Garvey v. State

• Decision Date: 28 April 2005
• Docket Number: No. 5, 2004.,5, 2004.
• Citation: 873 A.2d 291
• Parties: Robert GARVEY, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.
• Court: Supreme Court of Delaware

873 A.2d 291

Robert GARVEY, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

No. 5, 2004.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: January 12, 2005.

Decided: April 28, 2005.

Jennifer-Kate Aaronson of Potter Carmine Leonard & Aaronson, Wilmington, Delaware, and Jan A.T. van Amerongen (argued) of Wilmington, Delaware, for appellant.

John Williams, Department of Justice, Dover, Delaware, for appellee.

Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND and JACOBS, Justices. STEELE, Chief Justice.

Robert Garvey appeals his conviction of first-degree murder and other felonies in the Superior Court, claiming that the trial judge abused his discretion by denying a pretrial motion to suppress Garvey's post-arrest statement and a motion to declare a mistrial. Garvey also contends for the first time on appeal that the jury's findings at the guilt and penalty stages were inconsistent. We find that the trial judge acted within his discretion by denying Garvey's suppression and mistrial motions. Furthermore, because the sentencing recommendation of life in prison was the product of jury lenity and the verdict is otherwise supported by the record evidence, we find no plain error in the jury's findings. Accordingly, we affirm.

I.

On the afternoon of July 14, 2001, Turquoise Williams and Benjamin Finnell traveled to a Wilmington shopping center looking for clothes to wear at the City's annual Greek Festival. While there, they met two women, Rebecca King and Tracey Vanderworker. The four spoke and agreed to meet later that night. King and Vanderworker then left and approached Garvey and two others, Donial Fayson and Leonard Manlove. In search of money, the five agreed to rob Williams and Finnell later that night. According to their plan, the two women would lead Williams and Finnell to a Wilmington apartment complex, where Garvey would be waiting to rob them.

In the early hours of July 15, Garvey, armed with a handgun, traveled to the apartment building. Meanwhile, King and Vanderworker picked up Williams, Finnell, and Donald Jordan, and drove them to the apartment complex. When they arrived, however, the three men were reluctant to leave the vehicle. Eventually, King and Vanderworker persuaded them to go inside the apartment building. Once they got out of the car, Garvey approached Williams. Williams resisted, and Garvey fired a shot. Although the shot missed Williams, it struck and killed Jordan. Along with the other four, Wilmington police later arrested Garvey and charged him with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, and a variety of firearms and other offenses.

Later that morning, the arresting officers brought Garvey to the police station. Once there, investigators sought a statement. After advising Garvey of his constitutional rights, Wilmington Police Detective Andrew Brock asked Garvey whether he wished to waive his right not to incriminate himself and answer the investigators' questions.

Q. [U]nderstanding those rights are you willing to give a statement if I ask you certain questions?

A. Depends on what you ask me.

Q. Okay well, for right now what we have and why you're here, you're here because we're conducting a murder investigation alright and at this point you've been implicated as being involved in this thing. [W]e've talked to ... just about everybody that was involved in this thing ..., they've all been arrested. They all understand the seriousness of this investigation. They all don't want no part of it .... They all basically point the finger at you.¹

Garvey then answered Detective Brock's questions.

Before trial, Garvey filed a motion to suppress his statement in the Superior Court, arguing that his waiver was defective. In a September 2002 decision, the trial judge found that Garvey's response "merely indicated to police that he intended to choose which questions he intended to answer and what information he intended to share with police."² The trial judge therefore denied Garvey's motion. Following an October 2003 trial, a jury convicted Garvey of all charges.³ On the jury's recommendation, the trial judge sentenced Garvey to life in prison.⁴

Garvey now appeals his conviction, the denial of his suppression motion, and other aspects of the trial. Specifically, Garvey claims that police violated his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent by failing to clarify an allegedly equivocal waiver. He also asserts that the trial judge abused his discretion by denying his motion for a mistrial based on the investigating officer's allegedly improper testimony. Finally, Garvey contends that an inconsistency between the jury's findings at the guilt and penalty phases compromised the integrity of the verdict and sentence. Garvey claims that this inconsistency denied him due process and a fair trial.

II.

Garvey first claims that police violated his right to remain silent by failing to clarify an ambiguous waiver in his post-arrest statement. Garvey maintains that his statement — "depends on what you ask me" — was equivocal and thus required the detective to ask follow-up questions. Because Detective Brock failed to do so, instead opting to continue the interrogation, Garvey contends that the trial judge abused his discretion by denying his motion to suppress the post-arrest statement.

A.

The self-incrimination immunities embedded in the Delaware and United States constitutions evolved from the British common-law principle that holds that coerced confessions are inherently untrustworthy.⁵ Under the federal constitution, "no person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself...."⁶ This privilege against self-incrimination is the right of a person "to remain silent unless he chooses to speak in the unfettered exercise of his own will."⁷ But because investigators exert "inherently compelling pressures" in the custodial interrogation context,⁸ authorities must apprise criminal defendants of their Fifth Amendment rights before questioning them.⁹ This constitutional stricture governs a statement's admissibility in both federal and state courts.¹⁰

Although we must "presume that a defendant did not waive his rights,"¹¹ a defendant may waive the right to remain silent, so long as it is done knowingly and voluntarily.¹² Based on both the Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination and the due process provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment,¹³ the voluntariness inquiry is not based on form,¹⁴ but on circumstances that indicate the waiver was the "product of a free and deliberate choice[,] rather than intimidation, coercion[,] or deception."¹⁵ The State bears the burden of proving both a right to silence waiver¹⁶ and the voluntariness of a confession.¹⁷

Under the Delaware Constitution, unlike its federal counterpart, "if a suspect attempts to invoke [his or her] Miranda rights during an interrogation, but does not do so unequivocally, the police must clarify the suspect's intention before continuing with the interrogation."¹⁸ Ideally, waivers are obtained through express statements. But in reality, a simple "yes" or "no" answer is not always forthcoming. Because of the inherently persuasive nature of in-custody interrogation, suspects express themselves in a variety of ways.¹⁹ Because under these circumstances the speaker's true intent is unknown, clarifying ambiguities is vital to safeguarding the values embedded in the Fifth Amendment right to silence and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. As one commentator noted in the context of a request for counsel:

[A defendant's statements] could be the poorly phrased products of decisions to secure fifth or sixth amendment protection; they could also indicate incipient, indefinite desires for counsel, a reflection on the options, or a desire for clarification of the possibilities. Such queries or statements could reflect indecision, or ongoing mental processes that may or may not result in reliance on a constitutional safeguard, or an effort to buy time for a definitive decision. Although one can guess at the intent of such allusions to counsel, it is impossible to know the real meaning of any of them.²⁰

Where a defendant unambiguously waives his or her right to silence, however, interrogating officers need not ask clarifying follow-up questions.²¹

Because a finding of ambiguity rests on the totality of the circumstances, an inquiry into whether a defendant has waived his or her constitutional rights must proceed on a case-by-case basis. Numerous jurisdictions have addressed a variety of defendant statements in the waiver context. Several federal courts, for example, have looked to the challenged assertion's indeterminacy and obliquity. Thus, "I might want to speak to a lawyer,"²² "Maybe I should talk to a lawyer,"²³ and "That's all I know, and I don't have anything else to say"²⁴ all have been considered ambiguous statements. A defendant who gives contradictory answers to identical questions also has not unequivocally waived a constitutional right.²⁵ Even if these or similar statements are made voluntarily, each statement displays a measure of indecision on the part of the defendant that casts doubt on the validity of the interrogation process.²⁶

Other federal courts, however, have encountered unambiguous statements. In particular, "I'll answer what I want,"²⁷ "I think I want a lawyer before saying anything else,"²⁸ and "I have nothing to say, I'm going to get the death penalty anyway"²⁹ all evinced the intent of the speaker and thus were found to be unambiguous. Whether suspects choose to waive or invoke their rights, statements that articulate a desire either way are unequivocal when, under the totality of the circumstances, the statement is unaccompanied by other factors that demonstrate indecision on the part of the accused.³⁰

Recently, this Court has encountered several challenged statements. In Norcross v. State, we found that "I want to know what [the codefendant] said" was not an ambiguous...