Freeman v. State

• Decision Date: 08 September 2004
• Docket Number: No. 3047,3047
• Citation: 158 Md. App. 402,857 A.2d 557
• Parties: Adele Florence FREEMAN v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

857 A.2d 557

158 Md. App. 402

Adele Florence FREEMAN v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 3047, Sept. Term, 2002.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

September 8, 2004.

William E. Nolan (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defencer on the brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Diane E. Keller (J. Joseph Curran, Jr. Attorney General on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., HOLLANDER, CHARLES E. MOYLAN, JR., (Retired, specially assigned) JJ.

HOLLANDER, Judge.

Kevin Gross was shot to death on March 30, 2000, by his girlfriend, Adele Florence Freeman, appellant. A jury in the Circuit Court for Calvert County subsequently convicted Freeman of first degree premeditated murder, as well as first degree assault and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.¹ Thereafter, Freeman was sentenced to life imprisonment, with all but forty-five years suspended, for the murder conviction, and to a concurrent term of twenty years for the firearm offense. The assault conviction was merged.

On appeal, Freeman claims that "the circuit court err[ed] by failing to suppress the statements [she] made ... during custodial interrogation." From appellant's brief, we glean two arguments in support of her claim. First, appellant argues that the court erred in failing to suppress her statements because she had invoked her right to remain silent, and therefore her Miranda rights were violated. Second, she claims error based on a delay in her presentment to a commissioner. Rejecting both contentions, we shall affirm.

I. FACTUAL SUMMARY — SUPPRESSION MOTION²

Appellant moved to suppress various statements that she gave to the police during her interrogation on the evening of March 30, 2000. What follows is a summary of the evidence adduced at the suppression hearing in November 2001.³

Sergeant Albert Paton⁴ of the Maryland State Police testified that he was the shift supervisor at the Prince Frederick Barrack on the evening of March 30, 2000. At about 8:00 p.m., appellant entered the barracks and announced: "I just shot someone." He recalled that a short time earlier, the police "had received a call for a shooting ... at 1255 Wilson Road. And ... that a female suspect had been involved in the shooting, that she had shot a black male subject, and that she had left the scene in a white Oldsmobile headed towards the Prince Frederick area."

Paton claimed that "before [he] could reply" to appellant's announcement that she shot someone, "she said I have the gun, it's here in my purse." Paton continued:

And as she is saying that she started to try to open the purse, and I told her just wait, I will get that from you, just as quickly as I could try to think of a way to approach her, you know, and maintain my safety. So I asked her to have a seat over by the door that comes into the barrack.

Paton then took appellant's purse and brought her into the "Trooper's Room where we put persons that are under arrest." At that time, Paton asked appellant which hand she used to shoot the victim, because he wanted to secure that hand in order to perform a gunshot residue test. After appellant responded that she had used her "left" hand, Paton handcuffed that hand to the bench.

Thereafter, Paton advised appellant of her "Miranda rights,"⁵ reading "word for word" from a "card" provided to him by the State Police. The card was admitted into evidence. Appellant indicated that she understood her rights. However, when Paton asked appellant if she would "knowingly waive these rights," appellant "didn't say anything."

Paton then "retrieved the gun from [appellant's] purse ... to make sure it didn't have any ammunition in it." He "examined" the weapon and noted "that all the shell casings that [he] could see were empty." Paton testified:

So in order so [sic] that I didn't have to keep handling it, I asked her how many shots she fired, and she said I don't remember. And then I asked her, well, did you fire all the bullets that were in the gun, and she said I don't know, it happened so fast.

Thereafter, Paton "opened the chambers just to see if there was any live ammunition in there." After Paton determined that no live ammunition was in the gun, he "left everything the way it was, closed it back up, and secured the gun." Paton then asked appellant "what happened tonight, and her reply was `I don't want to talk about it right now.'" Accordingly, Paton "didn't ask [Freeman] anything else." He "got [appellant] a cup of water and just kept an eye on her, that was it." Paton described appellant's demeanor as "normal" and "calm."

On cross-examination, Paton testified that he sat at the front desk and greeted people who came in to the barracks. When appellant "first waled in the door," before she announced what she had done, he had no reason to believe she had committed the shooting. Paton also explained that, after he handcuffed appellant to the bench, he only questioned her "about the ammunition so that [he] could make the gun safe. [He] wasn't ... investigating the case."

The following colloquy on redirect is pertinent:

[PROSECUTOR]: When Ms. Freeman walked in and told you she just shot someone, immediately in your mind what did you think based upon the information you had from dispatch?

[PATON]: That this was the woman that was at Wilson Road that had just shot this man.

[PROSECUTOR]: And so based upon that information and the fact that she told you she had a gun, you placed her under arrest?

[PATON]: Yes.

[PROSECUTOR]: When you were speaking with Ms. Freeman did you feel it was necessary to go over with her again the date, place, and nature of the event that she just turned herself in for?

[PATON]: No, ma'am.

[PROSECUTOR]: And when she asked — when she mentioned — when she said to you that she didn't want to talk about it right now, you scrupulously honored that request, did you not?

[PATON]: Yes, I did.

Corporal David Ruel was assigned to investigate the homicide. His "first contact" with appellant occurred in the Troopers' Room at "about 9:35, 9:45, somewhere in that area." At the time, Freeman was "seated on the prison bench handcuffed to the bench."

At the outset, Ruel asked Paton "to step out" of the room and "brief[] [him] on what had gone on up to that point...." Paton advised him that appellant did not want to talk. Ruel asked Ms. Freeman "if she wanted anything to eat or drink or if she needed anything, and she advised she wasn't hungry at the time, but she did need some medication" for blood pressure. Ruel instructed Corporal Delmar Smith to retrieve the medication. While Smith was gone, appellant remained in the Troopers' Room, and Ruel "would periodically just peek in to make sure that everything was okay in there and just let [appellant] sit for a while."

Appellant's medication arrived at about 10:20 p.m. At that time, Ruel asked appellant, who was still in the Troopers' Room, "if she needed the medication; she again said no." Ruel also "asked [appellant] if she wanted something to eat, and that time she said yes, she wanted something from McDonald's." So, Ruel "got her some food." When the food arrived at about 10:52 p.m., Ruel removed the handcuff so that appellant could eat. However, Ruel recalled that, "prior to ... eating" at about 10:55 p.m., he "read" appellant her Miranda rights from the form, and then they "sat down to eat, and... just talked about her family, what her job was, what her aspirations were...." Ruel explained:

I read the form in its entirety. Then after completing the last paragraph here, last sentence asking her if she is willing to talk, I have her sign the statement that [sic] where it said signature for her, and then I have her review it again just to make sure that she understands and place her initials by one, two, three, four, and five, each of her rights if she understands them.

According to Ruel, during his advisement appellant did not request a lawyer, nor did she have any questions. Moreover, her demeanor was "very calm and cooperative." Appellant, who was then forty-seven years old, had no difficulty understanding what Ruel said. Although Ruel did not ascertain appellant's educational level, he found her "very articulate", and he "figured she had at least graduated high school," because she "had mentioned earlier in [their] conversation that she had planned on going to college."

Appellant agreed to waive her rights, initialed each question in the waiver form, and signed it. Ruel denied threatening appellant or promising her anything to induce her to do so. Before appellant provided a statement, she told Ruel that she was diagnosed as "bipolar." After Freeman ate, she made an oral statement to Ruel, which he recounted:

After finishing her dinner Ms. Freeman went on to advise that earlier that evening she had spoken with Mr. Gross on the phone for a few minutes. During the phone conversation they never argued. She just asked him if she could stop by, and he replied yes. A little later that same evening she drove herself over to Gross's house. At approximately 1930 hours she pulled into and parked in the Gross's driveway and never got out of her car.

Gross then came out of the house and sat in the passenger side front seat. The two sat in the car talking for a while about the upcoming weekend. Freeman advised she was kind of upset because Gross wouldn't take her out to dinner or the movies this Saturday. She then confronted him about the past few weekends that he hadn't taken her out and how he went to that dinner thing without asking her if she wanted to go.

Gross then told her he couldn't take her out this Saturday because he had to change the oil in his car. Ms. Freeman then confronted him again, advising him that it wouldn't take him all day to change the oil in his car. He then advised her he also had to tune his car up, but he would try to start working on his car a little earlier. Freeman then advised knowing that a tune-up and an oil change weren't the same thing she got upset and pulled

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