People v. Guilford

• Decision Date: 04 June 2013
• Citation: 21 N.Y.3d 205,969 N.Y.S.2d 430,991 N.E.2d 204,2013 N.Y. Slip Op. 03932
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. James E. GUILFORD, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

21 N.Y.3d 205
991 N.E.2d 204
969 N.Y.S.2d 430
2013 N.Y. Slip Op. 03932

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent,
v.
James E. GUILFORD, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 4, 2013.

[969 N.Y.S.2d 431]

Hiscock Legal Aid Society, Syracuse (Piotr Banasiak of counsel), for appellant.

William J. Fitzpatrick, District Attorney, Syracuse (James P. Maxwell and Victoria M. White of counsel), for respondent.

[21 N.Y.3d 207]OPINION OF THE COURT
LIPPMAN, Chief Judge.

[991 N.E.2d 205]Defendant appeals from an order of the Appellate Division affirming a judgment convicting him of murder in the second degree. The uncontested circumstance at the root of this appeal is that, before confessing to a detective that he had killed his former paramour, Ms. Nugent, defendant was subjected to a custodial interrogation lasting 49 1/2 hours. It is not now suggested that this evidently uniquely lengthy interrogation was proper, or that the trial court erred when it granted defendant's pretrial suppression motion to the extent of deeming inadmissible the statements made in its course on the ground, among others,¹ that they had been “involuntar[y] ... in the ‘traditional due process sense’.” The question posed is rather whether the exclusionary consequence of this marathon interrogation was correctly limited by the trial court to the statements made during the interrogation itself, or whether defendant's suppression [21 N.Y.3d 208]motion should have been granted to the further extent of suppressing his subsequent inculpatory statements.

The Appellate Division held that defendant's subsequent statements, the first and most significant of which—“I killed her”—was made some 10 hours after the 49 1/2-hour interrogation had concluded and in the presence of appointed counsel, had been shown sufficiently attenuated from the prior interrogation to permit the conclusion that they were not the product of official compulsion (96 A.D.3d 1375, 1377, 945 N.Y.S.2d 825 [2012] ). Two Justices disagreed, noting their view that neither the break in questioning nor the entry of counsel satisfied the People's burden to prove that the coercive effects of the interrogation had been neutralized so as to return defendant “in effect, to the status of one who is not under the influence of questioning” ( id. at 1384, 945 N.Y.S.2d 825 [Lindley and Martoche, JJ., dissenting], quoting People v. Chapple, 38 N.Y.2d 112, 115, 378 N.Y.S.2d 682, 341 N.E.2d 243 [1975] ). One of the dissenting Justices granted defendant permission to appeal, and we now reverse and direct a new trial.

I.

It was, of course, the People's burden to prove the voluntariness of defendant's statements beyond a reasonable doubt as a condition of their receipt at trial ( People v. Anderson, 42 N.Y.2d 35, 38–39, 396 N.Y.S.2d 625, 364 N.E.2d 1318 [1977];People v. Valerius, 31 N.Y.2d 51, 55, 334 N.Y.S.2d 871, 286 N.E.2d 254 [1972];People v. Huntley, 15 N.Y.2d 72, 78, 255 N.Y.S.2d 838, 204 N.E.2d 179 [1965] ).[991 N.E.2d 206]

[969 N.Y.S.2d 432]

Principally at issue here, however, is not the assignment of the burden or the generally applicable standard of proof, but precisely what had to be shown and whether that showing was sufficiently made.

Proof of voluntariness compatible with due process, we have said, will depend upon the particular circumstances—“the totality”—of each case ( Anderson, 42 N.Y.2d at 38, 396 N.Y.S.2d 625, 364 N.E.2d 1318, citing Clewis v. Texas, 386 U.S. 707, 708, 87 S.Ct. 1338, 18 L.Ed.2d 423 [1967];Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U.S. 191, 197, 77 S.Ct. 281, 1 L.Ed.2d 246 [1957];see also Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 434, 120 S.Ct. 2326, 147 L.Ed.2d 405 [2000] [“The due process test takes into consideration the totality of all the surrounding circumstances—both the characteristics of the accused and the details of the interrogation”] [citation and internal quotation marks omitted] ). In some situations—where, for example, Miranda warnings have been timely given—the requisite inference of voluntariness may be relatively easily drawn. But where there has been official illegality potentially impairing the voluntariness of a subsequent admission, the inference will naturally require a more exacting showing.

[21 N.Y.3d 209]We have recognized this principle most frequently in cases involving late Miranda warnings. In People v. Chapple, 38 N.Y.2d 112, 378 N.Y.S.2d 682, 341 N.E.2d 243 (1975) we held that the late interposition of those warnings would be “too late” unless there was a demonstration of a “pronounced break” in interrogation adequate to justify a finding that the defendant was no longer under the sway of the prior questioning when the warnings were given ( id. at 115, 378 N.Y.S.2d 682, 341 N.E.2d 243). We have since reaffirmed the need for this more precise showing under our state constitution ( People v. Bethea, 67 N.Y.2d 364, 368, 502 N.Y.S.2d 713, 493 N.E.2d 937 [1986];People v. Paulman, 5 N.Y.3d 122, 129–130, 800 N.Y.S.2d 96, 833 N.E.2d 239 [2005] ), notwithstanding federal precedent (i.e., Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 310–311, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 [1985] ) suggesting that, in the absence of actual coercion, Miranda warnings will ordinarily suffice to demonstrate the voluntariness of statements subsequently made. A less demanding rule, we noted, would have little deterrent effect, since the police could then “question a suspect in custody without warning, provided only they thereafter question him or her again after warnings have been given” ( Bethea, 67 N.Y.2d at 366, 502 N.Y.S.2d 713, 493 N.E.2d 937).

Where, as here, the predicate for the claim of involuntariness is actual coercion directed at extracting an inculpatory statement, and not simply the failure timely to administer Miranda warnings, the People's demonstration of voluntariness must, we think, be particularly responsive to the claim actually made.

Under the Chapple–Bethea doctrine a suspect's course of interrogation is assessed using certain fairly objective criteria to characterize it either as unitary or composed of severable, separately Mirandizable segments. But the inquiry as to whether there has been one interrogatory sequence or several does not address the very stubborn problem posed by actual coercion, which involves the physical, cognitive and emotional depletion of the interrogation subject. In situations where the subject has been interrogated over an extremely lengthy period, the existence of objective indicia of separation may well be inadequate to prove that the defendant has been restored to the status of one no longer under the influence of questioning, so as to render plausible the characterization of a subsequent admission as voluntary beyond a reasonable doubt.

[969 N.Y.S.2d 433]

[991 N.E.2d 207]II.

The proof at the hearing held on defendant's suppression motion was that on the evening of March 20, 2007 defendant was escorted from a Syracuse hotel by eight or nine police officers [21 N.Y.3d 210]and transported to the offices of the Syracuse Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division (CID). There, at 11:30 p.m., he was read his Miranda rights and placed in what is referred to in the hearing testimony as the “Blue Room”—a 10 by 10, windowless and clockless chamber furnished with three chairs, a table and a one-way mirror. But for accompanied trips to the restroom, defendant remained locked in the Blue Room for the ensuing 49 1/2 hours. He was during this entire time watched and, with only relatively brief intervals, aggressively interrogated by four rotating pairs of detectives, relieving each other pursuant to a schedule devised by the supervising sergeant. Notwithstanding the constant...