward the end of the third interview, Bauermeister asked Montoya to write out what happened, and she complied. Her written statement tracked generally with her statements to police during the interview.
C.H. died from her injuries on March 20, 2016, after which the State charged Montoya with knowing and intentional child abuse resulting in death, a Class IB felony.2
Montoya moved to suppress all of her oral and written statements to police. She claimed she was in custody during all three interviews and argued her statements should be suppressed, because (1) in the first and second interviews, she was not advised of her Miranda rights, and (2) in the second and third interviews her will was overborne by coercive interrogation tactics.
After a hearing, the trial court sustained in part and denied in part Montoya’s motion to suppress. Regarding the first interview, the trial court sustained the motion to suppress, finding Montoya was in custody during police questioning at Faith Regional and should have received the Miranda advisement. As stated, the State has not challenged the suppression of the first interview.
Regarding the second interview, the court found that under the totality of the circumstances, Montoya was not in custody and her statements were made freely and voluntarily. Regarding the third interview, the trial court found that the officer’s interrogation tactics did not amount to improper threats, inducements, or lies and that Montoya’s confession was freely and voluntarily made. The court thus overruled Montoya’s motion to suppress as it regarded both the second and third interviews.
After the court ruled on Montoya’s motion to suppress, Montoya was permitted to withdraw her plea of not guilty in order to file a plea in abatement challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to bind the case over to district court. In support of her plea in abatement, Montoya argued the State had not offered any evidence that she intended to kill C.H., and she suggested that a finding of guilt under § 28-707 requires the State to prove the defendant had specific intent to cause the resulting harm. The trial court rejected Montoya’s interpretation of § 28-707, reasoning it was inconsistent with the plain language of the statute and with settled precedent from both this court3 and the Nebraska Court of Appeals.4 The trial court found the evidence offered at the preliminary hearing was sufficient to establish probable cause that Montoya committed the crime of intentional child abuse resulting in death under § 28-707, and it overruled the plea in abatement.
Once the plea in abatement was overruled, Montoya filed a motion to quash the information. In support of the motion, Montoya argued that unless § 28-707 was construed to require proof that she intended to cause the resulting harm to the child, the statute would be unconstitutional, both facially and as applied. The trial court overruled the motion to quash, rejecting all of Montoya’s facial constitutional challenges and reserving ruling on the as-applied challenges.
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