Green v. Superior Court

• Decision Date: 21 October 1985
• Docket Number: S.F. 24715
• Citation: 40 Cal.3d 126,707 P.2d 248,219 Cal.Rptr. 186
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 707 P.2d 248 Charles Tyree GREEN, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Alameda County, Respondent; The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest.

Page 186

219 Cal.Rptr. 186

40 Cal.3d 126, 707 P.2d 248

Charles Tyree GREEN, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Alameda County, Respondent The PEOPLE, Real Party in Interest.

S.F. 24715.

Supreme Court of California.

Oct. 21, 1985.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 27, 1985.

James R. Jenner, Public Defender, Howard C. Harpham and Michael S. Ogul, Asst. Public Defenders, Oakland, for petitioner.

Frank O. Bell, Jr., State Public Defender, and Julia Cline Newcomb, Deputy State Public Defender, as amici curiae on behalf of petitioner.

No appearance for respondent.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Thomas A. Brady, Martin S. Kaye, Ronald A. Bass and Dane R. Gillette, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for real party in interest.

KAUS, Justice. ^*

Petitioner Charles Tyree Green (defendant) seeks writ review of a trial court ruling which denied his motion to suppress (1) statements he made to police officers on February 16, 1982, (2) his work coveralls that were seized on that date, and (3) confessions allegedly obtained as a result of the earlier statements and seizure of the coveralls. (Pen.Code, § 1538.5, subd. (i).) He contends that the coveralls were the product of a custodial interrogation without Miranda warnings (Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694) or, alternatively, that they were the product of an illegal detention or arrest.

Defendant is charged with the robbery and murder of Harold Golden on February 11, 1982. (Pen.Code, §§ 211, 187.) He is also alleged to have committed the murder during the commission of a robbery, a special circumstance under the 1978 death penalty law. (Pen.Code, § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i).)

At the hearing on the motion to suppress, Sergeant Michael Sitterud, the lead investigating officer, testified that on February 14, 1982, Golden's body was found in the trunk of his car by two relatives. His wife had reported him missing after he failed to return home from work on February 11. According to the missing person report, Golden worked at the toll booth in a garage on Clay Street in Oakland, giving out tickets and collecting money. Apparently the last person to have seen him was defendant, who worked as a janitor at the garage. Defendant said Golden was still there when he left the garage about 8 p.m. on February 11.

On the morning of February 15, Sitterud met with Carl Ivey, the manager of the garage and a retired police officer. Sitterud spoke with Ivey at the police station in one of the interview rooms. Ivey told him that Golden's duties included depositing the day's receipts at the bank and that the receipts from February 11 were missing. The amount would have been between $300 and $700. Ivey also told Sitterud that defendant worked as a janitor at both the Clay Street garage and a garage on Franklin Street and that he was not scheduled to be back at work until February 16. According to Ivey, Golden had not trusted defendant. Defendant made $5.75 an hour and had recently bought a used car.

Later that day Ivey called to report that he had found some of Golden's property, an empty money box, a bank deposit bag and possibly the murder weapons--a pipe and a knife--in a dumpster at the garage. In the afternoon Sitterud learned from the autopsy that Golden had died from blunt trauma to the head and stab wounds in the chest and back. Sitterud and his partner Sergeant Vargas then searched the first floor of the garage for signs of blood. Aside from a minute speck of what might have been blood in the supply area, they found no evidence establishing the scene of the killing.

On February 16, Sitterud arranged with the crime lab to spray the garage with flourinol or luminol, a process which reveals blood traces otherwise not visible. He was to meet the technicians at the garage at 6 p.m. At noon on February 16, Sitterud spoke with Ivey by phone. Ivey told him that Norma Snead, a resident of a nearby apartment building, had been in the garage about 7:30 p.m. on February 11. The conversation between Sitterud and Ivey was very brief.

Sitterud and Vargas--wearing plain clothes and driving an unmarked car--went to the garage about 4:15 p.m. on February 16. They told Ivey they wanted to talk to defendant, who was scheduled to start work at 4:30 p.m. After Ivey pointed out defendant, Sitterud walked up to him, introduced himself and said he was investigating Golden's disappearance. He asked defendant to accompany him to his office for an interview and said "if at any time he needed to come back, we'd drive him back, not to worry about a ride."

Sitterud considered defendant to be a very important witness because he was the last person to have seen Golden and was familiar with the day-to-day operations at the garage. He did not view defendant as a suspect at that time or during the initial interviews. For that reason no Miranda warnings were given.

Sitterud and Vargas took defendant to one of the interview rooms at the station. These were the same rooms which had been used to interview Ivey and Golden's relatives who had found his body. The rooms are 7 by 12 feet, have no windows and require a key to enter or exit. Sitterud said he routinely conducts witness interviews in these rooms since there is no other appropriate location.

The initial interview with defendant began at 4:35 p.m. and continued until 5:30 p.m., when the officers told defendant they wanted to take a taped statement and asked him "to mentally review the time frames" while they were getting the equipment. Using notes from the first interview, they took a more detailed taped statement. This interview lasted from 5:50 p.m. to 6:25 p.m., at which time the officers said they were late for a meeting and asked defendant if he would wait for them because they might have some more questions. Defendant agreed and remained in the interview room while Sitterud and Vargas went to the garage to meet the crime lab technicians. Sitterud said it was not unusual to ask witnesses to wait like this and that the interview rooms were the only appropriate place for them to stay. Sitterud asked Lieutenant Green to take care of defendant's needs while they were gone. ¹ Sitterud testified that he did not know whether defendant was aware that the interview room was locked. He also said he would have let defendant go if he had not wanted to wait.

The interviews with defendant consisted of detailed questions by Sitterud and Vargas regarding the garage operations, Golden's habits, defendant's relationship with Golden, his actions on the 11th, when he left that night, the clothes he was wearing, and other information about defendant's personal life. The questions were detailed but not accusatory. After the initial offer to drive him back to the garage whenever he wanted, defendant was never told he was free to leave.

Sitterud spoke with Ivey when he arrived at the garage around 6:45 p.m. Ivey told him that when Norma Snead had been at the garage at 7:30 p.m. on February 11, the lights were out and no one was there. This contradicted defendant's statement that he had left at 7:50 p.m., that the lights were then on and Golden was in the booth. Ivey also told Sitterud that at 4:15 p.m. that day defendant had brought in the coveralls he usually wore at work and that they were in the supply area--an area surrounded by a cyclone fence, where cleaning supplies were kept. The area was unlocked at the time, although, it was locked at times.

Sitterud decided he would like to examine the coveralls for blood. About 6:50 p.m.--25 minutes after he had left defendant--he called Lieutenant Green to ask him to ask for defendant's permission to examine the coveralls. Green did so and reported that defendant had said to go ahead. Sitterud went to the unlocked supply area and examined the coveralls. They were in plain sight on top of a box. He found obvious traces of blood on them, though they had been diluted with water. ² At this point, according to Sitterud, defendant became a suspect.

Sitterud talked to Norma Snead who confirmed that she had been in the garage between 7:15 and 7:30 p.m. on February 11. She was certain the lights were out, the gate locked, and neither defendant nor the victim present.

In the meantime, the technicians had found traces of blood in the basement of the garage. The results of the flourinal spraying were dramatic, revealing streaks where the floor had been mopped and the walls washed off. A pool of blood was found under a trailer wheel.

Sitterud said that if defendant had not consented to the examination of his coveralls, he would have left them where they were and continued with the investigation by the crime lab technicians. However after the technicians found what appeared to be the crime scene, he would have seized the coveralls without a warrant or defendant's consent. He knew where the coveralls were and that they were defendant's.

Sitterud and Vargas went back to the office at 10:15 p.m., gave defendant Miranda warnings, obtained a waiver and interrogated him. At that point defendant was under arrest. He confessed to the robbery and murder of Golden after being confronted with the evidence of blood on his coveralls and the discrepancies between his time frames and those of Norma Snead.

Defendant did not testify at the suppression hearing.

In denying the motion to suppress, the superior court expressly found "quite believable" Sitterud's testimony that defendant was not a suspect during the initial interviews. Although in hindsight suspicion might have been focused on defendant earlier, Sitterud had other cases going at the time and was only in the initial stages of investigation in this case. The court found that the initial interviews were not custodial interrogation and that defendant was free to leave at any time before his actual arrest.

I

Defendant's principal contention is that the initial interviews were custodial, that Miranda warnings should have been given and that...