State v. Doughty, C7-89-1934

• Decision Date: 12 July 1991
• Docket Number: No. C7-89-1934,C7-89-1934
• Citation: 472 N.W.2d 299
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Petitioner, Appellant, v. John William DOUGHTY, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 299

472 N.W.2d 299

60 USLW 2091

STATE of Minnesota, Petitioner, Appellant, v. John William DOUGHTY, Respondent.

No. C7-89-1934.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 12, 1991.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The trial court properly suppressed defendant's statements to police given during custodial interrogation following defendant's equivocal request for counsel where the officer continued interrogation instead of clarifying whether defendant wished to deal with police only with counsel present. State v. Robinson, 427 N.W.2d 217 (Minn.1988).

2. The trial court erred by failing to consider the factors announced in United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978), to determine whether the testimony of live witnesses including the alleged victim of the charged offense should be suppressed.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, and Thomas Foley, Ramsey County Atty., Mark Nathan Lystig, Asst. Ramsey County Atty., St. Paul, for appellant.

William E. Falvey, Ramsey County Public Defender, Richard J. Coleman, Asst. Ramsey County Public Defender, St. Paul, for respondent.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

KEITH, Chief Justice.

This case arises upon the state's appeal of a pretrial order denying a motion for reconsideration and affirming the trial court's previous order suppressing all evidence in the prosecution of defendant John William Doughty for first degree burglary and second degree assault. The court of appeals, with Judge Short dissenting, affirmed the trial court's ruling that police violated defendant's rights under Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981), and State v. Robinson, 427 N.W.2d 217 (Minn.1988), requiring the suppression of all of the state's evidence in this case, including the testimony of the alleged victim and other live witnesses. State v. Doughty, 456 N.W.2d 445 (Minn.App.1990). Concluding that the trial court erred in not applying the factors announced in United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978), to determine the admissibility of live witness testimony, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.

I

The state has evidence indicating that defendant came to Minnesota from Florida in 1988 and obtained a job as a cook at Lee's Kitchen in Highland Park in September. Two young women, one of them 16-year-old S., worked with defendant at Lee's Kitchen. Defendant called S. one night and also called T., the other young woman. S. and T. reported the calls to Oliver Weir, kitchen manager at the restaurant, who previously had noted that defendant acted strangely. As a result Weir terminated defendant on October 4, 1988.

According to police reports introduced at the Rasmussen hearing, during the early morning hours on October 17, 1988, an intruder, armed with a fixed-blade knife, entered S.'s family house by removing a window screen and awakened S. She immediately recognized the man as defendant, whom she knew only as "John" from the restaurant. Defendant, who claimed that he did not know whose house he had entered, used some rope to bind S., gagged her, and tore her sweatpants. Several hours later, after securing her promise not to report him, a promise secured by a threat to kill her, defendant untied her and left.

The police reports indicate that S. told her mother about the incident later that day. The father called a friend, Assistant Ramsey County Attorney David Dietz, and told him some of the facts but said they did not want to press charges because they were afraid defendant might deliver on his promise to seek revenge. The assistant county attorney in turn contacted Sergeant John De Noma of the St. Paul Police Department and passed along some of the information but did not give the name of the alleged victim or the name of the reporter of the information. De Noma checked to see if any similar incidents had been reported. He knew only that a Highland Park restaurant employee named John was involved. Upon investigation, he learned that two Johns had worked at Lee's Highland Village Inn and Lee's Highland Kitchen--one being defendant, whose listed address was given. Unable to find any arrest warrants for either man, De Noma ended his investigation but not without writing up a supplementary report. Because there was no formal complaint, De Noma did not give the report a complaint number but apparently kept the report for possible future reference, a practice not uncommon in the department.

One month later, on November 13, 1988, defendant committed a hideous crime in Hennepin County. Specifically, defendant kidnapped an 18-year-old church youth volunteer worker after striking her on the head and pushing her into the trunk of his automobile. He drove to Minnehaha Park where he tied the woman to a tree, gagged her, told her he was going to sacrifice her to Satan, and attempted to cut off her feet. The victim lost and regained consciousness during the 9 1/2-hour attack. Eventually, promising not to identify him, the victim persuaded defendant to take her to a hospital, where she was treated for severe blood loss and hypothermia. This offense and the subsequent arrest and filing of charges against defendant received substantial attention in the local media. ¹

St. Louis Park police arrested defendant in connection with the Hennepin County offense on November 14, and Investigator Glen Hunter, after giving defendant a Miranda warning, commenced a custodial interrogation. Defendant at first denied committing the offense but then, a few minutes into the interrogation, he said, "I did it for Satan." Then defendant asked, "Shouldn't I have an attorney so you don't ask me any illegal questions?" Investigator Hunter made no response. After a pause, defendant said, "What do you think?" Hunter replied, "I'm very interested in hearing your side of the story." Defendant then went on to give a detailed confession to the Hennepin County offense. Later during the interrogation defendant mentioned having committed a crime on a specific avenue in Highland Park in St. Paul, saying that the devil had directed him to enter a house occupied by a young woman, tie her up, cut off her legs, and eat her flesh. He found he could not complete the intended crime and fled after begging her not to call the police. Defendant later gave further details of the offense as he rode with an officer to St. Paul and showed the officer the house in question.

On November 16 Sergeant Gregory Pye of the St. Paul Police Department contacted S.'s family and asked them to get back to him. S.'s mother met with him on November 17 and revealed many of the details of the offense. Also on November 17, Pye talked with Weir, the kitchen manager at the restaurant, who on his own had called the St. Paul police after reading about defendant in a newspaper report of the Hennepin County kidnapping and assault. Weir told Pye about defendant's telephone harassment of S. and T., whose names he gave to Pye. Pye also talked with S., who reported details of the assault and identified defendant's picture from an obviously fair photographic display. She gave Pye physical evidence of the assault, including pieces of rope and some of the clothes she was wearing during the assault. S. also revealed she had received a call from defendant's girlfriend, who had found pictures in her house with S.'s family name and phone number on them, pictures that had to have been taken from S.'s house by defendant. Pye also became aware of Sergeant De Noma's report.

Defendant subsequently was charged in Hennepin County with attempted murder in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and kidnapping involving great bodily harm. He pled guilty to the kidnapping charge and received a 30-year prison sentence. See State v. Doughty, CX-90-671, 1990 WL 105989 (Minn.App. July 3, 1990).

The instant prosecution was commenced in Ramsey County, where defendant was charged with two counts of burglary in the first degree and one count of assault with a dangerous weapon. At the Rasmussen hearing the trial court said that in its opinion Investigator Hunter violated the Edwards rule and that the only real issue was whether some or all of the evidence still could be admitted on the theory that it was not the fruit of the poisonous tree. The trial court apparently saw the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree issue as primarily an issue involving the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule and ruled that none of the evidence would have been inevitably discovered in the absence of defendant's statements obtained in violation of Edwards.

The state, taking issue with the trial court's focus, filed a timely motion for reconsideration, ² arguing that even if the trial court was correct about the Edwards issue, at a maximum only some of the evidence, not all of it, should be suppressed. In support of this motion the state relied in part on United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978), discussed infra. The state also submitted an affidavit stating that S.'s mother told the prosecuting attorney that she probably would have contacted the Ramsey County Attorney and the St. Paul Police Department after learning about defendant's arrest and incarceration in the newspapers. The trial court denied the motion summarily and the state's pretrial appeal followed.

The court of appeals ruled that there was an Edwards violation, that the derivative evidence rule applies to such a violation, and that all of the evidence was the suppressible fruit of the poisonous tree. State v. Doughty, 456 N.W.2d 445 (Minn.App.1990). The dissent argued that even if the trial court was correct in suppressing defendant's statements, the trial court erred in suppressing all of the other evidence.

II

In Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), the United States Supreme...