Roberts v. State, 47845

• Decision Date: 21 October 1974
• Docket Number: No. 47845,47845
• Citation: 301 So.2d 859
• Parties: Cornelia Bass ROBERTS v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 859

301 So.2d 859

Cornelia Bass ROBERTS v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 47845.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Oct. 21, 1974.

S. E. Allen, Jr., Hazlehurst, for appellant.

A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by John C. Underwood, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

SUGG, Justice:

This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of Copiah County. The defendant was convicted of the crime of aiding a felon in escaping from jail and was sentenced to serve a term of five years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

On January 12, 1973, the Sheriff of Copiah County was sitting in his courthouse office when he heard a 'funny noise.' Upon hearing the same noise a second time, the sheriff and two deputies made their way to the cell block area to investigate and found James Roberts, a prisoner, sawing at the bars of his cell window with a hacksaw blade. Roberts had completely sawed through one bar and was working on the second when he was discovered. The sheriff and deputies searched Roberts' cell and found four broken hacksaw blades, two complete hacksaw blades and two wrenches. The hacksaw blades bore the brand names Blue Grass and Black Diamond while one wrench was manufactured by Thorson and the other by Challenger. The sheriff testified that he could remember no one visiting Roberts in jail except Roberts' mother and wife, the defendant Cornelia Roberts. The latter had visited Roberts on January 9, 1973, three days before Roberts was discovered attempting to escape.

F. A. McCoy, proprietor of a local hardware store, testified that sometimes during the month of January, 1973, the defendant bought some hacksaw blades in his store. McCoy himself waited on the defendant on this occasion. The defendant returned to the store a day later and purchased additional hacksaw blades and a wrench. McCoy, however, did not wait on the defendant on this occasion and did not know the name brand of wrench she had bought. Although McCoy stated that his store sells Blue Grass and Black Diamond hacksaw blades as well as Challenger wrenches, he could not positively identify the blades and wrenches found in Roberts' cell as having been bought in his store.

The defendant signed a written confession which was held to be voluntary and admissible following a hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress. The principal issue is whether or not the confession was legally obtained.

During the hearing on the motion to suppress the confession, the sheriff testified that Roberts told him that the only persons who had visited him in jail were his mother and his wife. The sheriff stated that Roberts' mother and the defendant 'were the only prospects I could think of,' and so the sheriff went to the defendant's home and asked to speak with her. When they walked out into the front yard, the sheriff, without warning defendant of her rights, asked her if she had taken hacksaw blades to her husband in jail. When the defendant replied that she had not, the sheriff told her: 'Your husband has practically admitted you or his mother brought the blades to the jail.' Following this, the defendant said: 'I brought the blades to the jail; his mother didn't have anything to do with it.' The defendant then admitted that she had bought the blades at Biggs' Hardware store. At this point the sheriff advised the defendant that she need not say anything else, placed her under arrest and did not interrogate her further until he had placed her in jail.

At the jail the sheriff gave the defendant the Miranda warnings and the defendant stated that she did not want a lawyer. The defendant then confessed to the crime while the sheriff took notes. A statement was later typed from the sheriff's notes and was read to the defendant, who, after reading the statement, signed it.

The defendant argues that, because the sheriff failed to warn her of her rights prior to the interrogation at her home, the statement signed later at the jail was 'fruit of the poisonous tree' and its admission into evidence was error.

In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), the United States Supreme Court held that a person must be given a four-fold warning of his right to the privilege against self-incrimination before any custodial interrogation by the police. The Court defined custodial interrogation as follows:

By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. (384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. at 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d at 706).

It is unquestioned that the Miranda warning must be given after a person is arrested or physically detained prior to questioning. However, murky waters are encountered in situations where, as in the instant case, a suspect is questioned before detention or arrest by an officer who probably intends to arrest him but has not done so at the time of the questioning.

A careful reading of Miranda reveals that the United States Supreme Court condemned and attempted to eradicate the incommunicado interrogation of a person in a police-dominated atmosphere. In Miranda the Court quoted at length from a police manual describing the compelling psychological forces with which officers may coerce a suspect during interrogation, and noted that in the past incommunicado interrogation was marked by beatings and brutality.

This is not to say that menacing police interrogation, of the type condemned by the Court in Miranda, cannot occur outside the confines of the station house. In Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 89 S.Ct. 1095, 22 L.Ed.2d 311 (1969), four police officers went to the room of Orozco and found him asleep in bed. The officers questioned Orozco who remained in bed, admitted ownership of a pistol that had been used in a murder and told the officers where the pistol was located. The officers testified that, although Orozco was in his own home and was in his own bed when interrogated, he was not free to go where he wished but was under arrest when the interrogation was initiated. The Court held that under these facts the use by the state of Orozco's admissions violated...