State v. Dakota

• Decision Date: 26 April 1974
• Docket Number: No. 44159,44159
• Citation: 300 Minn. 12,217 N.W.2d 748
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Joey Alan DAKOTA, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 748

217 N.W.2d 748

300 Minn. 12

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Joey Alan DAKOTA, Appellant.

No. 44159.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 26, 1974.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Statements voluntarily made by defendant to the police after receiving a Miranda warning were not, under the circumstances of this interrogation, so tainted by prior custodial interrogation conducted before he had received such warning as to require suppression on constitutional grounds.

2. There was no reversible error in the trial court's self-defense instruction to the jury.

C. Paul Jones, Public Defender, Robert E. Oliphant, Barbara Britt, Asst. Public Defenders, Minneapolis, for appellant.

Warren Spannaus, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Gary W. Flakne, County Atty., Theodore R. Rix, Michael McGlennen, and Vernon E. Bergstrom, Asst. County Attys., Minneapolis, for respondent.

Heard before KNUTSON, C.J., and PETERSON, TODD and YETKA, JJ., and considered and decided by the court.

PETERSON, Justice.

Defendant, Joey Alan Dakota, was convicted in Hennepin County District Court of the crime of aggravated assault in violation of Minn.St. 609.225(1). Appealing from the judgment, he contends: (1) that the trial court erred in not ruling that certain statements made by him before he had been given Miranda warnings tainted and rendered inadmissible other statements made after he had waived his Miranda rights, and (2) that there was prejudicial error in the instructions on self-defense. We affirm.

The assault of which defendant was convicted took place in the basement of a South Minneapolis apartment building in the early morning of March 8, 1972. On the evening of March 7, 1972, defendant and his girl friend, Kathy, attended a party at the apartment of Beverly Graves in that building. Sometime during the party, defendant became aware of his girl friend's absence, left the apartment to look for her and, in the course of his search, wandered into the basement of the building. Unbeknown to defendant, Henning Youngquist, age 82, another tenant of the building, was temporarily using the basement as a bedroom. Defendant was convicted of assaulting Youngquist at that time and place.

According to William Quinn, a police lieutenant who questioned defendant on the following day, defendant explained his actions as follows:

'* * * He said he entered the room where the incident later occurred and he was shouting for Kathy. And all of a sudden the old man got out of bed and came at him with a chair in his hands. He said he took the chair away from the old man and threw it at him. I asked him if he recalled actually striking the man with the chair or swinging it at him. He said he did not swing it at him or attempt to strike him with it, but rather threw it at him and indicated with a motion, indicating that he had pushed it and thrown it away from him towards the man. He said that when the chair hit the man, the old man fell down and he looked at him and realized that he was hurt. He recalls something about kneeling down or doing something, talking to the man, and the old man saying, 'Leave me alone,' when he tried to help him.'

Fearful that he had killed Youngquist, defendant returned to the Graves' apartment for help, related to Mrs. Graves what had happened, and went downstairs again with her. After defendant came back to the apartment, one of the other guests, having learned of what had happened, became upset, hit defendant, and pulled him outside. Outside they found several police cars which had initially arrived on the scene in response to another disturbance. The police, who had already received some information regarding a possible assault, separated defendant and his captor.

One of the officers on the scene, Thomas Cloutier, then requested Thomas Billings, who had arrived later, to take custody of Dakota. Billings was informed by Cloutier that an assault had been reported and that from the reports of the others, Dakota was probably the assailant. Billings placed Dakota in the back of his squad car and then asked him what happened. At the Rasmussen hearing, Billings testified to this conversation as follows:

'Q. Did you have any conversation with Dakota at that time?

'A. Yes, sir, I asked him what happened.

'Q. What did he say?

'A. He stated that he was at a party with another girl, and she had run out of the apartment and into the basement, toward the rear of the apartment. He stated he followed her and somehow lost her in the rear of the apartment, and that he entered the basement. He said at this time a man came at him with a chair in his hands, and he stated he knocked him down and took the chair away from him and struck the man in the face.

'Q. During this conversation did you advise him of anything?

'A. Yes, sir, I advised him of his rights, after--or just before he stated that he struck the man.

'Q. What did you advise him? Tell the Court exactly what you told Dakota.

'A. I advised him of his rights per Miranda; I read the Miranda card to him.

'Q. Do you have that card with you that you read to him?

'A. Yes, sir.

'Q. Would you read it for the record.

'A. 'The Constitution requires I inform you that you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used in court as evidence against you. You are entitled to talk to a lawyer now and have him present now or at any time during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you without cost.' And I asked him if he understood his rights and he stated, 'Yes.' I asked him if he wished to talk to me at this time, and he stated, 'Yes.'

'Q. What conversation did you have with him subsequent to advising him?

'A. I asked him again what happened, and he repeated the first part of it, and replied that-- 'Q. --Well, you will have to go through the whole thing, what he told you after he was advised.

'A. He stated that he followed a girl to the rear of the apartment and lost her, and was unable to leave the apartment building. He went into the basement to look for her. He stated a man came at him, as he entered the basement, with a chair in his hand. And he stated that he knocked the man down and picked up the chair and struck the man in the face with the chair.'

At the conclusion of the Rasmussen hearing, the court ruled that defendant's statements to Officer Billings prior to the Miranda warnings would be suppressed, but the court declined to suppress either defendant's statements to Billings following the warnings or defendant's statements made on the next day to Lieutenant Quinn after additional warnings and waiver. Both Billings and Quinn testified at the trial, while defendant did not. Billings' testimony differed somewhat from Quinn's in that Billings testified that defendant said he knocked Youngquist down, took the chair from him, and knocked him in the face. Defendant's objection to Billings' testimony regarding the statements made by defendant subsequent to receiving a Miranda warning was renewed and again denied at trial.

1. Defendant's basic argument is that his post-Miranda statements to Officer Billings ¹ should not have been admitted because he was not informed that the statements he made before the Miranda warnings could not be used against him. He relies upon the 'fruit of the poisonous tree' test stated in Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963).

The Wong Sun test is phrased as 'whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.' 371 U.S. 488, 83 S.Ct. 417, 9 L.Ed.2d 455. Thus the first issue to be resolved is whether the initial inculpatory statements were illegally obtained.

Under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 10 A.L.R.3d 974 (1966), the warnings required by the privilege against self-incrimination must be given in circumstances of custodial interrogation--' questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.' 384 U.S. 444, 86 S.Ct. 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d 706, 10 A.L.R.3d 993. In excluding testimony regarding defendant's prewarning statements, the trial court implicitly held, contrary to the state's contention, that these statements were made in the context of custodial interrogation undertaken before appropriate warnings and waiver.

It is true that neither Miranda itself nor subsequent decisions of this court require warnings in the course of preliminary, noncustodial investigations or general questioning of citizens in the factfinding process. See, e.g., State v. Martin, Minn., 212 N.W.2d 847 (1973); State v. Hoskins, 292 Minn. 111, 193 N.W.2d 802 (1972); State v. Kinn, 288 Minn. 31, 178 N.W.2d 888 (1970). However, something more than a general investigation was involved in the present case. Defendant had been placed in the custody of Officer Billings by Officer Cloutier; the officers already believed that he had probably committed an assault. Officer Billings placed defendant, who was certainly not free to go, in a squad car and then began to question him before giving him the Miranda warnings. Thus the atmosphere was one of custodial interrogation, with suspicion already focused on defendant. The state's further arguments that defendant was aware of his rights and that his statements were not inculpatory are irrelevant and without merit under Miranda.

Granted that the first statement was illegally obtained, the second and more crucial issue is whether, under a derivative evidence rule, the statements made by defendant after the warnings and waiver were the inadmissible results of the prior illegality. While a number of cases in other jurisdictions have applied a 'fruit of the poisonous tree' rationale to a second confession made after an inadmissible first...