Charette v. State
| Docket Number | A20-1476 |
| Decision Date | 05 October 2022 |
| Citation | 980 N.W.2d 310 |
| Parties | Mi-in-gun Justin CHARETTE a/k/a Justin Marshall Critt, Appellant, v. STATE of Minnesota, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Anders J. Erickson, Assistant Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for appellant.
Keith M. Ellison, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and Brian J. Melton, Clay County Attorney, Moorhead, Minnesota, for respondent.
In 2018, a district court jury found appellant Justin Marshall Critt guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree arson for the 2016 death of M.W. after her body was found in a Moorhead house that had been set on fire.1 The district court imposed consecutive sentences totaling 528 months in prison. In 2020, Critt filed a petition for postconviction relief, arguing that the district court committed a reversible error by denying a pretrial motion to suppress his statements to law enforcement officers. Critt asserted that he clearly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to counsel when he was held in custody on the night of June 28, 2016, and that officers violated Miranda v. Arizona , 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) and Edwards v. Arizona , 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), by initiating a custodial interrogation on the following afternoon, June 29, 2016, without his counsel present.
The district court denied Critt's request for postconviction relief, finding that he could not invoke his Fifth Amendment right to counsel on the night of June 28 because he was not subjected to custodial interrogation at that time. The court of appeals affirmed but on different grounds, concluding that Critt did not invoke his Fifth Amendment right to counsel on the night of June 28 because his "mere outbursts" about a lawyer were not clear invocations of counsel. Charette v. State , No. A20-1476, 2021 WL 2406686, at *3 (Minn. App. June 14, 2021). We agree with the district court that because no custodial interrogation took place on the night of June 28, Critt could not invoke his Fifth Amendment right to counsel. Accordingly, we affirm the court of appeals but on different grounds.
On June 28, 2016, law enforcement officers were dispatched to a fire at a Moorhead home. First responders battled the blaze and then found a woman, later identified as M.W., dead inside of the home. Critt, known to have been at the house earlier in the day, was a person of interest to law enforcement officers who began investigating the cause of the fire and death.
When Critt returned to the house around 9:30 p.m., law enforcement officers told him that he was being detained. They placed him in handcuffs and drove him to the local law enforcement center where he was placed in an interview room. After the officers left the interview room, Critt attempted to move his handcuffed hands from behind his back to the front of his body, which required the officers to intervene. Critt was extremely agitated, yelling and spitting. During this time, Critt twice asked: "Where's my lawyer?" The officers did not question Critt because, according to their testimony during an omnibus hearing, they believed that he was "intoxicated" or "impaired" and "quickly realized that [they] weren't going to make any attempts in speaking with him that night." The officers testified that "[a]t that point it was just waiting for [another agency] to get there" to investigate an unrelated assault and robbery that had occurred in Fargo, North Dakota, the previous day, for which Critt was a suspect. Critt was eventually taken out of the interview room and to the jail, where he was held overnight on the Fargo charge.
The next day, June 29, law enforcement officers brought Critt back into the interview room at approximately 4:30 p.m. Unlike the night before, Critt sat in a chair without handcuffs and acted in a calm manner. One of the detectives told Critt that the body of a woman who they believed was M.W. had been found inside of the burned-out house and that he was "on [their] list of people that [they] need to talk to" because he had been at the house with M.W. before the fire. The detective advised Critt that he was not under arrest in connection with the murder and arson investigation but that he was under arrest for the pending criminal charges out of Fargo. The detective read Critt his Miranda rights, explaining to Critt that it was "[b]ecause you're in custody and we're gonna ask some questions." When asked if he understood his rights, Critt responded, "Yeah." When asked if he "wish[ed] to talk to [them] about this," Critt responded, Critt talked to the detectives for more than 30 minutes until he said, 2 The detectives then ended the interview.
The State charged Critt with second-degree intentional murder without premeditation under Minn. Stat. § 609.19, subd. 1(1) (2020), and first-degree arson of a dwelling under Minn. Stat. § 609.561, subd. 1 (2020). Critt filed a pretrial motion to suppress his statements to the officers during the June 29 interview, arguing that he clearly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to counsel by asking "[w]here's my lawyer?" on June 28 and that the officers violated his constitutional right by questioning him without an attorney present on June 29. The district court denied the suppression motion, finding that Critt did not have a Fifth Amendment right to counsel when he asked "[w]here's my lawyer?" because he was not subjected to custodial interrogation on the night of June 28. The case proceeded to a jury trial, and Critt was found guilty on both counts. The district court imposed consecutive sentences of 480 months in prison for second-degree murder and 48 months in prison for first-degree arson. Critt did not file a direct appeal.
In 2020, Critt filed a timely petition for postconviction relief, arguing that the district court committed a reversible error by denying the motion to suppress his statements. The district court denied the petition for postconviction relief, again finding that Critt did not have a Fifth Amendment right to counsel when he asked for a lawyer on the night of June 28 because he was not subjected to custodial interrogation. The district court also rejected Critt's claim that his request for a lawyer on the night of June 28 "should have carried over into this police interrogation" the next day because Critt "has cited to no case law, and this Court is unaware of any, that suggests the right to counsel attaches preemptively to any custodial interrogation." The district court observed that on the afternoon of June 29, when the detectives started to interrogate Critt, "he was read his Miranda rights, and made no indication that he wished to consult with an attorney until roughly 35 minutes into the interview."
Critt appealed, and the court of appeals affirmed. Charette , 2021 WL 2406686, at *5. After reviewing the record, the court of appeals concluded that Critt did not clearly invoke his Fifth Amendment right to counsel on the night of June 28 because his "references to counsel were not responsive to interrogation or a Miranda warning but mere outbursts" and "were phrased as questions, not requests." Id. at *3. The court of appeals noted that Critt's statements to the officers on the night of June 28 "were vague—Critt did not even say that he wanted counsel to be present, let alone that he specifically sought counsel's assistance for purposes of some future interrogation as opposed to some more immediate purpose, such as securing his phone or his release on bail." Id. The court of appeals did not address the issue of whether Critt had a Fifth Amendment right to counsel on the night of June 28. Id. at *3 n.2.
We granted Critt's petition for review on the issue of whether he had a Fifth Amendment right to counsel on the night of June 28.3
We review the district court's denial of Critt's postconviction petition for an abuse of discretion. See Bolstad v. State , 966 N.W.2d 239, 244 (Minn. 2021). We will reverse if the district court "exercised its discretion in an arbitrary or capricious manner, based its ruling on an erroneous view of the law, or made clearly erroneous factual findings." Reed v. State , 793 N.W.2d 725, 729 (Minn. 2010).
Under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, a person subjected to custodial interrogation by law enforcement has the right to remain silent and the right to have an attorney present during an interrogation. Miranda v. Arizona , 384 U.S. 436, 439–40, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). These rights are meant to protect against compelled self-incrimination by acknowledging "the compulsion inherent in custodial surroundings." Id. at 458, 86 S.Ct. 1602. When a suspect invokes their Fifth Amendment right to counsel, the police may not engage in a custodial interrogation unless the suspect initiates further conversations with police or has an attorney present. Edwards v. Arizona , 451 U.S. 477, 484–85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981). Statements obtained in violation of a suspect's Miranda rights must be suppressed. See Miranda , 384 U.S. at 479, 86 S.Ct. 1602.
Suspects do not have a Fifth Amendment right to counsel when "simply taken into custody, but rather where a suspect in custody is subjected to interrogation." Rhode Island v. Innis , 446 U.S. 291, 300, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 64 L.Ed.2d 297 (1980). Both "custody" and "interrogation" are required. And "[i]nterrogation ... must reflect a measure of compulsion above and beyond that inherent in custody itself." Id. at 300, 100 S.Ct. 1682 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also State v. Edrozo , 578 N.W.2d 719, 724 (Minn. 1998) (applying the Innis "interrogation" definition).
In this case, the State concedes that Critt was in...
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...is 'imminent,'" without defining the term or providing direction as to when an interrogation is considered "imminent." Charette, 980 N.W.2d at 316 (citing Grimes, 142 F.3d at 1348 (II) (C) (2); LaGrone, 43 F.3d at 335340; Ault v. State, 866 So.2d 674 (Fla. 2003); State v. Appleby, 221 P.3d ......