State v. Bower
| Decision Date | 25 April 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 39401,39401 |
| Citation | 440 P.2d 167,73 Wn.2d 634 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. William Thomas BOWER, Appellant. |
Camden M. Hall, Seattle, for appellant.
Charles O. Carroll, Prosecuting Atty., James E. Deno, Deputy Pros. Atty., Seattle, for respondent.
It is a terrible thing to aim a deadly weapon and demand of a person his money or his life, for the victim has reason to fear his assailant will take both. Knowing the evil nature of the deed and its legal consequences when proved, why then would one confess to it? Must we infer from the act of confessing that the accused spoke involuntarily, that his will to deny the crime or keep silent was overcome by force or the brutality, cleverness or deceit of the police? Or, are there other answers?
Does a man confess to a crime in expiation of guilt--to effect a kind of redemption? Is confession an act of atonement, lifting from the mind a burden put there by conscience? Does one confess to achieve peace of mind by balancing a good deed against the bad? Does confession serve in the mind of the accused to transfer his guilt to the police? or his victim? or society? In his conscience, does it purge him of guilt or make him less guilty, no matter how horrible and depraved the crime?
Could it be that one confesses to punish someone else, to wreak reprisal upon or incriminate an accomplice or perhaps some hated but innocent person? Does the accused, by confessing, hope to demonstrate his intelligence in yielding to the impelling logic of damning evidence? Or is it to strike a bargain? Does one confess because he thinks things will go better for him, that even though unpromised a reward will somehow be delivered to him?
Is the will to remain silent actually overcome by persistent police questioning so that the confession should be deemed involuntary even though no threats, force, fear or violence are employed to induce it? And how do we account for the confession of one who is clearly and demonstrably innocent? Whatever the reasons for the confession--many, varied and enigmatic as they may be--there probably exists in nearly everyone some inner compulsion for self-revelation. This is a case in point.
William T. Bower made a confession of armed robbery. He told the police in detail how he robbed Margaret Kreseck at gunpoint in her grocery store, fled the scene and got home safely. At his trial, he moved to suppress certain incriminating admissions and the confession, claiming them to be inadmissible because they had been obtained from him in violation of his constitutional rights against self-incrimination.
Charged by information with armed robbery, found guilty by a jury, and sentenced to 20 years' maximum imprisonment, he appeals, specifying 11 assignments of error but consolidating them in argument.
Margaret Kreseck owned the California Food Center, a small grocery store in West Seattle. She had been robbed before, but this time she experienced an extraordinary fear. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon on October 11, 1966, and Mrs. Kreseck, alone in the grocery, was seated in a chair at the end of one of the counters when the defendant walked in, approached the counter, and asked if he might have a paper bag. She reached down behind the counter, got a small bag, and, putting it on the counter, said, 'Will this do?' When she raised her eyes, she looked into the barrel of a gun pointed directly at her. Holding her at gunpoint, the man said,
She got a good look at him, testifying on that point:
For about ten seconds I struggled to get out in a hurry words that I wanted to say about that I was tired of working twelve hours every day, six days a week, to have people come in and put guns on me, and take what I worked for. And he told me to just be quiet, step over to the cash register and put the money in the bag and I took a good look at him, and I was very--and I did exactly what I was told.
His appearance, she testified, became fixed in her mind:
I was very, very frightened. He held that gun pointed at my stomach all of the time that he was in the store with his finger on the trigger, not on the guard, but on the trigger, and I have been held up at gunpoint before, but I never knew real fear until that day.
She said that she gave him the money as quickly as she could and testified as to what then happened He took the money and started to go out, and when he got--he had been standing right here, there is a separation here, and I was standing here in front of the cash register, and the stopped right here and with that gun pointed at my stomach he just stood there and looked at me for about, oh maybe, fifteen seconds. It is hard to tell the length of time. It seemed like fifteen years, but I know it wasn't, but, anyway, he just stood right here and looked at me, and I had the feeling that he was going to shoot. I looked away from his face and down at the gun. I waited for the bullet to come, and then he went over this far and then he still had the gun in his hand and between the scales and the cash register he shoved the gun through again and in a very calm voice he said,
She said that she 'heard a car rev its motor,' ran out into the street, and could see the top of a car parked next to a nearby hedge and after it left the cover of the hedge noted that it was of a cream color.
The assailant's demeanor, appearance and mannerisms become relevant, not only as to his identity, but in the light of his later assertions that on the day of the robbery and the next day during his interrogation by the police he was under the influence of narcotic drugs.
Mrs. Kreseck said that during the whole episode there was nothing unusual about the robber's appearance, and, until he pointed the gun, she noted nothing strange in his behavior or demeanor. At all times he was calm and determined but polite. His politeness, however, did not assuage her fear. Later, in a police-conducted lineup and at the trial, she identified the defendant as the man who robbed her.
Somehow, in a way not clear from the record, someone reported to the Seattle police the description and license number of a cream-colored car in the vicinity of the Kreseck grocery, and the police traced to a William T. Bower, residing at Redmond, a town north of Seattle, the ownership of a car having the reported license number.
Thus, when two police officers went to the defendant's home next morning, they had only the slightest clues to the robber they were seeking. Their leads consisted merely of Mrs. Kreseck's description of the man, a report of a cream-colored automobile seen in the vicinity, and the license number of a cream-colored car observed in the neighborhood of the grocery. The two officers had set out for Redmond with little likelihood that such slender clues would lead to anyone whom they could show had participated in or had knowledge of the robbery.
Detectives William E. Sands and Richard W. Reed of the Seattle Police Department's homicide-robbery detail, as we have seen, began their investigation by locating defendant's home address in Redmond from the license number. At a preliminary hearing to test the admissibility of defendant's admissions and confession, the officers testified that they went to Bower's home and he came to the door; that they identified themselves as police officers and asked Bower where his car had been the previous day. He replied that he had been working in the south end of Seattle and drove the car to his job and later traveled to Northgate in it, in the northern area of the city. According to this statement, Bower's car could not have been near the Kreseck grocery in West Seattle close to the time of the robbery. The officers said:
We asked him if he would be willing to accompany us to the Seattle Police Department to take a polygraph in regards to his activities that day, and he readily stated, yes, he would go with us. While traveling to the police station in the car, the officers said that they had another conversation with Bower concerning his whereabouts the previous day, and that he changed his story and acknowledged he had driven his car to West Seattle. He now said he had driven his car there about 5 p.m. to pay a bill at a West Seattle tire dealer's establishment. According to the officers' account of the conversation, he had not loaned his car to anyone on the day of the robbery, but did not admit participating in a robbery.
Detective Sands testified, and Detective Reed later corroborated that When we got to the station, we informed him that he was now suspect of armed robbery in West Seattle, and I admonished him at that time and told him he was arrested and that he did not have to make any statements. Any statements that he made could be used against him in Court. He had a right to call an attorney or have an attorney present at any time statements were given.
Detective Sands said that he took the defendant to an interrogation room--a place wired for sound recording with concealed microphones--while he went to arrange a polygraph examination, but could not complete the arrangements because of the polygraph operator's absence. The detective testified that he returned to the interrogation room, again advised the defendant of his right to counsel, and that Bower said that he did not at that time want an attorney. He told Bower that his car had been seen leaving the scene of the robbery in West Seattle, and that Bower fit the description of the robber.
Thereupon, said the officers, Bower admitted the robbery; Bower, they said, stated that he had been driving around all over Seattle and Renton and Burien; pledged his tool box for gas money at a service station in Burien; drove to West Seattle; and entered a grocery store...
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