Almeida v. State
| Decision Date | 08 July 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 89,402.,89,402. |
| Citation | 737 So.2d 520 |
| Parties | Osvaldo ALMEIDA, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Jeffrey L. Anderson, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, and Sara D. Baggett, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, Florida, for Appellee.
We have on appeal the judgment and sentence of the trial court imposing the death penalty on Osvaldo Almeida. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. We reverse the conviction and vacate the death sentence.
Chiquita Counts was found shot to death outside a Days Inn hotel in Fort Lauderdale on October 13, 1993. Two other murders took place in Broward County within a month—one in Sunrise (Frank Ingargiola) and one in Fort Lauderdale (Marilyn Leath)—and police suspected that all three were related. Sunrise police took Almeida into custody on November 29, 1993, questioned him concerning the Ingargiola murder, and notified Fort Lauderdale police that they had arrested a suspect in the murders. Almeida confessed to the Sunrise Police that he had committed the Ingargiola murder and later confessed to the Fort Lauderdale Police that he had committed the Leath and Counts murders.1 He was charged with and convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of Counts. The court followed the jury's nine-to-three vote and sentenced him to death based on one aggravating circumstance,2 two statutory mitigating circumstances,3 and several nonstatutory mitigating circumstances.4
Almeida raises seventeen issues on appeal,5 but we find a single claim dispositive. Almeida was picked up by police November 29, 1993, and was taken to headquarters where he was questioned beginning at 5:16 p.m. He initially was read his rights and signed a waiver form. Several minutes later, in response to questioning by Detective Mink he made a brief inculpatory statement concerning an unrelated killing, i.e., the murder of Frank Ingargiola (Almeida said simply, "I fucking killed him."). At that point, Detective Mink prepared to conduct a formal recorded session. Officers turned on the tape recorder at 5:30 p.m. and the following discussion transpired:
Almeida then confessed again to the Ingargiola murder and later in the same session confessed to another unrelated murder (i.e., the killing of Marilyn Leath) and to the present murder (i.e., the killing of Chiquita Counts).
The State contends that Detective Mink was not required to answer Almeida's question concerning counsel ("Well, what good is an attorney going to do?") before continuing the interrogation. The State argues that this issue is controlled by State v. Owen, 696 So.2d 715 (Fla.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 574, 139 L.Ed.2d 413 (1997). We disagree.
This Court in Long v. State, 517 So.2d 664, 667 (Fla.1987), held that if in the course of custodial interrogation a suspect makes an utterance that may be an attempt to invoke his or her rights, police may "continue questioning for the sole purpose of clarifying the equivocal request." Subsequent to Long, the United States Supreme Court in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994), held that if a suspect initially waives his or her rights, the suspect thereafter must clearly invoke those rights during the ensuing interview. That Court based its ruling on the following rationale:
[T]he primary protection afforded suspects subject to custodial interrogation is the Miranda warnings themselves. "[F]ull comprehension of the rights to remain silent and request an attorney [is] sufficient to dispel whatever coercion is inherent in the interrogation process." [Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 427, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986).] A suspect who knowingly and voluntarily waives his right to counsel after having that right explained to him has indicated his willingness to deal with the police unassisted.
Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 460-61, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994). This Court was then faced in State v. Owen, 696 So.2d 715 (Fla.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 574, 139 L.Ed.2d 413 (1997), with the issue of whether to adopt the Davis rationale in Florida.
The defendant in Owen had initially waived his Miranda6 rights and during the ensuing interrogation session made two equivocal statements. First, when one of the detectives asked whether he had deliberately targeted the victim's house, Owen responded, "I'd rather not talk about it." Later, when the officer asked him where he had put a bicycle, Owen said, "I don't want to talk about it." In both statements it was unclear whether Owen was referring to the immediate topic of discussion, i.e., the house and the bicycle, or to the underlying right to cut off questioning. Officers did not stop to clarify either statement. The district court affirmed the trial court's order suppressing the confession but certified to this Court a question asking whether Davis was applicable in Florida. This Court answered in the affirmative and held as follows:
Thus, we hold that police in Florida need not ask clarifying questions if a defendant who has received proper Miranda warnings makes only an equivocal or ambiguous request to terminate an interrogation after having validly waived his or her Miranda rights.
Owen, 696 So.2d at 719. We quashed the district court decision.
The impetus underlying our decision in Owen was that the "equivocal request" standard announced in Long had proven unworkable—it placed "too great an impediment upon society's interest in thwarting crime." Owen, 696 So.2d at 719. Custodial utterances are extraordinarily rich in diversity and include not only statements affirmatively invoking a suspect's rights but also statements prefatory to the invoking of a right. Police under Long were required to stop an interview and clarify each such statement that was equivocal in any way. This rule resulted in otherwise admissible confessions being suppressed based on the most tenuous statements. In Owen, we were confronted with an utterance of the first type, i.e., a statement allegedly invoking a right, and our ruling was simple: In such a case, the suspect must invoke the right clearly.7
That issue is not presented in the instant case. Here, we are confronted with a custodial utterance that was prefatory to—and possibly determinative of—the invoking of a right. In analyzing the present utterance, we first must ascertain whether Almeida was in fact referring to his right to counsel. As noted above, Detective Mink asked Almeida, "Do you wish to speak to me now without an attorney present?" and Almeida replied, "Well, what good is an attorney going to do?" Almeida's utterance was made under the following conditions: (1) at the very beginning of the taped interrogation session; (2) in the midst of a general discussion concerning his rights; and (3) in direct response to a police question concerning the right to counsel. In light of these circumstances, it is indisputable that the defendant was referring to his right to counsel.8
We next must determine whether the utterance was a bona fide question which—under normal circumstances— would call for an answer. The audio taped version of the encounter sheds further light on the exchange. On the tape, Almeida had answered each of the preceding questions without hesitation and without equivocation, and then, when asked the above question, he came to an abrupt halt, paused for many seconds (about 5 seconds on the tape), and made a pensive, probing response: "Well ... [pause] ... what ... [another pause] ... good is an attorney going to do?" It was a genuine question. It was not a rumination or a rhetorical question.9 Almeida was seeking a frank answer. The officers, however, ignored the question and never attempted to give an answer.
This scenario is not embraced within our holding in Owen. The type of utterance at issue in Owen was an equivocal statement which—pursuant to Davis—required no clarification and could not trump the clear waiver of rights Owen had made earlier. The type of utterance at issue here, on the other hand, was an un equivocal question that was prefatory to—and possibly determinative of—the invoking of a right and which cast doubt on the knowing and intelligent nature of the prior waiver. Detective Mink plainly asked Almeida if he wanted to proceed without a lawyer, and Almeida just as plainly asked the officer what good a lawyer would do. There was nothing equivocal about this exchange...
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...reveal the specifics of the robberies until after the officer's promise not to prosecute. Id. at 237. By contrast, in Almeida v. State, 737 So. 2d 520, 524 (Fla. 1999), the Court held that informing a suspect of potential charges against him does not constitute a threat to prosecute or a pr......
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...456 (1995); State v. Wright, 196 Wis.2d 149, 537 N.W.2d 134 (Wis.App. 1995). Compare, Cuervo v. State, supra note 12; Almeida v. State, 737 So.2d 520 (Fla.1999); People v. Aldridge, 79 Ill.2d 87, 402 N.E.2d 176, 37 Ill.Dec. 286 (1980); State v. Deases, 518 N.W.2d 784 (Iowa 1994); Freeman v.......
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