People v. Stansbury

• Decision Date: 09 March 1995
• Docket Number: No. S004697,S004697
• Citation: People v. Stansbury, 38 Cal.Rptr.2d 394, 9 Cal.4th 824, 889 P.2d 588 (Cal. 1995)
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 889 P.2d 588, 63 USLW 2624 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Robert Edward STANSBURY, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 394

38 Cal.Rptr.2d 394

9 Cal.4th 824, 889 P.2d 588, 63 USLW 2624

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Robert Edward STANSBURY, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S004697.

Supreme Court of California.

March 9, 1995.

Rehearing Denied May 24, 1995.

Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, Robert M. Westberg, David S. Winton and Joseph A. Hearst, San Francisco, for defendant and appellant.

Daniel E. Lungren, Atty. Gen., George Williamson, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Ronald A. Bass, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ronald E. Niver and Aileen Bunney, Deputy Attys. Gen., for plaintiff and respondent.

THE COURT:

In People v. Stansbury (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1017, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 174, 846 P.2d 756, we affirmed the judgment of death entered against defendant Stansbury for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a 10-year-old child. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to defendant's claim of error under Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (hereafter Miranda ), and reversed. (Stansbury v. California (1994) 511 U.S. 318, 114 S.Ct. 1526, 128 L.Ed.2d 293.)

The high court observed that language in our opinion referring to the subjective beliefs of the police officers who contacted and interviewed defendant could be interpreted as inconsistent with earlier case law. The court pointed to authority holding that in analyzing the question whether a defendant is in custody for the purpose of determining if admonitions required by Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, should be given, the subjective impressions of police officers regarding the defendant's custody status or status as a suspect are irrelevant unless they were communicated to the defendant. (Stansbury v. California, supra, 511 U.S. at p. ---- - ----, 114 S.Ct. at pp. 1529-1530.) The high court directed us to reconsider the question whether defendant was in custody when he made the statements to the police that he challenged on appeal. (Id. at p. ----, 114 S.Ct. at p. 1531.) Having reconsidered the question, we conclude that defendant was not in custody when he made the statements.

The high court stated the relevant facts in this case as follows:

"Ten-year old Robyn Jackson disappeared from a playground in Baldwin Park, California, at around 6:30 p.m. on September 28 1982. Early the next morning, about 10 miles away in Pasadena, Andrew Zimmerman observed a large man emerge from a turquoise American sedan and throw something into a nearby flood control channel. Zimmerman called the police, who arrived at the scene and discovered the girl's body in the channel. There was evidence that she had been raped, and the cause of death was determined to be asphyxia complicated by blunt force trauma to the head.

"Lieutenant Thomas Johnston, a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, investigated the homicide. From witnesses interviewed on the day the body was discovered, he learned that Robyn had talked to two ice cream truck drivers, one being [defendant] Robert Edward Stansbury, in the hours before her disappearance. Given these contacts, Johnston thought Stansbury and the other driver might have some connection with the homicide or knowledge thereof, but for reasons unimportant here Johnston considered only the other driver to be a leading suspect. After the suspect driver was brought in for interrogation, Johnston asked Officer Lee of the Baldwin Park Police Department to contact Stansbury to see if he would come in for questioning as a potential witness.

"Lee and three other plainclothes officers arrived at Stansbury's trailer home at about 11:00 that evening. The officers surrounded the door and Lee knocked. When Stansbury answered, Lee told him the officers were investigating a homicide to which Stansbury was a possible witness and asked if he would accompany them to the police station to answer some questions. Stansbury agreed to the interview and accepted a ride to the station in the front seat of Lee's ... car.

"At the station, Lieutenant Johnston, in the presence of another officer, questioned Stansbury about his whereabouts and activities during the afternoon and evening of September 28. Neither Johnston nor the other officer issued Miranda warnings. Stansbury told the officers (among other things) that on the evening of the 28th he spoke with the victim at about 6:00, returned to his trailer home after work at 9:00, and left the trailer at about midnight in his housemate's turquoise, American-made car. This last detail aroused Johnston's suspicions, as the turquoise car matched the description of the one Andrew Zimmerman had observed in Pasadena. When Stansbury, in response to a further question, admitted to prior convictions for rape, kidnapping and child molestation, Johnston terminated the interview and another officer advised Stansbury of his Miranda rights. Stansbury declined to make further statements, requested an attorney, and was arrested. Respondent State of California charged Stansbury with first-degree murder and other crimes.

"Stansbury filed a pretrial motion to suppress all statements made at the station, and the evidence discovered as a result of those statements. The trial court denied the motion in relevant part, ruling that Stansbury was not 'in custody'--and thus not entitled to Miranda warnings--until he mentioned that he had taken his housemate's turquoise car for a midnight drive. Before that stage of the interview, the trial court reasoned, 'the focus in [Lieutenant Johnston's] mind certainly was on the other ice cream [truck] driver'; only 'after Mr. Stansbury made the comment ... describing the ... turquoise-colored automobile' did Johnston's suspicions 'shif[t] to Mr. Stansbury.' Based upon its conclusion that Stansbury was not in custody until Johnston's suspicions had focused on him, the trial court permitted the prosecution to introduce in its case-in-chief the statements Stansbury made before that time." (Stansbury v. California, supra, 511 U.S. at p. ---- - ----, 114 S.Ct. at pp. 1527-1528.)

Our previous opinion rejected defendant's claim that his statements to Johnston were taken in violation of Miranda, supra, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602. The opinion concluded that defendant was not in custody when he made the statements he sought to suppress, citing various facts in support that were not questioned by the high court. We observed that the police arrived at defendant's home and asked if he would accompany them to the police station. Defendant was "invited, not commanded, to come to the police station for an interview." (People v. Stansbury, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 1052, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 174, 846 P.2d 756.) We noted that defendant was offered the choice of driving himself or accepting a ride from the police, and pointed out that when he accepted a ride from the police, he sat in the front seat of the car. (Id. at pp. 1051-1052, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 174, 846 P.2d 756.) The opinion acknowledged that when defendant arrived at the police station, he was interviewed in the jail area of the station, but concluded that the interview was brief and the questioning not accusatory. (Id. at p. 1053, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 174, 846 P.2d 756.)

Our opinion also referred to the testimony of the police officers involved that they did not consider defendant a suspect. Unfortunately, it failed to delineate carefully the relevance of such testimony. As the high court has said, "[a]n officer's knowledge or beliefs may bear upon the custody issue if they are conveyed, by word or deed, to the individual being questioned." (Stansbury v. California, supra, 511 U.S. at p. ----, 114 S.Ct. at p. 1530.) Thus, evidence of the officer's subjective suspicions or beliefs is relevant only "if the officer's views or beliefs were somehow manifested to the individual under interrogation and would have affected how a reasonable person in that position would perceive his or her freedom to leave" or if such evidence is "relevant in testing the credibility of [the officer's] account of what happened during an interrogation...." (Ibid.) ¹

We review the record again to determine whether a reasonable person in defendant's position would have felt he or she was in custody. Disregarding the uncommunicated subjective impressions of the police regarding defendant's custodial status as irrelevant, we consider the record to determine whether defendant was in custody, that is, whether examining all the circumstances regarding the interrogation, there was a " 'formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement' of the degree associated with a formal arrest." (California v. Beheler (1983) 463 U.S. 1121, 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 3520, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275.) As the United States Supreme Court has instructed, "the only relevant inquiry is how a reasonable man in the suspect's shoes would have understood his situation." (Berkemer v. McCarty (1984) 468 U.S. 420, 442, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3151, 82 L.Ed.2d 317, fn. omitted.)

The parties dispute the applicable standard of review. (Compare People v. Clair (1992) 2 Cal.4th 629, 678, 7 Cal.Rptr.2d 564, 828 P.2d 705 [question of custody primarily one of fact, subject to review for substantial evidence], and People v. Mickey (1991) 54 Cal.3d 612, 649, 286 Cal.Rptr. 801, 818 P.2d 84 [same, relying on United States v. Poole (9th Cir.1986) 806 F.2d 853] with United States v. Humphrey (7th Cir.1994) 34 F.3d 551, 554, and fn. 1 [ultimate question of whether there was a custodial interrogation is subject to independent review]; United States v. Jones (7th Cir.1994) 21 F.3d 165, 169, fn. 5 [noting discord among circuits and among panels of Seventh Circuit on question whether independent or "clear error" review applies]; and United States v. Henley (9th Cir.1992) 984 F.2d 1040, 1041 [noting confusion on standard of review in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit]; see also Thompson v. Keohane (9th Cir.1994) 34 F.3d 1073, cert. granted --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 933, 130 L.Ed.2d 879 [presenting...