People v. McRae

• Decision Date: 22 April 2004
• Docket Number: Docket No. 121300, Calendar No. 13.
• Citation: 469 Mich. 704,678 N.W.2d 425
• Parties: People of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John Rodney McRAE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

678 N.W.2d 425

469 Mich. 704

People of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John Rodney McRAE, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 121300, Calendar No. 13.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued December 11, 2003.

Decided April 22, 2004.

Michael A. Cox, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, and Mark E. Blumer, Assistant Attorney General, Lansing, MI, for the people. State Appellate Defender (by Gary L. Rogers), Detroit, MI, for the defendant.

Charles D. Sherman, President, Michael E. Duggan, Prosecuting Attorney, and Jeffrey Caminsky, Principal Attorney, Detroit, MI, for the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan.

CORRIGAN, C.J.

In this case we must determine whether the admission of statements made by defendant to a sheriff's reserve deputy violated defendant's Sixth Amendment rights. We conclude that the admission of the statements did violate defendant's Sixth Amendment rights because, under the circumstances in this case, the reserve deputy was a state actor at the time he questioned defendant, who had not waived his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. We have already concluded that such an error would not be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt;¹ therefore, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand for a new trial.

I. FACTUAL HISTORY AND PROCEDURAL POSTURE

Defendant was charged with first-degree murder after the remains of fifteen-year-old Randy Laufer were found on the grounds of defendant's previous residence. After defendant was arrested, he received his Miranda² warnings and invoked both his Fifth Amendment right to be free from compelled self-incrimination and his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. After arraignment, while defendant was in custody awaiting trial, defendant apparently requested to speak to an old neighbor, Dean Heintzelman. It had been ten years since defendant had seen Heintzelman, and defendant was unaware that Heintzelman had become a reserve police officer. Further, defendant was unaware that both Heintzelman and Heintzelman's son were part of the police team present at the scene when Randy Laufer's body was recovered.

Heintzelman visited defendant after he finished his shift as a reserve deputy. Before visiting defendant, Heintzelman asked the permission of one of the corrections officers to do so. Heintzelman was in full uniform, complete with badge. Although it was some time after eleven o'clock at night, Heintzelman was allowed to go directly to defendant's maximum security cell. Heintzelman later testified that he had the following conversation with defendant:

Well, first we just started talkin', talkin' about—shook hands and everything, you know, like I hadn't seen him in a long, long time.... I asked him about his boy, Marty, `cuz his boy Marty is the same age as my son.... I told him, I said, "Well, Marty's in here from what I understand, too." [³] And then he showed me pictures of Marty's wife and his baby, and we carried on a conversation, like you or I would.

And then I said—I asked John—I said, "John, did you do what you're charged with here?" And he didn't answer me. So we just went talkin' again about, well, more or less about Marty again. And I said, "Well, you know, they think Marty had something to do with that, you know, with Randy." And he says, "Well, if they try to pin it on Marty, I'll let `em fry my ass." And that was his words.

I said, "John, did you do it?" And he just hung his head down and said, "Dean, it was bad. It was bad." That's—we didn't discuss it any more.

After questioning defendant about the charges, Heintzelman reported the discussion to Lieutenant McClellan, who was the officer in charge of the Laufer investigation scene. Heintzelman then volunteered to go back and talk to defendant if McClellan requested. Heintzelman was not permitted to speak with defendant again.

Defendant moved to suppress Heintzelman's testimony regarding defendant's statements because the alleged statements were obtained in violation of defendants right to counsel and because defendant was not given Miranda warnings again before questioning. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied defendant's motion to suppress on the ground that defendant had initiated the conversation. After defendant was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder, he challenged on appeal the admission of the statements.⁴ The Court of Appeals did not determine if there was error, ruling instead that, even if the admission were error, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.⁵

Upon defendants first application for leave to appeal, this Court determined that if the admission of the statement were error, such error would not be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. This Court vacated the Court of Appeals judgment in part and remanded the case for reconsideration of defendants claim of error.⁶

On remand, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court did not err in admitting this evidence, because "the statement at issue was made in the context of a conversation between former friends, which, as the trial court in this case found, was initiated by the defendant."⁷

Defendant again appealed to this Court, and we granted leave, directing the parties to address: "(1) whether defendant's statements to Officer Heintzelman constituted the interaction of custody and official interrogation, as discussed in Illinois v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292, [110 S.Ct. 2394, 110 L.Ed.2d 243] (1990), and (2) whether Officer Heintzelman was a state actor at the time defendant made the statements to him." 468 Mich. 921, 664 N.W.2d 214 (2003).

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

In order to determine whether a constitutional error occurred, we must first determine whether Heintzelman was a state actor, which is a mixed question of fact and law. We review for clear error a lower court's findings of fact, MCR 2.613(C), and review de novo questions of law. People v. Herron, 464 Mich. 593, 599, 628 N.W.2d 528 (2001).

III. DISCUSSION

A. STATE ACTOR ANALYSIS

The people argue that Heintzelman was not a state actor because he did not visit defendant in an official police capacity, but was invited to visit defendant as a former neighbor and friend. That defendant was unaware of Heintzelman's reserve deputy status when he asked to see him, however, does not end the inquiry.

In Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 130, 135, 84 S.Ct. 1770, 12 L.Ed.2d 754 (1964), the Supreme Court held that "[i]f an individual is possessed of state authority and purports to act under that authority, his action is state action. It is irrelevant that he might have taken the same action had he acted in a purely private capacity or that the particular action which he took was not authorized by state law."⁸ It is clear from the record that Heintzelman possessed actual state authority—he was deputized as a Clare County sheriff's reserve deputy. The dispositive question, then, is whether Heintzelman purported to act under that authority.

The word "purport" means: "1. to present, esp. deliberately, the appearance of being; profess or claim .... 2. to convey, express or imply." Random House Webster's College Dictionary (2d ed). The record evidence shows that Heintzelman visited defendant in his full uniform, thus creating the appearance that he was a state actor. Further, Heintzelman received permission from a corrections officer to visit defendant late at night in his maximum-security cell. The people conceded at oral argument that an ordinary citizen would not have been granted permission under the same circumstances. Thus, it was only by virtue of his status as a reserve deputy that Heintzelman was granted direct access to defendant's maximum-security cell, a restricted area where only governmental agents are normally allowed to tread. Further, this access was granted late at night, a time when ordinary citizens are prohibited from visiting inmates.⁹

There is no evidence that Heintzelman sought to distance himself from his actual or apparent police authority. Instead, defendant was questioned in the middle of the night by a sheriff's reserve deputy (albeit one he had known a decade earlier) in full uniform. Indeed, Heintzelman's actions during and after the questioning only reinforced his actual or apparent authority. During his "conversation" with defendant, Heintzelman twice brought up the subject of defendant's son in an apparent attempt to get defendant to answer Heintzelman's questions. Further, after he spoke to defendant, Heintzelman contacted the lieutenant in charge of the investigation, relayed the contents of the conversation, and offered to obtain more information. Finally, it is also telling that Heintzelman was not allowed any further contact with defendant for fear of violating defendant's Sixth Amendment rights.

The facts of this case distinguish it from United States v. Gaddy, 894 F.2d 1307 (C.A.11, 1990), cited by the dissent. In Gaddy, the defendant's aunt was a police officer. Through her position as an officer, she learned that the defendant was in custody. A detective advised the aunt that it would be in her nephew's best interest to cooperate, but did not request that the aunt talk to the nephew. The aunt contacted the nephew from her home and encouraged him to speak. He agreed and spoke to officials after waiving his Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights.

In determining that the aunt was not a state actor, the court noted that the aunt was not part of the investigative team on the defendant's case and acted solely out of concern for his welfare. Id. at 1311. In contrast, here Heintzelman was part of the police team present for the recovery of the victim's body from defendant's former residence. Further, it cannot be said that Heintzelman was acting solely out of a concern for defendant's welfare. He had not seen or spoken to defendant in ten years, and, upon reporting the conversation to his superior, volunteered to obtain more information from defendant. Thus, the lack of any close...