State v. Correia, 96-528-C

• Decision Date: 17 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-528-C,96-528-C
• Parties: STATE v. Christopher F. CORREIA. A.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 1245

707 A.2d 1245

STATE v. Christopher F. CORREIA.

No. 96-528-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

March 17, 1998.

Andrea J. Mendes, Aaron L. Weisman, Providence, for Plaintiff.

Catherine A. Gibran, Paula Rosin, Providence, for Defendant.

Before WEISBERGER, C.J., and LEDERBERG and FLANDERS, JJ.

OPINION

FLANDERS, Justice.

Three ingredients comprise the factual grist for the appeal of the defendant, Christopher F. Correia (Correia), from his robbery-related convictions: (1) a police officer's trial testimony about Correia's alleged refusal to cooperate with the investigating authorities during his custodial interrogation, (2) a trial justice's consciousness-of-guilt jury instruction based upon Correia's alleged concealment of evidence and his flight from the crime scene, and (3) a magistrate's issuance of a search warrant for Correia's apartment that resulted in the seizure of incriminating evidence. After threshing over the facts and law presented by each of these judicial millings, we conclude that they are not so legally unpalatable as to warrant reversal. Hence we reject Correia's appeal, affirm his convictions, and uphold the trial justice's challenged rulings.

Facts and Travel

A Superior Court jury returned guilty verdicts against Correia on all four criminal charges lodged against him. ¹ The trial justice then sentenced him to sixty years with fifty years to serve (plus ten years suspended and ten years probation) on each of the first three counts and to five years on the fourth count (to be served concurrently).

The charges all arose out of a February 19, 1994 housebreak in North Providence. An elderly couple, Kathleen and Albert Peloquin, were asleep in their beds when a burglar broke into their North Providence home at approximately three-thirty in the morning. According to the Peloquins, this unwelcome visitor was wearing a gray sweatshirt and a ski mask that hid most of his face from view. Hovering in the dark at the foot of Mrs. Peloquin's bed, the interloper carried a flashlight in one hand and a long cane with a hook on the end of it in the other. He was demanding money from her when he heard another person stirring in a different part of the house. Before dashing away to confront this other individual, the encroacher hurriedly scooped a pair of earrings from a drawer in Mrs. Peloquin's bedroom bureau and then proceeded down the hallway.

Mr. Peloquin was eighty-one when this incident occurred. He had been awakened by a loud noise coming from his wife's bedroom. While Mr. Peloquin was still calling out to her, thinking that she might have fallen, the intruder entered his bedroom and stood over him as he lay in his bed. Brandishing his cane and flashlight, the housebreaker demanded to know, "Where's the money? I want the money." After Mr. Peloquin replied that he did not have any money, the assailant lashed out at him with his cane. Mr. Peloquin raised his arm to shield himself from the blow, so that the cane struck him between his elbow and his wrist. Thinking that he had thereby dispatched Mr. Peloquin, the masked man turned and began to ransack some nearby bureau drawers. But Mr. Peloquin was not yet vanquished. He seized a can of mace that he always kept underneath his pillow, rose from his bed, and advanced upon the rummaging robber from his blind side. Waiting until he could see the whites of his eyes, he fired away, releasing a torrent of pungent spray into the holes of his attacker's ski mask. Jolted by this peppery eyewash, the maced malefactor immediately began to bound for the egress--but not before the redoubtable Mr. Peloquin could add his own personal lagniappe to the bouncing bandit's sendoff by bopping him once more for good measure with the spray can itself. Thrashed and throbbing, the thumped thief flew through the living room, out the front door, over the freshly fallen snow, across the street, and through the woods toward the apartment complex that was located directly opposite from the Peloquins' home. Although he thereby escaped Mr. Peloquin's wrath, no sanctuary from the law awaited him there.

Wondering who that masked man was and wanting to thank him with a police escort for his nasty nocturnal visit, the Peloquins summoned the local constabulary, who responded by immediately coming to their home and obtaining a description of the culprit. Following the fresh trail blazed by the peppered poacher, the police eventually found their way to Correia's apartment. After twenty minutes of knocking at the door and calling on the telephone, the police finally gained entrance after one of the occupants, Daniel Crowley (Crowley), opened the door. The officer who first entered Correia's apartment immediately smelled pepper spray. Correia was there, and the police took him into custody. When they later brought him to be viewed by the Peloquins, Mr. Peloquin identified Correia as the man who had shoveled his car out of the snow two days earlier. He also indicated to the police that Correia had the same body build as the intruder.

While he was in police custody and after the police read him his rights, Correia told a police detective that he was indeed the person who had shoveled snow for Mr. Peloquin a few days earlier, but he claimed that he and Crowley had stayed in Correia's apartment throughout this particular evening and early morning. When the police pressed him for further details, Correia suddenly decided to stop talking and refused to say anything further.

Meanwhile Correia's roommate, Crowley, offered police a different version of events. According to Crowley, Correia left the apartment at about 3:30 a.m., and returned at about four o'clock, appearing very nervous. Crowley recounted that when the police knocked on the front door, Correia apparently despaired, exclaiming, "I'm busted," before hiding a cane underneath the entertainment center in their living room. The police sought and obtained a search warrant for Correia's apartment, specifying the cane and the clothing allegedly worn by the intruder as items to be seized. Although they could not locate the cane, they did find clothing in Correia's bedroom that included sweatpants and a sweatshirt that were later identified as the clothing worn by Correia on the night of the robbery. A police laboratory found traces of the pepper spray used by Mr. Peloquin on the clothing seized from Correia's apartment.

Analysis

I The Mistrial Denial

On appeal Correia first claims that the trial court erred in denying his motion to pass the case because of an allegedly improper comment made by a testifying policeman about Correia's decision not to answer further police questions after he had initially agreed to waive his rights and had begun to respond to their queries. We first observe that this is not a case in which a defendant immediately decided to remain silent after having been advised of his Miranda rights. On the contrary, after having been advised of his right to remain silent and of his other Miranda rights, defendant began to answer the police officers' interrogatories about the incident they were investigating. For instance Correia told the police that he was the person who had shoveled snow for the Peloquins some two days before the robbery. However, after claiming that he had remained in his apartment all evening, defendant apparently decided he should stop talking to the police, whereupon he indicated that he did not want to cooperate with them any further.

At trial the interrogating police officer was asked whether Correia had stated anything further to him after admitting to his earlier encounter with Mr. Peloquin. The officer responded, "The conversation terminated. He didn't want to cooperate." Correia's attorney immediately moved to pass the case because he claimed the officer had improperly commented on defendant's constitutional right to remain silent. Although the trial justice ruled that there was no reason to pass the case, she did give two separate cautionary instructions to the jurors telling them that Correia had a right to remain silent and that they could not draw any adverse inferences from his doing so.

We conclude that the trial justice did not err in refusing to pass the case. Although a defendant's post-arrest silence may not generally be used against him or her at trial, see Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), the Doyle rule is inapplicable when, as here, a defendant waives his or her Miranda rights and decides to speak to the police after having been advised of his or her right to remain silent. See State v. Rossier, 672 A.2d 455, 457 (R.I.1996) (holding no violation of the defendant's right to remain silent when the defendant made voluntary statements to the police after a knowing waiver of such rights); see also Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). In such a situation, police witnesses at trial are allowed to relate to the jury their observations concerning a defendant's decision to stop talking with the police after initially having done so. When as here a defendant initially waives his or her right to remain silent but later invokes that right by refusing to answer further questions, it is not improper for the prosecutor or the police witness to explain how or why the interview concluded. See United States v. Harris, 956 F.2d 177, 181 (8th Cir.1992) (prosecutor may note that, after making incriminating statements, the defendant concluded the interview); Rowan v. Owens, 752 F.2d 1186, 1190 (7th Cir.1984) (prosecutor may note without undue emphasis that the defendant had initially given statements but had ended interrogation); United States v. Williams, 556 F.2d 65, 67 (D.C.Cir.1977) (recounting witness may conclude account of interview in natural fashion by indicating that the defendant chose to stop answering questions); but cf. United States v. Goldman, 563 F.2d 501, 504 (1st Cir.1977) (noting that Miranda...