People v. Elliott
| Decision Date | 08 March 2012 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 301645. |
| Citation | 815 N.W.2d 575,295 Mich.App. 623 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. ELLIOTT. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Bill Schuette, Attorney General, John J. Bursch, Solicitor General, Henry C. Zavislak, Prosecuting Attorney, and Jerrold Schrotenboer, Chief Appellate Attorney, for the people.
Patrick K. Ehlmann, East Lansing, for defendant.
Before: BECKERING, P.J., and OWENS and SHAPIRO, JJ.
Defendant, Samuel Lee Elliott, appeals as of right his conviction by a jury of armed robbery, MCL 750.529. The trial court sentenced defendant as a fourth-offense habitual offender, MCL 769.12, to 15 to 30 years' imprisonment.
The police arrested defendant for violating his parole after receiving information that he had committed a robbery. The police advised defendant of his Miranda1 rights and interrogated him. Defendant ultimately invoked his right to counsel, and the interrogation ended. Three days later, a parole officer served defendant with parole-violation charges while defendant was still in jail. The parole officer did not advise defendant of his Miranda rights before asking him for his statement regarding the robbery charge. Defendant told the parole officer that he committed the robbery. Defendant's confession to the parole officer was admitted during his trial, after which he was convicted of the charged offense. At issue in this case is whether the trial court erred when it denied defendant's motion to suppress his statements to the parole officer and, if so, whether the error was harmless. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
On June 16, 2010, a man entered an Admiral gas station at about 3:15 a.m. and asked the cashier for a pack of Marlboro Reds cigarettes. The man then told the cashier that he had a gun and that the cashier needed to give him the money from the register. The man wore a University of Michigan fleece pullover and a University of Michigan hat. The cashier noticed what appeared to be a handgun protruding from the waistband of the man's shorts. The cashier gave the man the pack of cigarettes and $157 from the register, including a marked $2 bill. The man then left the gas station.
The next day, defendant's brother contacted the police and told them that defendant had robbed the gas station. The police arrested defendant later that day for violating his parole and took him to the Jackson County Jail. The police then searched the residence where defendant was staying and obtained a hat and fleece pullover purportedly belonging to defendant that matched those worn by the robber. On June 18, 2010, detectives went to the jail, advised defendant of his Miranda rights, and interrogated him about the robbery. Defendant answered several questions, stated that he did not rob the gas station, and then invoked his right to an attorney, at which point the interrogation ended.
On June 21, 2010, Cheryl Evans, a parole officer, went to the jail to “serve [defendant] parole violation charges and get his statement” regarding the robbery. Before meeting with defendant, Evans received the police report and spoke with Detective Ed Smith about the fact that defendant was a suspect for the armed robbery of the gas station. A deputy escorted defendant from his jail cell to the jail library, where Evans interviewed him. Evans did not read defendant his Miranda rights. Evans served defendant with his parole-violation charges relating to the robbery and asked defendant for his statement regarding the robbery. According to Evans, defendant told her that he robbed the gas station. After the interview, Evans called Smith and informed him that defendant had confessed to the robbery. On June 24, 2010, defendant was arraigned on the charge of armed robbery.
On the first day of trial, but before jury selection, defendant moved to suppress the statements that he had made to Evans on June 21, 2010. Defense counsel stated that “the main issue” with respect to the motion was whether a parole officer constitutes a law enforcement officer for Fifth Amendment purposes. Defense counsel argued as follows, in pertinent part:
My argument, Judge, is that un-Mirandized statements obtained by Cheryl Evans, a parole agent, in the jail is an inherently coercive custodial condition, which is envisioned by Miranda. And that's the type of situation where ... in order for the statements to come in as evidence ... you need to have advised the suspect of his Miranda warnings and his right to counsel and everything that comes along with it.
* * *
... I believe that Cheryl Evans was acting as an agent of the government. There's a special relationship between her and Sam Elliott and, to make it even worse, it was in the jail. He was under arrest; he'd been there since the seventeenth.
* * *
Now, I know that the police advised him of his rights back on the eighteenth in this case, three days before. But he invoked his rights then and I don't think you can keep coming back.... Once you invoke your rights, questioning must stop. It did here, but then [Evans] came back, and I don't think you can come back again and start re-questioning where there has been an invocation of your constitutional right to counsel.
The prosecutor emphasized that under this Court's decision in People v. Littlejohn, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued September 11, 1998 (Docket No. 195286), 1998 WL 1989939, a parole officer is not a law enforcement officer for purposes of Miranda. The prosecutor argued that defendant's statements to Evans were admissible because Evans was not working in concert with the police, but was interviewing defendant as a parole officer. Smith then testified about the nature of his conversation with Evans before she interviewed defendant: “The gist of our conversation was [Evans] asked ... whether or not there was anything she could not bring up during her conversation with [defendant] and I told her no, that he had invoked his rights and I would not be speaking with him again.” Smith testified that this was the only conversation he had with Evans about the case before Evans interviewed defendant. Smith further testified that he was not aware of any other officers talking to Evans about the case or asking Evans to try and obtain information from defendant.
The trial court stated that the Miranda issue before it was “very unclear from the precedent that's out there.” The trial court then analyzed the motion to suppress under Littlejohn and concluded that defendant's statements to Evans were admissible:
Looking at People v. Littlejohn, Number 195286, although it's not a ... published case, it does state that:
And that's really the main question: is a parole officer acting in this capacity, not in concert with the law enforcement—a law enforcement official.
* * *
Based on the guidance from People v. Littlejohn and the circumstances outlined within that case, the Court's going to find that the parole officer was not acting in concert and the testimony I've heard here and the stipulated facts was not acting in concert with the police. She was there to advise [defendant] of the charges. The information she obtainedpreviously was to understand what was going on so that she could advise [defendant] of the parole violation charges. And, under these circumstances, she was not ... a law enforcement official and, therefore, the confession will come in. The statements made ... to her will come in.
Evans testified at trial that defendant confessed to committing the robbery. Following his conviction, the trial court sentenced defendant as a fourth-offense habitual offender to 15 to 30 years' imprisonment.2 Defendant now appeals as of right.
Defendant argues that the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress his statements to Evans because as a parole officer, Evans was a law enforcement officer for purposes of Miranda who subjected him to a custodial interrogation after he had invoked his right to counsel three days earlier. We agree.
When we review a trial court's factual findings with respect to a motion to suppress, we defer to the trial court unless the court's findings are clearly erroneous. People v. Herndon, 246 Mich.App. 371, 395, 633 N.W.2d 376 (2001). A finding is clearly erroneous if this Court is “left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.” People v. Muro, 197 Mich.App. 745, 747, 496 N.W.2d 401 (1993). We review de novo a trial court's ultimate decision on a motion to suppress. People v. Lapworth, 273 Mich.App. 424, 426, 730 N.W.2d 258 (2006).
The right against self-incrimination is guaranteed by both the United States and the Michigan Constitutions. U.S. Const. Am. V; Const. 1963, art. 1, § 17. “[T]he protection against compelled self-incrimination in the Michigan Constitution [is] construed the same as its federal counterpart.” People v. Bender, 452 Mich. 594, 637, 551 N.W.2d 71 (1996) (Boyle, J., dissenting). In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), the United States Supreme Court established “procedural safeguards ... to secure the privilege against self-incrimination.” Under Miranda, when a criminal defendant is subjected to a custodial interrogation, the...
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People v. Elliott
...thus “inadmissible in a subsequent trial [because] the parolee invoked the right to counsel before questioning.” People v. Elliott, 295 Mich.App. 623, 646, 815 N.W.2d 575 (2012). The Court of Appeals agreed with defendant that the trial court's error in denying the motion to suppress was no......
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