Morales v. State
| Decision Date | 08 June 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. 10A05-0007-CR-294.,10A05-0007-CR-294. |
| Citation | 749 N.E.2d 1260 |
| Parties | Guadalupe MORALES, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Jeffrey D. Stonebraker, Chief Public Defender, Jeffersonville, IN, Attorney for Appellant.
Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Ellen H. Meilaender, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.
Guadalupe Morales appeals her conviction following a jury trial of Neglect of a Dependent, as a Class B felony. She presents two issues for our review, which we restate as:
1. Whether the trial court erred when it denied her motion to suppress her incriminating statements.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it denied her motion for mistrial.
We affirm.1
Morales emigrated from Mexico and speaks very little English. On January 11, 1999, Morales took her two-year-old daughter, J.M., to the Medical Center of Southern Indiana in Charlestown. When they arrived at the emergency room, Morales told the triage nurse that J.M. needed medical treatment for diaper rash.2 The nurse examined J.M.'s buttocks and suspected that J.M. had sustained a burn injury rather than diaper rash. Dr. Glen Franklin examined J.M., diagnosed her with a scald injury to her buttocks, and ordered that J.M. be transferred to Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, for medical treatment. Concerned that the injury stemmed from abuse or neglect, Dr. Franklin immediately reported the incident to Child Protective Services ("CPS").
Before J.M. was transported to Kosair, Charlestown Police Officer Don Wolfe arrived at the hospital and asked to speak with Morales. Officer Wolfe also asked Crystal Chavez, a police dispatcher who speaks both English and Spanish, to come to the hospital to act as an interpreter. Through Chavez, Officer Wolfe told Morales that he wanted to talk to her about J.M.'s injury. Morales agreed and followed Officer Wolfe, Chavez, and Officer John Ennis to the hospital's chapel. Before Officer Wolfe initiated any questioning of Morales, he asked Chavez to translate a Miranda3 warning card into Spanish for Morales. After Chavez read the card, Officer Wolfe asked Morales about J.M.'s injury. Morales initially stated that it was diaper rash, but after Officer Wolfe expressed skepticism, she stated that her five-year-old son had placed J.M. into a small bucket of hot water. After talking to Officer Wolfe for approximately twenty or thirty minutes, Morales returned to J.M.'s bedside.
Officer Wolfe, Officer Ennis, Chavez, and CPS investigator Chris Yarbrough proceeded to Morales' residence, where they met Morales' husband, Martin Perez. After Chavez orally translated a Miranda warning card for Perez, Officer Wolfe questioned Perez about J.M.'s injury. When Morales arrived home from the hospital, Officer Wolfe was still present and asked her to go to the police station for further questioning. Morales agreed, and she rode in a police car with Officer Ennis and Chavez.
At the station, Chavez orally translated an "Advice of Rights" form into Spanish for Morales, but Chavez failed to translate the "Waiver of Rights" portion of the form. See infra. After Morales signed the form, Officer Wolfe continued questioning her about the cause of J.M.'s injury. During the thirty or forty-five minutes of questioning, Morales again gave inconsistent explanations regarding the cause of the burn on J.M.'s buttocks. At one point, Officer Wolfe advised Morales that he would "let [her] go" to the hospital to see J.M. if she told him "what really happened." Record at 861. She finally told Officer Wolfe that "some girls had come to her door and called her some names[,]" and that "she was upset for being called the names, ... and the baby had been crying and ... she took the baby to the bathroom and [ran] hot water." Record at 779. Morales also told Dr. Carla Alcid, J.M.'s treating physician at Kosair, that the burn to J.M.'s buttocks was caused when she placed J.M. into the bathtub. Dr. Alcid relayed that information to Yarbrough.
The State charged Morales with neglect of a dependent, as a Class B felony, for causing J.M.'s burn injury. Morales filed a motion to suppress her statements to police at the hospital and at the police station, as well as her statements to Dr. Alcid, on the ground that she had not been adequately advised of her Miranda rights. After a hearing, the trial court denied that motion and proceeded to trial. A jury found Morales guilty. She now appeals.
Morales first contends the trial court erred when it denied her motion to suppress her statements to police. Specifically, she argues her statements should have been suppressed because she did not knowingly, voluntarily, or intelligently waive her Miranda rights. Morales also maintains her statements to Dr. Alcid should have been suppressed under the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. The State responds that there is no Miranda issue here because Morales was not in police custody when she made the challenged statements. We address each of Morales' contentions in turn.
We review the denial of a motion to suppress in a manner similar to other sufficiency matters. Overstreet v. State, 724 N.E.2d 661, 663 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. denied. We do not reweigh the evidence, and we consider conflicting evidence most favorable to the trial court's ruling. Id. However, unlike the typical sufficiency of the evidence case where only the evidence favorable to the judgment is considered, we must also consider the uncontested evidence favorable to the defendant. Id.
It is well settled that the protections afforded under Miranda are implicated only when the defendant has been subjected to a custodial interrogation, which is "questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way." Bishop v. State, 700 N.E.2d 473, 476 (Ind.Ct.App.1998) (citation omitted). Thus, the initial Miranda inquiry is whether the defendant was "in custody" at the time of questioning. Id. A criminal defendant is deemed in custody if a reasonable person in the same circumstances would not feel free to leave. Id. Whether a person was in custody depends upon "objective circumstances," not upon the subjective views of the interrogating officers or the subject being questioned. Id.
Here, we cannot say that Morales was in formal custody or that her freedom of action was limited in any significant way when she made her statements to police in the hospital chapel. Morales voluntarily accompanied Officer Wolfe to the chapel to discuss J.M.'s injury. See Cliver v. State, 666 N.E.2d 59, 66 (Ind.1996)
(). While neither Officer Wolfe nor Chavez advised Morales that she was free to leave the chapel, we find nothing in the record to suggest that a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave under the circumstances. We conclude that Morales was not subjected to a custodial interrogation in violation of her Miranda rights at the hospital chapel. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it denied her motion to suppress her statements to police in the chapel.
On the other hand, Morales was clearly subjected to a custodial interrogation at the police station. Officer Ennis drove Morales to the station in a police car. Once there, Officer Wolfe advised Morales that if she told him what happened to J.M., he would "let [her] go" to the hospital to see her child. Since Morales was told, in effect, that she needed Officer Wolfe's permission to visit her own daughter, we conclude that a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave the police station. In fact, it was only after further interrogation that Wolfe stopped the interview and allowed Morales to leave. Accordingly, Morales was entitled to an advisement of her Miranda rights. We must address, then, the issue of whether Morales knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waived her Miranda rights before she answered Officer Wolfe's questions.
A waiver of one's Miranda rights occurs when a defendant, after being advised of those rights and acknowledging an understanding of them, proceeds to make a statement without taking advantage of those rights. Crain v. State, 736 N.E.2d 1223, 1230 (Ind.2000). In addition to the required Miranda advisement, a defendant's self-incriminating statement must also be voluntarily given. Id. In judging the voluntariness of a defendant's waiver of rights, we will look to the totality of the circumstances to ensure that a defendant's self-incriminating statement was not induced by violence, threats, or other improper influences that overcame the defendant's free will. Id. The State bears the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant voluntarily and intelligently waived his rights, and that the defendant's confession was voluntarily given. Id. The decision whether to admit a confession is within the discretion of the trial judge and will not be reversed absent an abuse of that discretion. Id. When reviewing a challenge to the trial court's decision to admit a confession, we do not reweigh the evidence but instead examine the record for substantial, probative evidence of voluntariness. Id.
Here, Chavez orally translated an "Advice of Rights" form for Morales, asking her whether she understood the translation upon completion of each line. However, Chavez admits that she did not translate the "waiver" portion of the form, which reads:
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