Goulart v. State, 02-100.
| Decision Date | 05 September 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-100.,02-100. |
| Citation | 76 P.3d 1230,2003 WY 108 |
| Parties | Vincent A. GOULART, Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Representing Appellant: James A. Eddington of Torrington.
Representing Appellee: Hoke MacMillan, Attorney General; Paul S. Rehurek, Deputy Attorney General; D. Michael Pauling, Senior Assistant Attorney General; and Richard Rideout, Special Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Mr. Rideout.
Before HILL, C.J., and GOLDEN, LEHMAN, KITE, and VOIGT, JJ.
[¶ 1] Appellant, Vincent A. Goulart (Goulart), entered a conditional plea of nolo contendere1 to the crime of committing an immoral or indecent act with a child who was his step-daughter (victim).2 The conditions that Goulart wanted to appeal were that the district court erred in denying Goulart's motion to suppress statements made to the police, that a police officer "tainted" the victim's testimony by suggesting language to her during an interview, and that the district court erred in refusing to allow Goulart to introduce the testimony of the victim's sister (AG).
[¶ 2] We will affirm.
[¶ 3] Goulart poses the issues in these terms:
The State, in turn, states these issues:
[¶ 4] Goulart was charged with one count of committing an immoral or indecent act with the victim. The gravamen of the charge was that on or about October 4, 2000, Goulart touched the victim with his hand on her bare buttocks and that, later that same night, he touched her on her vaginal area, which was covered with clothing at the time. According to the victim, she and her younger brother were lying on their parents' bed watching TV when Goulart returned home at about midnight, after a night of drinking. The children's mother was away for the weekend. Goulart got in bed with the two children. The victim was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. The victim related that Goulart first rubbed her buttocks with his hand, placing his hand underneath her shorts. The victim then left that bedroom and went to her own room and got into the top bunk of a set of bunk beds. Goulart came downstairs and said she should come back to bed. She followed Goulart back to the parents' bed, whereupon Goulart used his hand to rub her vagina, placing his hand on top of her shorts. The victim said, "Daddy, please stop," and then lay down on the floor by the bed to sleep. The report of this incident to the police did not occur until several months later in February of 2001.
[¶ 5] On June 20, 2001, Goulart entered a plea of not guilty. On October 2, 2001, Goulart changed his plea to a plea of nolo contendere, reserving for appeal the issues we now have before us.
[¶ 6] A trial court's ruling on a defendant's motion to suppress a statement on the grounds that it was made involuntarily is reviewed de novo. In conducting such a review, we defer to the trial court's findings of fact unless those findings are clearly erroneous. This Court considers all the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's determination because the trial court has the opportunity to hear the evidence and to assess the credibility of witnesses. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and Wyoming Constitution Article 1, §§ 6 and 11, require that confessions be voluntary. A statement that is obtained by coercion is not trustworthy and may not be used at trial against the person who made it. A defendant is deprived of the right to due process of law if an involuntary statement is admitted at his trial. A statement is considered to be voluntary if the defendant makes it of his own free and deliberate choice, and not because of intimidation, coercion or deception. The prosecution has the burden to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that a defendant's statement is voluntary. Lara v. State, 2001 WY 53, ¶ 9, 25 P.3d 507, ¶ 9 (Wyo.2001); also see Hadden v. State, 2002 WY 41, ¶ 17, 42 P.3d 495,
¶ 17 (Wyo.2002); and Meek v. State, 2002 WY 1, ¶ 13, 37 P.3d 1279, ¶ 13 (Wyo.2002).
[¶ 7] A capsule statement of Goulart's contentions in this regard is this: "The only issue is whether the degree of trickery, psychological pressure, threats, implied promises and inducements applied by the police officer in this case equate to involuntariness."
[¶ 8] The record shows that Goulart was asked to come to the police station in Torrington on February 20, 2001. The interview began at 10:00 a.m., and it lasted for about 90 minutes. Goulart came to the police station at the request of Police Officer Curtis, but Goulart was not under arrest, nor was he arrested the day of the interview. Goulart was given Miranda warnings before the interview commenced, and Officer Curtis testified that Goulart waived those rights and agreed to talk with him about the alleged crime. Goulart was not informed of the subject of the interview until after the interview was underway. Officer Curtis did not obtain a written Miranda waiver because he "had this on tape."3 We note that the transcript of the tape does not include Goulart's responses indicating that he understood the Miranda warnings, though it does include his agreement to talk after the Miranda warnings were read to him. The tape itself is barely audible in this regard, but what sounds like "uh-hum" can be heard to most of the inquiries as to Goulart's understanding of his rights.
[¶ 9] Goulart relies principally upon our decision in State v. Evans, 944 P.2d 1120 (Wyo.1997), in structuring his argument. Indeed, that case is directly in point, although it is to the opposite effect. That is, in the Evans case a district court ordered that a statement given to the police be suppressed and, thus, our analysis focused on the evidence favorable to the district court's ruling that the prosecution had failed to meet its burden of demonstrating the voluntariness of the statement. Id., at 1126-28. That same sort of analysis, of course, applies equally here. However, in this instance the district court concluded that the State did meet its burden of demonstrating that the statements obtained from Goulart were voluntary, as well as that the evidence presented by Goulart did not seriously refute the State's evidence.
[¶ 10] The district court found that Goulart was asked to come to the police department for an interview. Before the interview, Goulart was informed that the police were investigating an allegation that he had molested the victim. The police informed Goulart of his Miranda rights and, in light of those warnings, Goulart agreed to answer questions. Goulart took a cell phone to the interview with him and took a call on it during the interview process. In addition, at one point Goulart indicated that he was going to leave but was persuaded by Officer Curtis to stay and complete the interview. Although Officer Curtis was insistent and persistent in his questioning, he did not force Goulart to answer questions. Indeed, Officer Curtis told Goulart he should not confess to something he did not do. During the course of the interview, including one time after only a few minutes of questioning, Goulart conceded on several occasions that he might have touched his daughter accidentally, though he had no specific recollection of it. The district court concluded that Goulart had made his statements voluntarily after being given Miranda warnings. Further, Goulart was not in custody, and a reasonable person, given the circumstances, would have known that he was free to leave and free not to answer any questions.
[¶ 11] We have carefully reviewed the same materials that were available to the district court and, of course, we have done so considering all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's determination, because the trial court had the opportunity to hear the evidence and to assess the credibility of witnesses. We conclude that Goulart's statements were not the product of trickery, psychological pressure, threats, implied promises, and/or inducements used by the police officer. Thus, we also conclude that the trial court findings in this regard are not clearly erroneous, and we hold that the trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress the statements at issue.
[¶ 12] The standard of review applicable to a competency hearing is clearly established:
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