Lara v. State, 00-232.
| Decision Date | 13 June 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-232.,00-232. |
| Citation | 2001 WY 53,25 P.3d 507 |
| Parties | Donnie Ray LARA, Sr., Appellant (Defendant), v. The STATE of Wyoming, Appellee (Plaintiff). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
Carol Seeger of Carter Law Office, Gillette, WY, Representing Appellant.
Gay Woodhouse, Wyoming Attorney General; D. Michael Pauling, Senior Assistant Attorney General; and Paul S. Rehurek, Deputy Attorney General, Representing Appellee.
Before LEHMAN, C.J., and GOLDEN, HILL, and KITE, JJ.
[¶ 1] Appellant, Donnie Ray Lara Sr. (Lara), seeks review of the judgment and sentence of the district court which found him guilty of one count of delivery of methamphetamine and one count of conspiracy to deliver methamphetamine. The district court sentenced Lara to two concurrent sentences of four to ten years for those crimes. Although Lara originally entered a plea of not guilty, he later decided to change his plea to guilty conditioned upon leave to appeal the district court's determination that his confessions to those crimes were not coerced.
[¶ 2] We will affirm.
[¶ 3] The sole issue raised in this appeal is whether the district court erred in denying Lara's motion to suppress his confessions. Lara contends that his confessions were not voluntary but, on the contrary, were coerced because the police officers that questioned him indicated that if he cooperated with them, then custody of his four children would be returned to him. The police denied that any such coercive tactic was used. Lara's children were placed in the temporary custody of the Department of Family Services (DFS) in the late night hours of Thursday-Friday, November 11-12, 1999. Lara's woman friend and the mother of his children, Michele Henderson (Henderson), was arrested during that time on charges relating to possession of methamphetamine, and there was no other responsible adult in the household to care for the children. As we shall set out in more detail below, the police officers involved testified that they did no more than inform Lara that his children were in the custody of DFS so that he would know where they were and attempted to inform him of the procedure to follow to locate them and inquire about the custody arrangements.
[¶ 4] At about 8:00 p.m., on November 11, 1999, the Gillette Police Department was called upon to investigate a report of child abuse that is unrelated to this case. However, in the course of conducting that investigation, the police seized methamphetamine from a female suspect, and that suspect reported that Henderson had delivered the methamphetamine to the suspect at Henderson's home. The police officers then obtained a warrant to search the house that Henderson and Lara shared. Methamphetamine was found in the residence, although neither Henderson nor Lara were present when the search warrant was executed. Henderson later confessed to her role in possessing, delivering, and conspiring to deliver methamphetamine, and she was arrested. The only adult present at the Henderson-Lara residence was Steve Newport. He was in possession of a syringe, which contained methamphetamine, and he appeared to be high on methamphetamine. For these reasons, DFS was contacted for the purpose of providing shelter care for the children1. Over the next 12 hours the police interviewed Lara on three occasions, and on each of those occasions Lara provided police with information that incriminated him in the activities for which he was ultimately convicted.
[¶ 5] The first such contact went as follows: Because Lara was not at home, the police began looking for him, and they actually ended up finding him driving to his residence. The police pulled him over just a half-block from his home. At about 1:00 a.m., on Friday, November 12, 1999, Forest "Frosty" Williams (Williams), a special agent for the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), and Kevin McGrath, a Gillette police officer working with DCI, stopped Lara and asked him if he was willing to talk about what had happened that night. The officers intended to talk with Lara about his and Henderson's involvement in selling methamphetamine. They also wanted to inform Lara what had occurred at his home (that Henderson had been arrested and his children placed in shelter care). During that talk, as well as the succeeding interviews, Lara admitted to delivering methamphetamine to Ronald Wheelhouse and conspiring with Jason Cioffi to deliver methamphetamine. Both Williams and McGrath knew Lara from contacts they had with him in the past. Lara referred to the two police officers in the familiar names "Frosty" and "Kevin." With respect to this incident, Lara said that McGrath told him he could get his children back on the following Monday if he would cooperate with the police. Lara was not arrested during this encounter. The interview with Lara was not tape-recorded by the police.
[¶ 6] The second contact occurred only a few minutes later inside Lara's home. Williams left the scene of the first meeting with Lara and proceeded to follow-up on another aspect of the investigation into these crimes. McGrath rode with Lara (in Lara's pickup) the half-block to his home and followed him inside. Once inside, McGrath initiated a second interview with Lara. McGrath again told Lara about the children being placed in shelter care and that if he cooperated and was truthful, they would talk to the prosecutor on his behalf. McGrath made clear that no threats or promises were made concerning the children. Lara testified that McGrath told him he could get his children back on the following Monday if he cooperated with the police. Lara claimed he thought he was under arrest and that the police were going to take his children away from him. Lara also said that he understood McGrath to say that if he cooperated, then his children would be returned to him later that same day. Lara said he would not have cooperated if the police had not brought up the subject of his children. Lara was not arrested that night. These discussions likewise were not tape-recorded.
[¶ 7] The third contact occurred at about 1:00 p.m., on November 12, 1999, at the Campbell County Courthouse. Williams and McGrath ran into Lara in a courthouse hallway. Lara was there to attend Henderson's arraignment. They asked to talk with Lara and he again agreed to talk. At that interview, Lara again asked about his children:
[¶ 8] Williams also testified that he did not threaten Lara, nor did he tell Lara that he could only regain custody of his children if he confessed to the crimes and cooperated with the police. This interview was not tape-recorded either. Lara testified that he was threatened at this interview with the loss of his children and that he was unable to find out from the police where his children were or how to regain custody. Lara was not arrested on November 12, 1999. In his testimony at the suppression hearing, Lara went on to say that he went to bed at home in the early morning hours on November 12, 1999, and woke up about 10:00 a.m. that same morning. He listened to the radio and then later attended Henderson's arraignment. Lara said that on November 12, 1999, he talked with his niece about how to get his children back. He also claimed he contacted two lawyers on November 12, 1999, about regaining custody of the children. Lara was arrested on Monday, November 15, 1999.
[¶ 9] 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...
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