State v. Cassell

• Citation: 602 P.2d 410
• Decision Date: 13 September 1979
• Docket Number: No. 4342,4342
• Parties: STATE of Alaska, Petitioner, v. Daniel CASSELL, Respondent.
• Court: Supreme Court of Alaska (US)

Page 410

602 P.2d 410

STATE of Alaska, Petitioner, v. Daniel CASSELL, Respondent.

No. 4342.

Supreme Court of Alaska.

Sept. 13, 1979.

Mary Anne Henry, Asst. Dist. Atty., Anchorage, Joseph D. Balfe, Dist. Atty., Avrum M. Gross, Atty. Gen., Juneau, for petitioner.

Ronald T. West, Anchorage, for respondent.

Before RABINOWITZ, C. J., and CONNOR, BOOCHEVER, BURKE and MATTHEWS, JJ.

OPINION

RABINOWITZ, Chief Justice.

We granted the state's petition for review of the superior court's ruling that a confession made by Daniel Cassell was unlawfully obtained and therefore inadmissible at Cassell's trial.

Daniel Cassell's adopted father, Air Force Colonel Robert Cassell, was bludgeoned to death in his Eagle River apartment on the night of August 14, 1978. After his body was discovered the following day, the Alaska State Troopers began an investigation and, on the afternoon of August 15, 1978, Investigator Smith questioned Daniel Cassell as to any information he had concerning his father's death. Evidence obtained in the ensuing investigation indicated that Daniel Cassell had recruited and paid two juveniles to kill his adopted father and, on August 18, 1978, a warrant was issued for Cassell's arrest for inciting the commission of this crime in violation of AS 11.10.070. ¹ That afternoon, Alaska State Troopers Joseph Hoffbeck and Joseph Hildreth drove from Anchorage to Eagle River to arrest Cassell, arriving there at approximately 3 p. m. They identified themselves as troopers and Trooper Hoffbeck asked Cassell to accompany the troopers back to Anchorage "to clear up some matters and so I might talk to him." While the troopers did not serve Cassell with the arrest warrant or otherwise formally arrest him, they testified that they considered Cassell to be in their custody and that they would have formally arrested him had he refused to accompany them.

Cassell got into the patrol car for the drive to the police station in Anchorage. Once in the car, the troopers began an interview with Cassell, which they tape recorded. At the outset of this interview, Trooper Hoffbeck, who was driving the patrol car, asked Cassell if he had been informed of his Miranda rights ² by Investigator Smith three days earlier at the time he was first questioned in connection with the homicide. ³ Trooper Hoffbeck then advised Cassell of his Miranda rights from memory as follows:

Q. Okay, you know that you have the right to decide that you don't have to say anything did he advise you of that? I'd like to tell you that now because you don't have to talk to us if you don't want to. If you do decide to talk to us or make any statements it can be used against you in a court do you understand that?

A. Yes.

Q. And that you have a right to have an attorney and if you cannot afford to have an attorney one could be arranged to be appointed for you. Does that make sense what I've been telling you?

A. Ya.

The trooper testified later at the suppression hearing that he had a "Miranda card" ⁴ in his wallet at the time Cassell was taken into custody, but he did not read from it to advise Cassell of his rights. ⁵ Officer Hildreth, who was sitting in the back seat of the Patrol car during the drive from Eagle River to Anchorage and operating the tape recorder, did not read Cassell his rights directly from a Miranda card or relate them to him from memory.

The interrogation continued at the trooper station after the troopers and Cassell arrived in Anchorage, and certain statements were obtained which defense counsel subsequently moved to suppress. At the hearing on the suppression motion, Cassell's attorney contended that the Miranda rights he was given in the car during the drive from Eagle River to Anchorage were inadequate and that, therefore, the statements made by Cassell during the interrogation were unlawfully obtained. After hearing testimony and oral argument on the motion, the superior court suppressed the statements made by Daniel Cassell during the August 18, 1978, interview. ⁶

The state then brought this petition for review seeking reversal of the superior court's ruling that the Miranda warning was insufficient, and Cassell's trial was stayed pending the outcome. We granted the petition for review because of our conviction that it involves "a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion" and "immediate and present review . . . may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation." ⁷ Further, the question posed is of sufficient importance to justify our departure from the normal appellate procedure to give the issue our immediate attention. ⁸

Whenever a question arises as to the adequacy of a Miranda warning in a given case, an initial inquiry is always whether it was necessary for the interrogating officers to advise the individual being questioned of his constitutional rights. The state argues that Cassell was not in custody at the time he was questioned by Troopers Hoffbeck and Hildreth and that, therefore, it was not incumbent upon the officers to advise him of his Miranda rights.

In our recent decision in Hunter v. State, 590 P.2d 888 (Alaska 1979), we adopted an "objective, reasonable person perspective" for determining whether a person is in custody or otherwise significantly deprived of his freedom such that Miranda warnings are required. ⁹ The inquiry is to be made on a case-by-case basis, but the Hunter decision provides general guidelines for making the custody determination:

'(I)n the absence of actual arrest (the inquiry is whether) something . . . (is) said or done by the authorities, either in their manner of approach or in the tone or extent of their questioning, which indicates (to the defendant) that they would not have heeded a request to depart or to allow the suspect to do so.' This requires some actual indication of custody, such that a reasonable person would feel he was not free to leave and break off police questioning. ¹⁰

As we noted in Hunter, three groups of facts are relevant to this determination of custody:

The first are those facts intrinsic to the interrogation: when and where it occurred, how long it lasted, how many police were present, what the officers and the defendant said and did, the presence of actual physical restraint on the defendant or things equivalent to actual restraint such as drawn weapons or a guard stationed at the door, and whether the defendant was being questioned as a suspect or as a witness. Facts pertaining to events before the interrogation are also relevant, especially how the defendant got to the place of questioning whether he came completely on his own, in response to a police request, or escorted by police officers. Finally, what happened after the interrogation whether the defendant left freely, was detained or arrested may assist the court in determining whether the defendant, as a reasonable person, would have felt free to break off the questioning. ¹¹

Applying this test to the present case, the following facts surrounding the interview with Cassell are significant. The state troopers had a warrant for Cassell's arrest in their possession when they drove to Eagle River to confront him, but it was not served upon Cassell until after he had returned to Anchorage with the officers and given them a statement. They called upon Cassell at the residence where he was staying and Trooper Hoffbeck asked him "if he would now accompany me to Anchorage to clear up some matters and so I might talk to him." However, both troopers testified that had Cassell refused to go with them in the patrol car "he would have been arrested at that time." Further, Trooper Hoffbeck testified that from the time Daniel Cassell was in his presence in Eagle River, "(h)e was in my custody, he was not under arrest formally." ¹² Cassell was escorted to the police station by the two state troopers in a patrol car. On the way to the trooper station he was given the warning which is the subject of this petition for review. At the trooper station Cassell was taken directly to an interview room where he was interrogated for two and one-half hours by Troopers Hoffbeck and Hildreth and made incriminating statements. At the close of the interview Cassell was served with a copy of the warrant for his arrest. ¹³

Collectively, these facts indicate custodial interrogation under the Hunter criteria set out above. Cassell was asked to accompany the police officers to the police station for questioning; he did not go there on his own initiative but was driven in a patrol car. At the police station Cassell was questioned extensively in an isolated setting by two police officers using techniques described in the Miranda decision as the "friendly-unfriendly" or the "Mutt and Jeff" act. ¹⁴ Both officers testifed that, in fact, Cassell was in custody and that he would have been formally arrested had he attempted to leave the officers' presence at anytime. Under these circumstances, the testimony of the interrogating police officers that they gave no indication to Cassell that he was not free to leave and that he came with them freely is simply not determinative. We conclude that a reasonable person, in the accused's position, would have assumed that he was not free to break off the interrogation and leave the officers' presence without their permission. Therefore, we hold that Daniel Cassell was subjected to custodial interrogation and thus a Miranda warning was required. ¹⁵ Since a Miranda warning was required in this case, we must next determine whether the warning delivered met the standards articulated in the United States Supreme Court's Miranda decision. ¹⁶ Cassell's contention in the superior court was that the warning he received differed significantly from the required standard; the superior court agreed with him and suppressed the statements made by Cassell during the interrogation. ¹⁷ In its petition for review, the state argues that the Miranda...