People v. Haydel

• Decision Date: 30 July 1974
• Docket Number: Cr. 17386
• Citation: 12 Cal.3d 190,524 P.2d 866,115 Cal.Rptr. 394
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 524 P.2d 866 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Lloyd Authony HAYDEL and Dorothy Barbara Haydel, Defendants and Appellants. In Bank

Page 394

115 Cal.Rptr. 394

12 Cal.3d 190, 524 P.2d 866

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Lloyd Authony HAYDEL and Dorothy Barbara Haydel, Defendants and Appellants.

Cr. 17386.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

July 30, 1974.

Harold D. Winingar, Sacramento, for defendants and appellants.

Evelle J. Younger, Atty. Gen., Edward A. Hinz, Jr., Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., William E. James, Asst. Atty. Gen., Charles P. Just, Roger E. Venturi, W. Scott Thorpe and David M. Blackman, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

BURKE, Justice.

A jury found Lloyd and Dorothy Haydel guilty of grand theft. The court suspended imposition of the judgments and placed each defendant on probation conditioned on a jail term. They appeal, contending primarily that the court erred in admitting (a) four assertedly coerced written statements obtained from Haydel by the security officers of a store and (b) evidence procured by those officers at the Haydel home as a result of one of those statements. We have concluded that the court committed prejudicial error in admitting three of Haydel's statements and the evidence obtained at the Haydel home and that the orders granting probation must therefore be reversed.

Lloyd Haydel was employed as a stock supervisor in a Sacramento department store. Michael Kinney, a security officer employed by the store who was investigating the disappearance of merchandise, suspected Haydel. On October 16, 1971, Kinney began a surveillance of the store's 'will call' loading dock, where customers pick up purchases by automobile. About 12:20 p.m. that day Kinney saw Haydel's wife, Dorothy, drive up to the 'will call' entrance. The Haydels' three-year-old son was with her.

Kinney testified: Haydel came out of the store and put a box in the car trunk. After Haydel got a second box, Kinney approached and asked to examine the 'will call' sheet for it. Haydel threw the box in the trunk and slammed the trunk shut. When Kinney asked to see the sales' slips, Haydel stuttered and motioned to his wife to leave. Kinney stated that she was detained and that he knew 'what was going on.' Haydel said, 'all right, leave her alone,' and opened the trunk and threw the two boxes onto the loading dock. Kinney's examination of the two boxes disclosed merchandise belonging to the store, worth over $200.

An inventory of the contents of the boxes was made shortly thereafter. The boxes contained, inter alia, eight pairs of shoes of a size Haydel admitted was his including a pair of a type he specially ordered, several pairs of shoes of a size his wife sometimes wore, some children's shoes, underclothing of his size, and two train sets.

About 12:30 p.m. Kinney took the Haydels and their child inside the store. After putting Haydel in one office, Kinney took Mrs. Haydel and the child to the office of Mrs. Carter, the personnel manager. There he told Mrs. Haydel she was under arrest, and he left instructions that she was not to be released. Food was offered to her and the child. She testified, and the store personnel denied, that she was refused permission to call someone to pick up the child. She also testified that the child had a 'chronic tonsillitis condition.' Mrs. Carter testified that the child did not appear sick and that Mrs. Haydel never told her the child was sick.

After leaving Mrs. Carter's office Kinney returned to the office where he had left Haydel. According to Kinney, at the outset of the interview Haydel orally admitted the theft of the items in the car Around 1 p.m. a second security officer employed by the store, Gary Pennock, joined Kinney and Haydel. Subsequently Kinney had typed up a confession Haydel had made orally, and around 2 p.m. Haydel signed the confession and initialed it in several places. In the confession he admitted that on October 16, 1971, he placed in boxes store merchandise, later valued at $432.38, and then put the boxes in the trunk of his wife's car and that he intended to take the merchandise without paying for it, but he asserted his wife's innocence.

About 2:45 p.m. Haydel signed a second statement, which read, 'I . . . authorize (the store) or its agents to enter my home . . . to obtain merchandise I have taken without payment from (the store) providing my wife Dorothy and/or I are present.' Subsequently Kinney and Pennock accompanied Haydel to the Haydel home, and there Kinney and Pennock found a large quantity of merchandise that Haydel orally admitted belonged to the store. ¹ Around 5:20 p.m. Haydel signed a third statement, which read, '. . . The merchandise I allowed (the store's) . . . agents to remove from my home on . . . October 16, 1971, is not mine. I didn't make any payment for it. ( ) Anything else I recall that belongs to (the store) I will allow (the store) to pick up . . . later . . ..'

About 5:55 p.m., after returning to the store, Haydel signed a fourth statement, in which he admitted 'having taken merchandise' from the store 'three times.' Between 5:45 and 6:00 p.m. the police were called, and they arrived at the store around 6 p.m. They suggested Mrs. Haydel call someone to pick up the child, and she did so.

Both defendants took the stand in their own behalf. Haydel testified that his wife came to the 'will call' area on October 16, after he called her and asked her to pick up some empty boxes to be used for purposes such as grass cuttings. He stated that after she arrived she decided to get lunch first and to pick up the boxes later and that at that point Kinney arrived. Haydel denied having placed any merchandise in the car trunk. Mrs. Haydel similarly testified that no boxes were placed in the car trunk. Haydel also denied having orally admitted to Kinney 'taking those items (apparently the items Kinney testified Haydel put in his car).' He further testified that 'Somebody planted it (the merchandise in the boxes)' and that he did not have 'the slightest idea' why he was 'set up.'

Whether Court Erred in Overruling Objection to Haydel's Four Signed Statements on Ground of Coercion.

Defendants contend that the court erred in admitting, over objection on the ground of coercion, Haydel's four signed statements since they were extracted from him by the security officers through promises and trickery and through psychological duress, emanating from the enforced detention of his wife and child. The People argue that there was no state action which would invoke the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution since thd statements were elicited by private persons and that in any event the statements were voluntary.

The use in a criminal prosecution of involuntary confessions constitutes a denial of due process of law under both the federal and state Constitutions. (Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477, 483, 92 S.Ct. 619, 30 L.Ed.2d 618; Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 385--386, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908; People v. Sanchez, 70 Cal.2d 562, 571, 75 Cal.Rptr. 642, 451 P.2d 74; People v. Trout, 54 Cal.2d 576, 583, 6 Cal.Rptr. 759, 354 P.2d 231.) Involuntary admissions are also inadmissible (People v. Underwood, 61 Cal.2d 113, 120, 37 Cal.Rptr. 313, 389 P.2d 937; People v. Atchley, 53 Cal.2d 160 169--170, 346 P.2d 764), and 'the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires exclusion of coerced admissions if they are sufficiently damaging. Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 327 U.S. 274, 66 S.Ct. 544, 90 L.Ed. 667; but cf. Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 162--163, footnote 5, 73 S.Ct. 1077, 97 L.Ed. 1522.' ² (People v. Atchley, Supra, p. 170, 346 P.2d p. 769.)

In People v. Berve, 51 Cal.2d 286, 293, 332 P.2d 97, wherein the defendant was beaten and threatened with violence by civilians and confessed to the police shortly thereafter, this court in holding the confession inadmissible stated in part, 'No valid grounds for distinction are to be found in the fact that the coercion in this case was inflicted by civilians, and not the police. Decisions holding that confessions are inadmissible because they were rendered under conditions of threatened mob violence by civilians against an accused clearly imply such conclusion. (Citations.) The prohibition which bars the use of involuntary confessions is not only designed as a regulation of the conduct of police officers, but also to insure that an accused's right to a fair trial is protected. (Citation.) The absence of volition condemns an enforced confession. Due process requires that it be given voluntarily and without promise of immunity or reward.' (See also Maguire, Evidence of Guilt (1959) p. 109, fn. 2.)

The foregoing reasoning in People v. Berve, Supra, 51 Cal.2d 286, 293, 332 P.2d 97, likewise appears applicable where the confession is not only coerced by, but also made to, civilians, and cases in a number of jurisdictions have concluded that an involuntary confession, whether made to law enforcement officers or private persons, is inadmissible. (People v. Frank, 52 Misc.2d 266, 275 N.Y.S.2d 570, 571--572; State v. Ely (Or.) 237 Or. 329, 390 P.2d 348, 349; Fisher v. State (Tex.Cr.App.) 379 S.W.2d 900, 901 et seq.; see State v. Christopher, 10 Ariz.App. 169, 457 P.2d 356, 358.) Thus whether or not the security guards here were private persons, the People's argument that there was no state action which would invoke the due process clause cannot be upheld.

We turn next to whether Haydel's four written statements were shown to have been voluntarily made. 'Before confessions or admissions may be used against a defendant, the prosecution has the burden of showing that they were voluntary and not the result of any form of compulsion or promise of reward, and it is the duty of a reviewing court to examine the Uncontradicted facts in order to determine Independently whether the statements were voluntary.' (Italics added; People v. Underwood, Supra, 61 Cal.2d 113, 121, 37 Cal.Rptr. 313, 317, 389 P.2d 937, 940; in accord, People v. Sanchez, Supra, 70 Cal.2d 562, 571--572, ...