State v. Castillo

• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: MARCUS; Fleming; DIXON; CALOGERO; DIXON
• Citation: State v. Castillo, 389 So.2d 1307 (La. 1980)
• Decision Date: 06 October 1980
• Docket Number: No. 66696,66696
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Everett Blaise CASTILLO.

Page 1307

389 So.2d 1307

STATE of Louisiana v. Everett Blaise CASTILLO.

No. 66696.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Oct. 6, 1980.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 21, 1980.

William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Knowles M. Tucker, Dist. Atty., Dracos D. Burke, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.

Dymond, Crull & Castaing, Edward J. Castaing, Jr., New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.

MARCUS, Justice.

Everett Blaise Castillo was indicted by the grand jury for the crime of aggravated rape in violation of La.R.S. 14:42. After trial by jury, defendant was found guilty of attempted aggravated rape and sentenced to serve thirty years at hard labor. On appeal, defendant assigned twenty assignments of error for reversal of his conviction and sentence. ¹

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR NOS. 1, 7 AND 8

Defendant contends the trial judge erred in allowing in evidence an oral inculpatory statement made by him while in police custody. He argues that the statement was not freely and voluntarily made after having been advised of his Miranda rights.

Defendant's pretrial motion to suppress all written inculpatory statements and a pistol obtained as a result of a written confession was held on December 4, 1978, before Judge Robert M. Fleming. All officers involved in the arrest and interrogation procedures testified as to the facts surrounding defendant's oral inculpatory statement made in the patrol car at the parking lot and his subsequent written confession given at the police station. Defendant also testified at the suppression hearing. At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Fleming ruled as follows:

(T)he defendant moved to suppress a confession given to two detectives, and also a gun that was found in the police car. And I do not recall whether there was a motion to suppress the statement that was made to Officer Viator, or not. However, all motions are denied.

Defendant objected to the ruling. The prosecutor then asked the court:

(D)oes that mean, then, that the statement made by the accused to Officer Viator in the parking lot is considered voluntary?

Judge Fleming answered in the affirmative. Defense counsel clearly heard that the judge's ruling applied to both the oral and written confessions. Nonetheless, he made no objection to the inclusion of the ruling on the oral statement. On January 23, 1979 (over a month and a half after the suppression hearing), the state served notice on the defense that it intended to use both the oral and written inculpatory statements at trial. However, the state later chose not to introduce the written confession or pistol in evidence at trial.

Trial commenced on February 12, 1979, and was presided over by Judge Robert E. Johnson. Defendant had not reurged a motion to suppress the oral inculpatory statement prior to trial. During Officer Viator's testimony, while the jury was retired to allow the judge to rule on a hearsay objection, the prosecutor informed the judge that Viator's testimony would include a statement which was "in effect a spontaneous confession" and thus an exception to the hearsay rule. Defendant's objection was overruled and the jury was returned to the courtroom. After Officer Viator testified as to the oral statement made by defendant, defense counsel raised several objections, inter alia, that the state had not laid a proper foundation for admission of the inculpatory statement in evidence. After the jury was retired, defense counsel argued that the state had failed to meet its burden of proving that defendant's inculpatory statement was free and voluntary after having been advised of his Miranda rights. The state responded that a ruling on the admissibility of the oral inculpatory statement had been made following the pretrial suppression hearing. The trial judge then overruled the objection "for the same reasons as given by Judge Fleming" and admitted the oral statement in evidence.

Defendant first contends that he was erroneously deprived of his right to a hearing, outside the presence of the jury, on the issue of the voluntariness of the oral inculpatory statement before it was introduced in evidence. This contention is without merit because the voluntariness of the oral statement was established at the pretrial suppression hearing. Although defendant did not seek to suppress the oral statement at that hearing, he clearly heard the court rule that the oral statement was considered voluntary. He made no objection to the court's expansion of the suppression hearing beyond the pleadings to include a ruling on the voluntariness of the oral statement. Moreover, at no time prior to trial (some two months later) did defendant attempt to reurge the motion to suppress the oral statement. At trial, defendant objected on a number of grounds, including the state's failure to lay a proper foundation, but did not seek a hearing outside the presence of the jury on the question of voluntariness. Hence, we conclude that the prior ruling on admissibility of the oral inculpatory statement was properly accepted by Judge Johnson at the trial on the merits. However, this did not prevent defendant from introducing evidence during trial concerning the circumstances surrounding the making of the inculpatory statement for the purpose of enabling the jury to determine the weight to be given to it. La.Code Crim.P. art. 703(B).

Next, we proceed to the merits of defendant's complaint, i. e., whether the trial judge erred in allowing in evidence an oral inculpatory statement made by him while in police custody. He argues that the statement was not freely and voluntarily made after having been advised of his Miranda rights.

The facts developed at the suppression hearing are as follows. During the early morning hours of July 2, 1978, Officer Emery of the New Iberia City Police Department was on patrol when he received a radio broadcast advising him that there had been a kidnapping at the Pizza Hut in the Torrido Village Mall. The call also gave a description of defendant. Subsequently, Officer Emery received a call from Officer Blanchard, who notified him that the suspect was in the general area of the Iberia Parish Hospital. Blanchard had followed defendant, who was in the victim's car, from a nearby cane field to the hospital, at which time defendant jumped out of the car and escaped.

Shortly thereafter, defendant was apprehended by Officer Emery. Another policeman, Sergeant David, arrived on the scene as defendant was handcuffed, informed that he was under arrest and placed in the back seat of Officer Emery's police car. As defendant was being driven to the police station, Officer Emery received a call requesting that he take defendant to the Torrido Village Mall parking lot so that defendant's car keys could be used to move an automobile suspected of belonging to defendant. Upon arriving at the parking lot, Officer Emery was met by Officers Mestayer and Viator, who had been watching the suspect's car, and by Sergeant David. The four policemen conversed briefly, and when Officers Mestayer and Viator began heading towards the patrol car in which defendant was handcuffed, defendant shouted racial slurs and obscenities at the policemen. Officer Mestayer then opened the rear door of the car and asked defendant where his car keys were located. According to Officer Viator's testimony, defendant replied, "if you want the mother fuckers ... come get them yourself" and "you all going to beat me anyway, cause I raped the white bitch." ² Officer Mestayer testified that he searched defendant's pockets, found the car keys, closed the car door and told Officer Emery to take defendant to the police station. He further testified that, during this brief encounter in the car, he became angry, lost his cool and slapped defendant; however, he stated that the incident occurred after he had secured the keys from defendant. ³

At the police station, defendant was given his Miranda warnings for the first time. He declined to make a statement or contact an attorney. Afterwards, he was locked up in a drunk tank where Officer LeBlanc sprayed him with mace. Approximately one hour later, defendant was brought by Officer Feller to Lieutenant Judice's office, where he was allowed to wash off the residue left by the mace. Lieutenant Judice advised defendant that, if the victim's statement that defendant had raped her on the hood of her car was correct, then defendant's fingerprints would be on the car. Defendant then gave a written confession wherein he stated that the pistol he used in the crime was located beneath the back seat of the patrol car that brought him to the station. The pistol was later recovered from that location.

Before a confession can be introduced in evidence, the state has the burden of affirmatively proving that it was free and voluntary and not made under the influence of fear, duress, intimidation, menaces, threats, inducements or promises. La.Code Crim.P. art. 703(C); La.R.S. 15:451. The admissibility of a confession is in the first instance a question for the presiding judge. His conclusions on the credibility and weight of the testimony relating to the voluntariness of a confession will not be overturned unless they are not supported by the evidence. State v. Jones, 386 So.2d 1363 (La.1980); State v. Hutto, 349 So.2d 318 (La.1977). In the instant case, Judge Fleming ruled that defendant's statement made in the patrol car at the parking lot was voluntary. After reading the record of the suppression hearing, we are convinced that this conclusion is supported by the evidence.

It must also be established that an accused who makes a confession during custodial interrogation was first advised of his Miranda rights. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). In Miranda, the United States Supreme Court observed: "By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been deprived of his...