Little v. United States, s. 10–CF–765

• Decision Date: 12 November 2015
• Docket Number: Nos. 10–CF–765,13–CO–481.,s. 10–CF–765
• Citation: 125 A.3d 1119
• Parties: Jalonte LITTLE, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

125 A.3d 1119

Jalonte LITTLE, Appellant,

v.UNITED STATES, Appellee.

Nos. 10–CF–765

13–CO–481.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued April 15, 2014.

Decided Nov. 12, 2015.

Debra L. Soltis, with whom Paul Y. Kiyonaga, Washington, DC, was on the brief, for appellant.

L. Jackson Thomas, II, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Ronald Machen Jr., United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, Roy W. McLeese III, Assistant United States Attorney at the time the brief was filed, and Heather L. Carlton, Elizabeth Danello, Chrisellen R. Kolb, Jeffrey Pearlman, Thomas Rees, and Elizabeth Trosman, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the briefs, for appellee.

Before BLACKBURNE–RIGSBY and BECKWITH, Associate Judges, and BELSON, Senior Judge.

BECKWITH, Associate Judge:

For nearly two hours of stationhouse questioning, in the face of false reports that several witnesses had identified him, a false claim that his fingerprints were found in the vehicle, and persistent illusory promises of favorable treatment if he confessed, eighteen-year-old Jolonta¹ Little remained steadfast in his denials that he was involved in the carjacking of which he was later convicted in this case. Things began to change, however, when a detective goaded him about the prospect of being sexually assaulted when he arrived at the D.C. Jail if he did not confess and thus give police "an opportunity to help [him] instead of incarcerate [him]." As Mr. Little began to waver, the detectives then proposed the idea of meeting with a lawyer to work out a deal. Under intensifying pressure, and having heard the detective mention a lawyer, Mr. Little inquired, "So where my attorney at?" and stressed that he was "trying to have that meeting set up." There would be no such meeting with his lawyer unless Mr. Little put some "meat ... on the table" and confessed, the officer said: "I got to have a reason for that to happen, and that reason is going to have to be you telling me what happened that day when that lady got robbed." At this point, in the face of a threat of being raped in jail, a confusing statement about when he could see a lawyer, and a statement that conditioned a meeting with a lawyer upon his confessing to the carjacking in this case, Mr. Little's resolve collapsed and he confessed.

The firmness of Mr. Little's denials during disquieting tactics and the persistence of those denials as the pressure increased help persuade us that when he finally did speak in the immediate wake of the most coercive tactics mentioned above, his statements were not made "freely, voluntarily, and without compulsion or inducement of any sort." Haynes v. Washington, 373 U.S. 503, 513, 83 S.Ct. 1336, 10 L.Ed.2d 513 (1963) ; In re J.F., 987 A.2d 1168, 1177 (D.C.2010). On this ground, we hold that Mr. Little's motion to suppress his confession should have been granted, and we reverse Mr. Little's convictions² and remand for a new trial.

I.

The charges against Jolonta Little stem from a September 19, 2008, incident in which a woman named Camilla Deline was standing near her Toyota Highlander outside her daughter's apartment on T Street N.W. when she was grabbed from behind and choked by one man while another man demanded her keys. Ms. Deline's daughter, Marisa Deline, arrived to find a young man in the driver's seat of her mother's car, another young man running around to the passenger side of the car, and her mother lying unconscious in the street. When Marisa yelled, the two men fled on foot. After a cell phone found in the vehicle was traced to Jolonta Little, police arrested Mr. Little on a juvenile absconder warrant and brought him to a Metropolitan Police Department station for questioning eight days after the incident. The interrogation was videotaped, and Mr. Little confessed to the carjacking at issue in this case approximately two hours into the more than five-hour-long videotape.

A. The Interrogation

As one detective put it, Jolonta Little's day began on September 27, 2008, when police "bang[ed] [his] door down at 7:00 in the morning and drag [ged] [him] out of bed while [he was] still in [his] drawers." By 8:37 a.m., Mr. Little, who had just turned eighteen the month before, was sitting alone in a small interrogation room, on a metal chair, with one wrist chained to the floor and both feet shackled, fidgeting and seeming to try to find a position in which he could sleep.

Several minutes into the videotape Detective Joe Crespo entered the room, followed some time later by Detective Dailey. Near the beginning of the interrogation, Detective Crespo read Mr. Little his Miranda³ rights. Before doing so, he told Mr. Little that this interrogation was "bigger than [the] absconder warrant" that he was picked up on, that "people are calling us telling us it was you" and "telling us what ... you've done," that he had been identified as the perpetrator in some "robberies," and that Detective Crespo was "already straight on [his] case." "If we don't work it out," Detective Crespo said, "we're going to go through with what we're doing and you're going to get hit with every one we got ... [u]nless you're able to offer some sort of explanation and alibi"—like explaining more about the money his mother gives him every month, as "not everybody has that, so that's a good thing for you." Mr. Little could refuse to answer any questions, the detective told him, "or you can say, you know, I want to talk to you because I want to find out more about what we know, you know what I mean? Because maybe we're wrong, who knows." But "this will be a unique opportunity for you to find out exactly what we got," and to "offer an explanation" or "offer ... something" that would convince the detectives they are wrong.

Detective Crespo read Mr. Little his rights, then told him that "if you want to find out more about what we think we know, you're going to have to agree to answer questions." Mr. Little hesitated, then said he would agree "as long as you all let me stop when I say I ain't ready—I don't want to talk," to which Detective Crespo responded:

That's cool. We can't make you do nothing because believe me when I tell you, this is an opportunity for you. This is not just—if we went through what we got already, we would have got a warrant for you already, but I knew that there has to be some sort of explanation because we both have been doing this for a long time. There had to be an explanation for what's been going on, and we are offering you the opportunity to explain something because typically, nine times out of ten, we get the warrant and lock you up and that's it.

After Detective Crespo instructed him to sign the form waiving his rights—"and I need you to sign it right there. What position you play in football?"—Mr. Little signed the form and the two then discussed football. At other points throughout the interrogation, the detectives talked to Mr. Little about other topics besides the offenses they suspected him of committing, including his son, his girlfriend, his Muslim religion, his hope to get his GED, his mother—"[Y]our mom loves you to death ... and now she doesn't have a son"—and the money his mother regularly gave him from a monthly check she received that somehow pertained to Mr. Little's learning disability. The detectives also inquired about Mr. Little's comfort, asking whether he had to use the bathroom and whether he was "all right," and offering to get him food from McDonald's.

Early on in the interrogation, the detectives sought to convince Mr. Little that they already had enough evidence to prosecute him for the offense—that, in the words of Detective Crespo, "we got you by the balls," "the chances of you getting charged with robbery are very high," and "this case is easy, and there's a very good chance you're going to get convicted of this, okay?" One piece of this evidence was real—Mr. Little's cell phone, which was found in the complainant's vehicle after the incident at 9th and T Streets. When Detective Crespo showed Mr. Little the phone, Mr. Little said that it was his phone and that he had lost it before that robbery occurred. Most of the detective's "evidence" was feigned. The detectives told Mr. Little, for example, that his fingerprints were found at the scene and that several witnesses to the carjacking would testify that they had selected his photograph from an array of nine photographs, when in fact, the government presented no fingerprints at trial and no witness identified Mr. Little as one of the carjackers. Detective Crespo also told Mr. Little—falsely—that he was subject to an enhanced penalty for robbing a senior citizen.⁴

As Mr. Little continued to deny being involved in any robbery, the detectives tried persuading him that he was going to be convicted no matter what,⁵ but if he cooperated by confessing, and by naming the other carjacker, he could get his charge reduced or dropped altogether. "You could be a defendant or a witness," Detective Crespo told him. "[T]hey're going to throw your life away unless you decide ... to come clean with everything and talk with us about whatever is going on and whatever happened."

While Detective Crespo noted that it was "illegal" for a detective to promise that Mr. Little's charge would be dismissed, he said that he had been working with the U.S. Attorney's Office for eighteen years, that "they've grown to expect the kind of work that I do," and that if Mr. Little talked, "the U.S. Attorney's Office will be able to do something to hook you up." In that same vein, Detective Dailey stated, "I'm trying to be straight up with you so that you can try to save your life. I don't want to see a young man go to jail." When Mr. Little seemed doubtful, Detective Crespo asked, "Are you out of your mind?" and told Mr. Little about a man he arrested on his third gun charge in two years who was "walking the street" "[b]ecause he decided to tell us what happened." Detective Dailey added: "There's plenty of people walking...