State v. Akers
| Decision Date | 14 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | Docket: Yor-20-314 |
| Citation | 2021 ME 43,259 A.3d 127 |
| Parties | STATE of Maine v. Bruce AKERS |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Rory A. McNamara, Esq. (orally), Drake Law LLC, York, for appellant Bruce Akers
Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General, and Donald W. Macomber, Asst. Atty. Gen. (orally), Office of the Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine
Panel: MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HUMPHREY, HORTON, and CONNORS, JJ.
[¶1] Bruce Akers appeals from a judgment of conviction of intentional or knowing murder, 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A) (2021), entered in the trial court (York County, Douglas, J. ) following a jury trial. He argues that the court erred when it denied his motion to suppress physical evidence and statements that were obtained in violation of his rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, sections 6 and 6-A of the Maine Constitution. We agree with Akers and vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings.
[¶2] Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the court's order on the motion to suppress, the record supports the following facts. See State v. Prescott , 2012 ME 96, ¶ 2, 48 A.3d 218.
[¶3] On June 9, 2016, Akers called his local sheriff's office and spoke with a sergeant. Akers reported that he was missing some items and suspected that his neighbor had stolen them; Akers rejected the sergeant's offer to come out to his property. On June 10, at around 6:45 p.m., the sergeant learned that Akers's neighbor—whom we will refer to as "the victim"—had been reported as missing. The sergeant and a deputy went out to the victim's home and spoke with multiple family members. The officers learned that the family had been unable to contact the victim since the evening before and were worried because he had been depressed and possibly suicidal. The victim's daughter reported that he and Akers had a longstanding feud related to their properties.
[¶4] The sergeant and deputy searched the victim's house and conducted a grid search of the surrounding woods; in doing so, they came within sight of the abutting properties owned by Akers and another neighbor. The victim and Akers shared a common driveway near the road, but the driveway eventually split off onto their respective properties. Where the driveway split off toward Akers's property, there was a sign reading "Private Driveway Please Do Not Enter."
[¶5] After walking the victim's property, the officers walked along a footpath through brush to Akers's property and called out for Akers but received no response. The path led them to two structures—a red trailer and a white camper—close to one another and surrounded by piles of scrap metal and other materials. A red truck was parked in the driveway. The sergeant heard a noise coming from the camper but the noise stopped; he noticed that the camper was padlocked from the outside and had a tarp hanging over the door. He knocked on the door and no one responded, and he peered in through a window but could not see anything.
[¶6] Meanwhile, the deputy inspected the red trailer and noticed that it was also padlocked from the outside; he looked inside but could not see anything. The sergeant knew that Akers raised dogs, so he and the deputy walked down another footpath to look for the dogs, thinking that Akers might be with the dogs, and they continued to call out for Akers. They found the dogs alone, so they returned to the trailer and camper. Although the sergeant thought that he heard a noise, similar to the noise he had heard before, coming from the camper, the deputy did not hear it. The officers returned to the victim's property, put police tape on the door, and left to attend to other calls.
[¶7] Approximately five hours later, just after midnight on June 11, the sergeant and deputy returned to check on the victim's property, where they encountered an upset family member. After they called another officer for assistance, and also called the family member's girlfriend to pick him up, the family member left. The officers noted that the police tape was still intact, indicating that the victim had not returned. Next, the three officers walked to Akers's property along the footpath using flashlights to light the way, announcing their presence and calling out for Akers. The officers heard no response, but saw that the red truck was still parked in the driveway.
[¶8] The sergeant again heard a noise coming from the camper, but this time it was a loud "thud" that the sergeant testified sounded like it was made by "something bigger than any small animal" and may have been caused by a person. The deputy also heard the noise. At this point, the officers did not know that the sound came from Akers, they had not located the victim, and the door was still padlocked from the outside. The sergeant and officer were at the front of the camper where there was a large window with a hinged cover over the window. They lifted the cover and shined a flashlight to illuminate the interior of the camper. The sergeant saw a person in a sleeping bag inside the camper begin to get up.
[¶9] The sergeant recognized the man inside as Akers; he called Akers by name, identified himself, told Akers "I need to talk to you," and asked Akers to come outside. Akers acceded to the directive to come outside and talk but told the officers that he first needed to get dressed and gather some items and told them he was unarmed. Akers was unable to find the keys to unlock the padlock and said he would have to force the door open by prying it with a hammer from the inside. After that attempt proved unsuccessful, Akers asked the sergeant to help, and the sergeant successfully pried off the padlock. The officers lifted the tarp from the door and Akers came outside.
[¶10] At this point, the sergeant initiated an audio recording with his cell phone. He asked Akers which way Akers wanted to go and used the flashlight to light the way to a flatbed trailer. Akers sat down on the trailer, and the sergeant sat next to him as the other two uniformed officers remained standing about ten feet away. Portions of the exchange are as follows:
[¶11] The sergeant told Akers they were going to take him to the police substation where an investigator would speak further with him. The sergeant read Akers his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona , 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and confirmed that Akers understood. After that, Akers stated that he did not want to answer any questions. The sergeant and the deputy left to retrieve their car while the other officer stayed with Akers. While the others were gone, the remaining officer initiated a conversation with Akers:
The sergeant and deputy returned with the car, and Akers and the deputy sat in the backseat.
[¶12] At one point, Akers said, without prompting, "It's not the best day of my life." During the car ride, the three discussed Akers's dogs and what they might need. Then Akers said, again without prompting, After they arrived at the substation, a detective came and read Akers his Miranda rights again, and Akers asked for a lawyer before answering questions.
[¶13] Later that morning, a search warrant authorizing a search of Akers's residence, property, and vehicles was issued based on an affidavit prepared by the detective. The affidavit relied in part on statements Akers made to the officers. A search of Akers's property resulted in the discovery of the victim's body and a machete with traces of the victim's blood on it.
[¶14] A grand jury indicted Akers for intentional or knowing murder in violation of 17-A M.R.S. § 201(1)(A). Akers filed a motion to suppress, asserting that evidence, including the statements he made to the officers after exiting the camper, had been unlawfully obtained as a result of the officers’ warrantless search of his property. At the motion hearing, both the sergeant and the deputy testified. The court admitted in evidence a map depicting the victim's and Akers's properties, the search warrant affidavit, the evidence log, a portion of the June 11 audio recording, and several photographs of Akers's property.
[¶15] On April 2, 2019, the court denied Akers's motion to suppress. The court determined that the searches around 7:00 p.m. on June 10 and midnight on June 11 were not unreasonable, that suppression would not be justified even if they were, and that Akers's statements were made voluntarily. It also determined that the emergency aid doctrine supported the searches because the officers were looking for a missing person, believed Akers might have had pertinent information, and heard a noise inside the camper that was reasonable to investigate. Moreover, the court concluded that, even if the searches were...
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