Haire v. Sarver

• Decision Date: 05 February 1971
• Docket Number: No. 20047.,20047.
• Citation: 437 F.2d 1262
• Parties: L. V. HAIRE, Appellant, v. Robert SARVER, Commissioner of Corrections, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

437 F.2d 1262 (1971)

L. V. HAIRE, Appellant, v. Robert SARVER, Commissioner of Corrections, Appellee.

No. 20047.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 5, 1971.

Philip S. Anderson, Little Rock, Ark., filed brief for appellant.

Joe Purcell, Atty. Gen., Don Langston, Deputy Atty. Gen., and Mike Wilson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, Ark., filed brief for appellee.

Before MEHAFFY and BRIGHT, Circuit Judges, and HARPER, Chief District Judge.

MEHAFFY, Circuit Judge.

L. V. Haire, defendant, was indicted for first degree murder for the killing of Freddie Lee Jackson, a sixteen-year old Negro boy.¹ Upon trial to a jury defendant was convicted of second degree murder and on direct appeal his conviction was affirmed by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Haire v. State, 245 Ark. 293, 432 S.W.2d 828 (1968). Defendant petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus which was denied by the federal district court, opinion reported in Haire v. Sarver, 306 F. Supp. 1195 (E.D.Ark.1969).

The issues on this appeal were resolved adversely to defendant by the Arkansas court in a unanimous opinion and also by the federal district court. They involve the admissibility of evidence of statements freely and voluntarily given by the defendant while in custody but without interrogation and whether such voluntary statements as to the location of the body and the murder weapon hidden in his home constituted a consent to the search. We affirm.

The facts in this case are not in dispute and are elaborately set out in the heretofore reported opinions, and in brief defendant has adopted the facts as recited by Chief Judge Henley in his opinion, Haire v. Sarver, supra. We briefly summarize.

The mother of the deceased reported his disappearance and stated to investigating officers that he was last seen leaving the mother's house in the company of defendant's wife who was subsequently identified and taken into custody. She apparently promptly admitted that the deceased had been murdered and that she and her husband committed the crime. While she was being questioned, defendant appeared voluntarily at the jail and was arrested. Defendant's wife told the officers that the body was in a wheat field on the right side of a county road. She was taken to the area where a search was conducted without success. Defendant was also taken to the scene and when his wife was asked whether she had not told the officers that the body was on the right hand side of the road, defendant, without waiting for her reply, stated, "no, Honey, on the left side." The wife was then asked where the gun was hidden and she replied that it was under the bed at her home. Again, defendant corrected her and stated that the gun was hidden in the fireplace. Defendant had not been given the Miranda warnings and was not interrogated. The body was found at the location defendant indicated. The two investigating officers accompanied by defendant's wife went to their house and found the gun where defendant said it was located. It was proven that the gun was the murder weapon from which six bullets had been fired into the body of the deceased. Sufficiency of the evidence is not challenged and the record reveals that defendant not only had threatened to kill the deceased but had purchased a box of bullets fitting the gun from a country merchant a short time prior to the crime. Thus, the evidence was sufficient to have justified the jury in finding deliberation and premeditation and a verdict of first degree murder, but the jury verdict was for a sentence of twenty-one years for second degree murder.

Admissibility of Defendant's Statements.

Defendant argues in brief that in permitting evidence of self-incriminating statements of a person in custody but not in response to a direct question the Arkansas Supreme Court as well as the federal district court engrafted an exception to the Miranda rule, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). It is asserted that such a ruling is not countenanced by the explicit language of the Supreme Court in Miranda. We do not agree. Such an interpretation of Miranda as suggested would require a broad extension of Miranda — one that was not contemplated by the majority of the Supreme Court as clearly reflected by its opinion.

Defendant's argument assumes without record justification that he was interrogated but he was not interrogated at the scene or at any other time. He was under arrest and in custody and was taken to the scene. His wife had previously told the officers the location of the body. They could not find the body so the officers obviously thought that Mrs. Haire might be mistaken as to its location. It was in this light that questions were asked her. No question was put to defendant and his wife jointly, but only to the wife. The answer by defendant was freely, spontaneously and voluntarily given without any semblance of compelling influence. There is no evidence that he was interrogated prior to that time, and indeed there was no need to interrogate him as his wife had apparently immediately admitted that she and her husband had murdered Freddie Jackson. Both the Supreme Court of Arkansas and the federal district court found that the statements by defendant were voluntary and spontaneous and not in response to any interrogation of defendant by the officers. Defendant at no time was asked a single question and at the time he made the voluntary statements both he and his wife apparently were cooperative with the officers. There is no background or atmosphere here in any wise comparable to the four cases in Miranda.

In the very first paragraph of Chief Justice Warren's majority opinion in Miranda, he stated:

"More specifically, we deal with the admissibility of statements obtained from an individual who is subjected to custodial police interrogation and the necessity for procedures which assure that the individual is accorded his privilege under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution not to be compelled to incriminate himself." (Emphasis added). 384 U.S. at 439, 86 S.Ct. at 1609.

In the second paragraph of Chief Justice Warren's opinion, he stated:

"There, Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, 84 S.Ct. 1758, 21 L.Ed.2d 977 (1964) as in the four cases before us, law enforcement officials took the defendant into custody and interrogated him in a police station for the purpose of obtaining a confession." 384 U.S. at 440, 86 S.Ct. at 1610.

On the following page (384 U.S. at 441, 86 S.Ct. at 1611), the Chief Justice said that certiorari was granted in those cases "in order further to explore some facets of the problems, thus exposed, of applying the privilege against self-incrimination to in-custody interrogation * *." (Emphasis added.)

In more specifically describing the cases and the issues, the Chief Justice said on page 445, 86 S.Ct. at 1612:

"In each, the defendant was questioned by police officers, detectives, or a prosecuting attorney in a room in which he was cut off from the outside world. * * * They all thus share salient features — incommunicado interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere, resulting in self-incriminating statements without full warnings of constitutional rights."

The Chief Justice said at 384 U.S. at 457, 86 S.Ct. at 1618:

"In each of the cases, the defendant was thrust into an unfamiliar atmosphere and run through menacing police interrogation procedures."

In fact we find that the word "interrogation" is used at least one hundred twenty-nine times in the course of his opinion.

The Chief Justice made quite plain that statements given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influence are admissible and that the fundamental import of the privilege while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel but whether he can be interrogated. He stated:

"In dealing with statements obtained through interrogation, we do not purport to find all confessions inadmissible. Confessions remain a proper element in law enforcement. Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence. The fundamental import of the privilege while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel, but whether he can be interrogated. There is no requirement that police stop a person who enters a police station and states that he wishes to confess to a crime, or a person who calls the police to offer a confession or any other statement he desires to make. Volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the Fifth Amendment and their admissibility is not affected by our holding today.

"To summarize, we hold that when an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom by the authorities in any significant way and is subjected to questioning, the privilege against self-incrimination is jeopardized." 384 U.S. at 478, 86 S.Ct. at 1630.

In the case at bar, despite the fact that defendant was in custody for several hours before the statements were made, there is no allegation that he was questioned at all during this period and no evidence of any semblance of pressure or coercion or lack of voluntariness of the statements. "If authorities conclude that they will not provide counsel during a reasonable period of time in which investigation in the field is carried out, they may refrain from doing so without violating the person's Fifth Amendment privilege so long as they do not question him during that time." 384 U.S. at 474, 86 S.Ct. at 1628. We hold that the district court was correct in finding that defendant's statements were spontaneous and voluntary and note that it is not controverted that defendant actually made the statements.

The Search and Seizure.

It is next contended that the murder weapon and the articles of clothing were inadmissible as being...