People v. Sumagang
| Decision Date | 29 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | H044023 |
| Citation | 284 Cal.Rptr.3d 676,69 Cal.App.5th 712 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Byron Silim SUMAGANG, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Attorney for Defendant and Appellant Byron Silim Sumagang: Patrick McKenna under appointment by the Court of Appeal for Appellant
Attorneys for Plaintiff and Respondent The People: Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence Senior, Assistant Attorney General, Donna M. Provenzano, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Victoria Ratnikova, Deputy Attorney General
This case concerns the admissibility of statements the defendant made as the result of a two-part interrogation. The detective who questioned the defendant withheld Miranda warnings, elicited a complete confession, and then re-interrogated him about the same facts after warning him under Miranda. In both the prewarning and postwarning parts of the interrogation, defendant Byron Silim Sumagang confessed that he killed his girlfriend as part of a botched double-suicide attempt. After the postwarning statements were admitted at trial, the jury found him guilty of first degree murder. The trial court imposed a term of 25 years to life in state prison.
Sumagang contends the trial court erred by denying his motion to exclude the confession under Missouri v. Seibert (2004) 542 U.S. 600, 608, 124 S.Ct. 2601, 159 L.Ed.2d 643 ( Seibert ). We hold that the trial court did so err, and we find Sumagang was prejudiced by the admission of the confession at trial. We will reverse the judgment of conviction.1
The police found Sumagang asleep in the back of a car in a remote rural area. Carole Sangco's deceased body was lying on top of him. The police took Sumagang into custody and a detective subsequently interviewed him in two stages—first without warning him under Miranda , and then again after warning him. In both parts of the interview, he admitted choking Sangco until she stopped breathing or moving. He claimed she had asked him to kill her, and he said he had intended to kill himself as well. Sangco, who was 20 years old, suffered from depression and had previously expressed suicidal thoughts. Toxicology tests showed she had a "potentially toxic" level of drugs in her body at the time of death.
The prosecution charged Sumagang with the willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder of Sangco. ( Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a).) The jury found him guilty as charged. The trial court sentenced him to a term of 25 years to life in state prison.
The jury heard the following evidence:
A. Discovery of the Car
On the morning of November 30, 2014, the police responded to a hang-up 911 call from a remote rural area in Monterey County. A sheriff's deputy found a car with the hood up, a large crack in the front windshield, and the cap to the gas tank hanging open. Sumagang and Sangco were in the back seat and appeared to be asleep. Sangco was lying on top of Sumagang with her face "up in the window." She had a cut and some dried blood above her right eye. When the deputy knocked on the window, Sumagang woke up but Sangco did not.
Sumagang got out of the car, whereupon the deputy handcuffed him, searched him and put him in her patrol car. Sumagang, who was upset and crying, told the deputy that Sangco was his girlfriend, and he said they had both "taken a bunch of Klonopin
and drank as much tequila as they could" the previous evening. The deputy testified that Sumagang told her he was "not supposed to wake up," and he was "supposed to be with the female." Later, when the deputy escorted Sumagang to an ambulance, he stated he "did this to her," referring to Sangco. Another officer testified that when he asked Sumagang how Sangco received injuries to her face, he replied, "I did that to her."
Investigators found numerous items in and around the car. A bottle of tequila was found on the ground in front of the car, and a package of cigarettes had been stuffed into the engine. There was a knife wedged behind the backseat of the car, and another knife was found on the ground (possibly after the deputy removed it from the car). A partially burned piece of paper had been stuffed into the neck of the gas tank. A shoeprint was found near the crack in the front windshield.
B. Postwarning Confession
Police interrogated Sumagang about two days after taking him into custody. The postwarning portion of the interrogation was recorded on video, which the prosecution showed to the jury.
Sumagang said he and Sangco had been together for five years. Sangco had "depression problems" and had "always been a cutter." She "just hated breathing" and "didn't wanna be a part of this shitty ass world." On the night of her death, they drove to the remote location while drinking a bottle of tequila. Sangco was using a small pocketknife to cut her wrists. Sumagang also tried to use a knife to cut his own wrists and neck.
At some point after they parked, Sumagang tried to set the car on fire by putting a pair of boxers soaked in tequila into the engine oil. He hit his head on the windshield during a tantrum, and probably broke the windshield by kicking it.
During a break in the interview, while Sumagang was alone, he began crying and said, [...] [...]
When the officer asked how Sangco got the injuries to her head
, Sumagang said he "[p]robably head-butted her" at the same time he had his "hands on" her. Sumagang said he thought he hit her twice. When the officer asked him to explain what he did, Sumagang replied, According to Sumagang, Sangco told him, " " At some point, she closed her eyes, her arms went limp, and she "just stopped moving." He tried to pick her up, but she was already dead, so he just put her in his lap. Sumagang added, [...]
C. Autopsy Results and Cause of Death
Dr. Venus Azar, a forensic pathologist, autopsied Sangco's body. Outside the presence of the jury, Dr. Azar testified that prior to forming her conclusions about the cause of death, she was "informed thoroughly" by the coroner's detectives about Sumagang's statements, and she watched part of a video of the detective's interview. Specifically, Dr. Azar was told Sumagang head-butted Sangco, used his hands to squeeze her neck, and put his hands over her nose and mouth until she stopped breathing. When Dr. Azar was asked how she used this information in forming her conclusion, she testified that she used the information to see if it fit with the injuries she had observed in her examination, but she also testified that the information did not change her conclusion or any of her physical findings.
In the presence of the jury, Dr. Azar testified that she observed multiple external injuries to Sangco's body, including a bruise on the side of her head above her left ear; petechiae
(dot-like hemorrhages) on her face, in her eyes, above her upper lip, and on her left ear; a laceration on her right eyebrow; a bruise with a slight abrasion on her lower lip; about seven abrasions or scratches to her neck and under her chin; some minor abrasions on her wrists and legs; and a half-inch bruise on her tongue. The external injuries were the result of blunt force trauma. Sangco also had a postmortem tooth impression on her lower lip, but it could not have been caused by the medics.
Dr. Azar testified that she saw "quite a bit of dot-like hemorrhages, we call petechiae
, on the face, and in [Sangco's] eyes, around her eyes, and on her eyes and in her mouth and on her left ear," as well as above her upper lip. Dr. Azar explained that She then testified that "we all see petechiae
in strangulation" and "in other cases such as blunt-chest trauma or compressions, severe compression of the chest, because [ ] what the strangulation and the hanging or severe blunt-chest trauma have in common is they block egress or outflow of blood draining from the neck, and either by pressure on the neck from hanging or strangulation, or from severe pressure to the chest, in severe blunt trauma or compression of the chest, and that raises the pressure in the head and the neck. [¶] Severe vomiting, [ ] coughing severely can cause the same kind of pressure. Some types of heart failure
can cause pressure to build up in the lungs because the veins can't drain and they get stagnated and they build up the pressure and then [ ] blood vessels get injured and they start to die and they start to rupture and they cause these little dot-like hemorrhages."
Dr. Azar testified that Sango had injuries that "appeared to have been[ ] caused by someone else. She has multiple planes of injury to the head
, to the left front of her scalp, big bruise. The right eyebrow, the lower eyelid. So I want to know from the investigator what happened. [¶] Was this woman in a car accident? Did she fall? You know, tumble, not just on one surface, but to explain these different areas. Also the neck injuries and the tongue bruise. Does she have a reason to have bit her tongue? Is she an epileptic? [I] need to know what happened to her. She can't tell me. I need someone else to tell me. And she had these scratches to her neck....
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