Munson v. State
| Decision Date | 18 November 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. S-10444.,S-10444. |
| Citation | 123 P.3d 1042 |
| Parties | Paul David MUNSON, Petitioner, v. STATE of Alaska, Respondent. |
| Court | Alaska Supreme Court |
Cynthia L. Strout, Anchorage, for Appellant.
W.H. Hawley, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Bruce M. Botelho, Attorney General, Juneau, for Appellee.
Before: FABE, Chief Justice, MATTHEWS, EASTAUGH, BRYNER, and CARPENETI, Justices.
During a custodial interrogation, murder suspect Paul Munson unambiguously declared that he wished to terminate the interrogation. The investigator continued questioning Munson, who subsequently confessed to his participation in the crime. The trial court suppressed the confession. The court of appeals reversed, finding that Munson had only ambiguously invoked his right to remain silent, that an ambiguous request is insufficient to invoke the right, and that a police interrogator has no duty to clarify an ambiguous invocation of the right. Because we find that Munson unambiguously invoked his right to remain silent, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals.
On September 14, 1999 Paul Munson was charged with the murder of Morgan ("Wolfie") Gorsche. The state alleged that Munson and three friends killed Gorsche in retaliation for allegedly molesting a three-year old girl. On September 15 Munson was arrested in Portland, Oregon by Anchorage police detectives Joseph Hoffbeck and David Parker, who interviewed Munson at a Portland police station before his extradition to Alaska. They informed Munson of his Miranda1 rights and proceeded to ask him questions about the murder. A few minutes into the interview, as Detective Hoffbeck began to ask questions directly related to the homicide, Munson expressed fear that a co-defendant, Samuel Camanga, might learn of his discussion with the police, and he indicated that he did not want to discuss the crime:
[Munson]: What's gonna happen? Is Sam gonna know I'm saying this?
[Investigator]: Maybe Sam's already talked to me.
[Munson]: No, but . . .
[Investigator]: Eventually Sam is going to know, yes . . . the answer to that is yes. Everybody . . . everybody involved is going to know eventually . . . yes they will.
[Munson]: Well, I'm done talkin' then.
(Emphasis added.) Rather than ceasing the questioning at this point, Detective Hoffbeck continued:
[Investigator]: Before you make a final decision on that there. . . play that tape there for him . . .
[Munson]: You know what'll happen to me?
[Investigator]: Listen to this here . . .2
Hoffbeck then played a recording, which had been surreptitiously obtained pursuant to a Glass warrant,3 of Munson discussing the killing with another co-defendant, Shane Clapper. After playing the recording and attempting to persuade Munson that his fears were unfounded, the investigator continued questioning Munson, who eventually confessed to his participation in the murder and implicated Sam Camanga as the person who actually shot Gorsche.
At an evidentiary hearing before Superior Court Judge Michael L. Wolverton, Munson argued that his confession should be suppressed because the state failed to honor his request to remain silent. Judge Wolverton agreed with Munson, concluding that he had attempted to invoke his right to remain silent when he said "Well, I'm done talkin' then," and that the investigator violated this right by continuing the interrogation. The court suppressed Munson's statements following his invocation of the right to remain silent.
The state petitioned for review, arguing that suppression was inappropriate because Munson had only equivocally invoked his right to remain silent, which, it claimed, was insufficient to trigger the state's obligation to terminate the interrogation or to clarify Munson's intent. The court of appeals agreed.4 The appeals court first found that Munson had ambiguously invoked his right to remain silent.5 Although the trial court had made no such finding, the court of appeals concluded that such a determination was implicit in the trial court's description of what the police should have done after Munson said, "Well, I'm done talkin' then."6 The court then noted that while Alaska law requires the police to clarify ambiguous requests for counsel,7 the U.S. Supreme Court's more recent pronouncement in Davis v. United States8 imposes no such duty on police interrogators.9 Citing a number of jurisdictions that have construed Davis to also require an unambiguous invocation of the right to remain silent,10 and reasoning that "the right to counsel is more rigidly observed than the right to silence,"11 the court concluded that the police have no duty to clarify an ambiguous invocation of the right to remain silent, and it reversed the suppression of Munson's confession.12 We granted review.
Whether Munson invoked the right against self-incrimination protected by both the United States13 and Alaska Constitutions14 presents a mixed question of law and fact that we review using our independent judgment.15 We adopt factual findings made by the trial court that are not clearly erroneous.16 In the absence of express findings, we must resolve disputed factual issues in favor of the party prevailing in the trial court.17 We review questions of law de novo,18 and "adopt the rule of law that is most persuasive in light of precedent, reason, and policy."19
Was Munson's statement, "Well, I'm done talkin' then," adequate to invoke the right to silence protected by the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and article I, section 9 of the Alaska Constitution? On its face, Munson's statement was entirely unambiguous: He clearly indicated that he was finished talking with the police. The state argues, as it did below, that the context of Munson's comment showed that he was afraid of retaliation by Sam Camanga — not of incriminating himself. The state reasons that Munson's request was therefore equivocal and thus insufficient to trigger any duty by the police to honor Munson's right to silence. The court of appeals agreed.20
We agree that the context of Munson's statement suggests that he wanted to terminate the interrogation because he was afraid of retaliation by Sam Camanga. But there was nothing ambiguous about the statement itself; and an otherwise unambiguous request to terminate a custodial interview does not become somehow equivocal because it might be motivated by a fear of retaliation.21 Indeed, Detective Hoffbeck testified that he understood Munson's request as an attempt to cut off questioning entirely, but that he did not consider this statement to be an invocation of the right to silence because Munson did not express his desire in a manner which required him to cut off questioning.22 Thus, we conclude that a reasonable officer in these circumstances would have understood Munson's statement that he was "done talkin'," without condition or qualification, to be an unequivocal invocation of his right to silence. Though the test is an objective one, we also note that the investigator testified at the suppression hearing that he understood that Munson "wanted to stop at that point," and that his subsequent questioning (despite Munson's request) was based on an incorrect understanding of a suspect's right to silence — the investigator believed that he had no duty to stop asking questions until a suspect asks to speak with a lawyer or actually does not answer questions. Moreover, the superior court made no express finding that Munson's request was equivocal. To the contrary, the court's comments at the suppression hearing strongly imply that Munson's request was unambiguous.23 Because we conclude that Munson's statement "Well, I'm done talkin' then" was an unambiguous request to terminate the interview, the question is not whether Munson's request was equivocal, but rather whether, in order for a suspect to validly invoke the right to silence, it must be clear that his reason for doing so is specifically motivated by a fear of self-incrimination.
Because we find that Munson's request was unequivocal, we decline to address whether the police have an obligation to clarify an ambiguous invocation of the right to silence, and whether the dual prongs of Miranda24 are entitled to differing levels of protection. Instead, we focus on the core issue, which is whether Munson had a right to remain silent even if his unambiguous request to do so might have been motivated by immediate fear of a co-defendant.
We turn to the question whether a statement by a suspect that he was "done talkin'" is a valid invocation of the right to silence if it was not clearly motivated by fear of self-incrimination. If our answer is "yes," then the police investigators were bound by Miranda and its progeny to respect that right; but if the request was not constitutionally-protected, then the investigators had no duty to stop the interrogation or to clarify Munson's intentions.
We begin our analysis with the words of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section nine of the Alaska Constitution, both of which guarantee that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal [case or proceeding] to be a witness against himself." These simple words form the basis of a criminal defendant's rights to counsel and to remain silent.25 While the core protection is a prohibition on compelling a defendant to testify against himself at trial,26 Miranda and our own cases under the Alaska Constitution show that this protection is enforceable in any setting where a suspect is subject to...
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