Brown v. State, 227
Decision Date | 23 April 1969 |
Docket Number | No. 227,227 |
Parties | Delone Emerson BROWN v. STATE of Maryland. |
Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
William W. Grant, Oakland, for appellant.
Bernard L. Silbert, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom were Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen., Fred A. Thayer, State's Atty. for Garrett County, on the brief, for appellee.
Before MURPHY, C. J., and ANDERSON, MORTON, ORTH and THOMPSON, JJ.
Delone Emerson Brown, the appellant, was convicted of murder in the second degree in a nonjury trial by the Circuit Court for Garrett County. He was sentenced to a term of 16 years. Brown contends that his written confession was erroneously admitted into evidence.
On February 18, 1968, at about 10:50 P.M., State Trooper Robert Lashley received a call to investigate a stabbing in a tavern in Deer Park. When Lashley arrived he found William Paugh lying in the middle of the floor of the tavern. He was dead on arrival at the Garrett County Memorial Hospital as a result of two stab wounds in the chest. Lashley continued his investigation by going to the residence of a Mrs. Malcomb. Brown was present at the Malcomb residence, and both voluntarily agreed to go with the police officers to the Sheriff's office. Lashley drove his car, followed by Brown and Malcomb in their car.
At the Sheriff's office, Brown was taken into a room where the State's Attorney, the Sheriff, Deputy Evans, and Lashley were present. The State's Attorney, according to Lashley's testimony, gave Brown the following warnings:
'
This testimony was corroborated by Evans. Apparently Brown gave only an exculpatory statement at that time. In any event, the next day, Evans drove him to the State Police Barracks at LaVale, a distance of fifty miles, for further interrogation. At the barracks Brown was questioned for an hour by Sergeant Stafford, a lie detector expert of the Maryland State Police. Stafford did not give the Miranda warnings because he was informed that Brown had already been given the warnings which, in absence of direct evidence, we must assume to be the warnings of the night before. After one hour of questioning, Stafford turned Brown over to the State Attorney. Stafford's testimony on the point was as follows:
Brown, after warnings, then repeated to the State's Attorney, Evans, and Lashley what he had told Stafford earlier. The interrogation lasted from 4:10 to 4:47 P.M. wherein Brown gave an inculpatory statement. After this, Brown later talked informally to Stafford during Brown's dinner. At 6:15 Brown made more inculpatory additions to his earlier statement.
The warnings given at 4:10 were as follows:
'
Brown testified that he asked the State's Attorney for an attorney the first night after he had received his Miranda warnings, and the next day while he was at LaVale. When Brown returned from LaVale he again asked for an attorney at which time the State's Attorney called one for him, but the attorney refused to accept the case. The State's witnesses testified that Brown did not ask for an attorney until he returned from LaVale. The court stated that it believed the witnesses for the State and not Brown, and admitted the statement. Brown contends that it was error to admit his confession into evidence, and we agree.
Although the record shows that Brown was warned on Sunday night and that he waived his right to an attorney at that time, there is no showing that he expressly waived his right to be silent. 2 We do not need to consider whether or not there was an implied waiver of this right, Brown v. State, 3 Md.App. 313, 239 A.2d 761, since that statement was not placed in evidence, and probably had no influence on his subsequent statements. See Wiggins v. State, 4 Md.App. 95, 107, 241 A.2d 424. On Monday he was examined, first by Sergeant Stafford who did not give Brown the Miranda warnings, and as far as the record discloses, Brown, at this time, did not waive his right to be silent and did not waive his right to have counsel present.
We quite agree with the cases which hold that the Miranda warnings need not be given anew nor the Miranda waiver expressed each time the officers question an accused. See particularly State v. Davis, 157 N.W.2d 907 (Iowa 1968); People v. Long, 263 Cal.App.2d 540, 69 Cal.Rptr. 698 (1968); Sossamon v. State, 245 Ark. 306, 432 S.W.2d 469 (1968); Miller v. United States, 396 F.2d 492 (8th Cir. 1968). The thread running through these cases, however, shows that both interrogations were conducted by the same officer, or in the same place, or were close together in the point of time, or the statement at the subsequent interrogation was substantially the same as at the earlier interrogation. The discussion in Miller v. United States, 396 F.2d at 496 is particularly helpful:
We think the circumstances in the case at bar did not justify the trial judge's implicit finding that Brown knowingly and intelligently relinquished his constitutional rights. We point to ((1) the time lapse, (2) the distance to the location of the second interrogation, (3) the difference in interrogators and (4) to the difference in the statements obtained. We note particularly that after Sergeant Stafford talked with him the second time, at dinner, Brown made even more incriminating statements than he had made prior thereto, i. e. for the first time on the record he admitted actually stabbing the victim. The record does not disclose what Sergeant Stafford said at either interview. One of...
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