State v. Evans, 91-288

• Decision Date: 17 February 1993
• Docket Number: No. 91-288,91-288
• Citation: 495 N.W.2d 760
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Jack Spencer EVANS, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 760

495 N.W.2d 760

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Jack Spencer EVANS, Appellant.

No. 91-288.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 17, 1993.

Rehearing Denied March 26, 1993.

Bonnie J. Campbell, Atty. Gen., Bruce Kempkes, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richard Lytle, County Atty., and Robert Glaser, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

Amanda Potterfield of Johnston, Larson, Potterfield, Zimmermann & Nathanson, P.C., Iowa City, for appellant.

Considered en banc.

LARSON, Justice.

Jack Spencer Evans was convicted of first-degree murder, Iowa Code §§ 701.1, .2 (1989), and he appealed. He urged constitutional arguments, based on the Fifth and Sixth Amendments and ineffective assistance of counsel. The court of appeals reversed on Evans' Fifth and Sixth Amendment grounds, and we granted further review. We vacate the court of appeals decision and affirm the district court.

On September 11, 1990, the body of eighty-one-year-old Della Forbes was found in her rural home near Keosauqua, Iowa. She had been killed several days before, shot five times with .38 Special bullets. Law enforcement officials learned that Evans had recently purchased a .357 magnum, which was capable of firing .38 Specials. Evans lived about a mile from the victim's home. On September 18, officers went to the Evans residence to inquire about Evans' gun and obtained possession of it. Ballistics tests showed that this was the murder weapon.

On September 19, Department of Criminal Investigation Agents Mower and Hedlund went to the Evans residence to interrogate Evans. They had a search warrant, but they did not have an arrest warrant at that time. Immediately when the officers arrived, they read Evans his Miranda rights, and he signed a waiver form. The officers began their questioning but did not execute the search warrant for some time.

About a half-hour into the interview, Evans was informed that his gun had been identified as the murder weapon and that he was a suspect. He immediately stopped the interview. The agents then told Evans they had a search warrant.

Prior to executing the search warrant, the agents called the sheriff's office and learned that there was a mistake in the legal description on the warrant. Agent Mower left to get a corrected warrant. Hedlund stayed with Evans to make sure that no evidence was destroyed.

After Mower left, Hedlund and Evans remained silent for about a half-hour. Evans then asked Hedlund if he could ask him additional questions. Hedlund reminded Evans that Evans had requested that the interview cease, and that he could talk to Evans only if Evans waived his Miranda rights. Evans began to talk again, although he averted any conversation about the murder until Hedlund redirected the conversation to that subject. During this second half of the interview, Evans made several incriminating statements. Evans moved to suppress these statements on Fifth and Sixth Amendment grounds.

The district court denied Evans' motion to suppress. As to the Fifth Amendment, the court ruled that Evans was not "in custody" and further that he had freely and voluntarily waived his Miranda rights. As to the Sixth Amendment argument, the court found that Evans made the incriminating statements before his right to counsel attached.

Our review is de novo. Nevertheless, the district court's findings on credibility of the witnesses are entitled to considerable deference by this court. State v. Farris, 359 N.W.2d 190, 192 (Iowa 1984); State v. Hatter, 342 N.W.2d 851, 854 (Iowa 1983).

I. The Fifth Amendment Argument.

The protections of Miranda are afforded only in those interrogations that are custodial in nature because of their inherently coercive effect. See Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 486, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1885, 68 L.Ed.2d 378, 387 (1981) ("Absent such [custodial] interrogation, there would have been no infringement of the right that [the suspect] invoked...."); Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341, 96 S.Ct. 1612, 48 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 461, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1621, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 716 (1966) (rule to apply to "[a]n individual swept from familiar surroundings into police custody, surrounded by antagonistic forces, and subject to the techniques of persuasion described above...."); State v. Kasel, 488 N.W.2d 706, 708 (Iowa 1992) (need to give Miranda warnings arises only on proof of both custody and interrogation). As the Court in Beckwith noted:

The narrow issue before the court in Miranda was presented very precisely in the opening paragraph of that opinion-"the admissibility of statements obtained from an individual who was subjected to custodial police interrogation."

Beckwith, 425 U.S. at 345, 96 S.Ct. at 1616, 48 L.Ed.2d at 7. Because custodial interrogation lies at the heart of Miranda, we must first determine whether Evans was "in custody."

The interrogation by the officers was held in Evans' own home, and the general rule is that in-home interrogations are not custodial for purposes of Miranda. In fact, the Supreme Court in Miranda itself made it clear that this is so because the "compelling atmosphere" giving rise to the rule is not present:

The distinction [between such informal interviews and custodial interviews] and its significance has been aptly described in the opinion of a Scottish court:

In former times such questioning, if undertaken, would be conducted by a police officer visiting the house or place of business of the suspect and there questioning him, probably in the presence of a relation or friend. However convenient the modern practice may be, it must normally create a situation very unfavourable to the suspect.

Miranda, 384 U.S. at 478 n. 46, 86 S.Ct. at 1630 n. 46, 16 L.Ed.2d at 726 n. 46 (quoting Chalmers v. H.M. Advocate, [1954] Sess.Cas. 66, 78 (J.C.)).

In Beckwith, the defendant was interviewed in his home, and the Supreme Court rejected his claim that the interview was custodial for Miranda purposes, 425 U.S. at 347, 96 S.Ct. at 1616-17, 48 L.Ed.2d at 8; and in State v. Davis, 446 N.W.2d 785 (Iowa 1989), we held that the in-home interrogation was not custodial:

The atmosphere during the defendant's interview was not coercive or threatening nor was his freedom restrained. In fact, the trial court found that the atmosphere was "most pleasant." He was not deprived of his freedom in any way. He was not placed under arrest and was interviewed in his home. While he was a suspect, this status does not trigger the requirement of Miranda warnings. Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495, 97 S.Ct. 711, 714, 50 L.Ed.2d 714, 719 (1977). The harm that Miranda was to eradicate was the "incommunicado interrogation ... in a police dominated atmosphere."

Id. at 788 (emphasis added) (quoting State v. McDonald, 190 N.W.2d 402, 404 (Iowa 1971) (in-home interrogation not custodial under Miranda )).

In Beckwith, the Supreme Court stated that applying Miranda to an interview in the suspect's own home, under normal circumstances, "would cut this Court's holding in Miranda completely loose from its own explicitly stated rationale." Beckwith, 425 U.S. at 345, 96 S.Ct. at 1615, 48 L.Ed.2d at 7.

In the present case, there is no claim of coercion, and none appears in the record. Evans was advised at the outset of the interview that he was not under arrest. Throughout the interview, Evans continued his domestic activities, including watching television and preparing a meal. He even offered to fix lunch and iced tea for the officers. It could be said, in fact, that the interview was under circumstances too relaxing and informal to be effective; at one point, the officers could not divert Evans' attention from television long enough to talk to him until one of them moved his chair to block the television.

The fact that police officers were involved in the questioning does not make it a custodial interrogation. Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 97 S.Ct. 711, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977).

[A] noncustodial situation is not converted to one in which Miranda applies simply because a reviewing court concludes that, even in the absence of any formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement, the questioning took place in a "coercive environment." Any interview of one suspected of a crime by a police officer will have coercive aspects to it, simply by virtue of the fact that the police officer is part of a law enforcement system which may ultimately cause the suspect to be charged with a crime. But police officers are not required to administer Miranda warnings to everyone whom they question. Nor is the requirement of warnings to be imposed simply because the questioning takes place in the station house, or because the questioned person is one whom the police suspect. Miranda warnings are required only where there has been such a restriction on a person's freedom as to render him "in custody." It was that sort of coercive environment to which Miranda by its terms was made applicable, and to which it is limited.

Id. at 495, 97 S.Ct. at 714, 50 L.Ed.2d at 719. Similarly, the Court stated in Beckwith:

Petitioner's argument that he was placed in the functional, and, therefore, legal, equivalent of the Miranda situation asks us now to ignore completely that Miranda was grounded squarely in the Court's explicit and detailed assessment of the peculiar "nature and setting of ... in-custody interrogation...."

425 U.S. at 346, 96 S.Ct. at 1616, 48 L.Ed.2d at 7 (citation omitted).

Miranda clearly does not apply because this was not a custodial interrogation. See generally Annotation, What Constitutes "Custodial Interrogation" Within Rule of Miranda v. Arizona, 31 A.L.R.3d 565 (1970). Even if Miranda did apply, our de novo review causes us to conclude, as did the district court, that Evans freely and voluntarily waived those rights. ¹ Because we conclude the interrogation was not custodial, we need not discuss that evidence in detail.

II. The Sixth Amendment Issue.

The incriminating statements made by Evans while Agent...