State v. Bogan

• Decision Date: 06 November 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-0660.,07-0660.
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Rasheem Damonte BOGAN, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

774 N.W.2d 676

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Rasheem Damonte BOGAN, Appellant.

No. 07-0660.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

November 6, 2009.

Brian Farrell, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Bridget A. Chambers, Assistant Attorney General, William E. Davis, Scott County Attorney, and Amy Devine, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

WIGGINS, Justice.

A student appeals his conviction for first-degree murder. The court of appeals reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial because the district court failed to sever his trial from that of a codefendant. The State applied for further review, which we granted. On further review, we exercise our discretion and review whether the defendant should have received a Miranda warning prior to being interrogated at school. In our review, we find that the defendant was in custody at the time of the interrogation, and the police should have given him a Miranda warning prior to asking any questions. Accordingly, we vacate the decision of the court of appeals, reverse the judgment of the district court, and remand the case for a new trial.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

On the evening of August 19, 2006, around 10:30 p.m., a young woman named Vincelina Howard was the victim of a drive-by shooting while attending an impromptu gathering at her grandmother's house in Davenport. Howard died due to hemorrhagic shock caused by the bullet injuries.

There was only one eyewitness as to the identity of the shooters. One man in the neighborhood saw a van driving slowly and observed the back-passenger-side sliding door open. He then saw gunfire from the van. The eyewitness saw four male African-Americans in the van, but did not recognize the individuals. Another eyewitness observed a "grayish silverish" minivan, but never saw the individuals inside the van.

The State's theory is that Howard's shooting was a gang-related retribution shooting. On April 19, 2006, Andrell Hearn was killed in Rock Island, Illinois. Allegedly, Davenport residents committed the homicide. Thereafter, on the 19th of every month, a memorial walk was held to remember Hearn. On August 19, a crowd of approximately 100 to 150 people gathered for a 6 p.m. walk. Afterwards, there was a barbeque party. Witnesses claimed both Rasheem Bogan and Don White, Jr. attended the walk and the gathering afterwards. The witnesses claimed the two men were at the gathering until at least 11 p.m.

Some time that same evening, possibly prior to the walk, Mark Helton placed Bogan at Ron Millbrook's house. Helton drove to Rock Island to drop off his van so Millbrook could borrow it for the evening. Millbrook was allegedly borrowing the van to move furniture. When Helton dropped off the van, there were approximately seven to eight people at the residence, including Bogan, White, and Millbrook. The witness to the shooting matched the van he saw to a photograph of Helton's van. Crime scene technicians found shell casings in Helton's van that matched one of the guns used in the shooting. The crime scene technicians also lifted one latent fingerprint from the window crank of the driver's-side door that matched Bogan's right thumbprint. Millbrook's and White's fingerprints were also matched to prints lifted from the van.

Later that evening, around 11 p.m. or 12 a.m., Timothy Smith saw Bogan at Millbrook's house. Bogan asked Smith to get him a room at a motel, and Smith did so. Smith came back to Millbrook's house, picked Bogan up, and took him to the motel around 12 or 1 a.m.

A few days after the shooting, on August 23, two Davenport detectives, Mark Dinneweth and John Hutcheson, went to Bogan's school in Rock Island to obtain his fingerprints and interview him. Bogan was fourteen years old at the time. A Rock Island detective, the school liaison officer, and the principal had already pulled Bogan out of class and placed him in the school office, where he was waiting. The principal called Bogan's father. Bogan's father came to the school. Detectives Dinneweth and Hutcheson, Bogan, and Bogan's father all went into the nurse's office for the interview. The detectives did not give Bogan a Miranda warning before questioning him. Detective Dinneweth asked Bogan if he knew about the Howard homicide. Bogan replied he did not know anything specifically about it, but he did know Stevie West had called Terrell Lobley and accused Lobley and Bogan of perpetrating the shooting. Dinneweth then asked Bogan about his whereabouts that evening. Bogan answered that he was at the Andrell Hearn walk and then went to the barbecue. He stated he left the barbecue around 9:30 p.m. and went to Millbrook's house until 12:30 a.m. Then Smith escorted him to the American Motor Inn. This statement is at odds with the other witnesses' testimony as to Bogan's whereabouts at the time of the shooting. When asked where Millbrook was during this same time period, Bogan responded that Millbrook was there the whole time and he never saw him leave.

The police arrested Bogan for the Howard shooting. The juvenile court waived jurisdiction of Bogan. Bogan entered a written plea of not guilty. The police also arrested White, Millbrook, and Lobley for this shooting. White's trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial, Millbrook was convicted of murder in the first degree, and Lobley was convicted of murder in the second degree.

The State filed a motion to try White and Bogan jointly. Bogan's attorney resisted the joinder and argued that if the cases were joined, Bogan would be prejudiced by bad acts evidence that was only admissible against White. Bogan also claimed he would look guilty by association. The court allowed the joinder, determining neither Bogan nor White would face prejudice by joinder of the common charges. Bogan also moved to suppress the statements he made to the detectives when they interviewed him at his school. The court denied this motion.

At the joint trial, the State offered testimony from several forensic scientists concerning the fingerprints of Bogan, White, and Millbrook. Roughly twenty-five to thirty latent fingerprints were lifted off the van. One of the scientists identified Bogan's right thumbprint on the driver's-side door's window crank. The window crank did not have a knob. The scientist agreed it was reasonable to assume Bogan made the print while standing outside the door because it would be difficult for his right hand to reach across his body and touch the window crank if he was sitting in the driver's seat. The jurors had the opportunity to view the window crank position in person during a field trip to the van, which was near the courthouse. The State also introduced Bogan's statement. The rest of the testimony offered by the State dealt largely with guns linked to the Howard shooting found in a car previously owned by White, and currently owned by Millbrook.

The jury returned a verdict convicting Bogan of murder in the first degree. After denying his posttrial motions, the court held a dispositional hearing for Bogan. The court transferred Bogan's guardianship to the department of human services for placement at the State Training School at Eldora until shortly before his eighteenth birthday. At that time, the court stated it would hold a hearing to determine whether his youthful-offender status should continue after his eighteenth birthday, he should be sentenced for the crime of murder in the first degree, or he should be discharged.

Bogan appealed. We transferred the case to the court of appeals. The court of appeals determined Bogan's trial should not have been joined with White's and reversed. The State applied for further review.

II. Issue.

When we consider an application for further review, our discretion allows us to review any issue raised on appeal, regardless of whether a party seeks further review of that issue. In re Marriage of Ricklefs, 726 N.W.2d 359, 361-62 (Iowa 2007). We choose to exercise our discretion and review whether the district court should have suppressed the statements Bogan made to the Davenport detectives.

III. Scope of Review.

Bogan claims the court should have suppressed the statements he made to the Davenport detectives because the detectives did not give him a Miranda warning prior to being interrogated. We review constitutional claims of a Miranda violation de novo. State v. Miranda, 672 N.W.2d 753, 758 (Iowa 2003). We make an independent evaluation of the totality of the circumstances, while deferring to the district court's findings of fact due to that court's opportunity to assess credibility. Id. This court considers both the evidence at the suppression hearing and the evidence introduced at trial. State v. Countryman, 572 N.W.2d 553, 557 (Iowa 1997).

IV. Analysis.

The Supreme Court requires that before beginning a custodial interrogation the police must inform a suspect:

he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires.

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 478-79, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1630, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 726 (1966). We have said the requirement of Miranda to inform a suspect of his or her rights is more than a "mere procedural nicety or legal technicality." State v. Ortiz, 766 N.W.2d 244, 251 (Iowa 2009).

The State acknowledges the detectives never read Bogan a Miranda warning, so the only question we must decide is whether he was entitled to receive that warning. See Miranda, 672 N.W.2d at 759. The State claims Bogan was not in custody during the questioning at the school; therefore, he was not entitled to receive a Miranda warning.

A suspect is in custody if the "suspect's freedom of action is curtailed to a `degree associated with formal arrest.'" Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3150, 82 L.Ed.2d 317, 335 (1984) (q...