State v. Evans, 25661.
| Decision Date | 09 June 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 25661.,25661. |
| Citation | 354 S.C. 579,582 S.E.2d 407 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. Florence Robinson EVANS, Petitioner. |
Senior Assistant Appellate Defender Wanda H. Haile, of Columbia, for petitioner.
Attorney General Charles M. Condon, Chief Deputy Attorney General John W. McIntosh, Assistant Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, and Assistant Attorney General S. Creighton Waters, all of Columbia, for respondent.
Florence Evans ("Evans") was granted certiorari from the Court of Appeals' decision reversing trial court's suppression of Evans' statement and remanding this case to the trial court with direction that the trial court make a more definite ruling as to whether the arresting officers violated petitioner's Miranda1 rights. Evans was charged with three counts of murder after her three children died in a mobile home fire.
On the morning of March 4, 1994, Evans' mobile home caught fire and burned to the ground, killing her three children. SLED arson agent Terry Alexander ("Alexander") arrived to investigate the cause of the fire and spoke with Evans two separate times that afternoon. A very upset Evans was willing to talk with Alexander but refused to provide a written statement. Alexander returned to the house where Evans was staying ten days later to get a formal written statement from her. Evans was not at the home, so Alexander left a message asking her to come to the Pageland, South Carolina police station.2
Evans arrived at the police station later that day with some of her relatives, and Alexander and SLED Lieutenant Doug Ross ("Ross") took her into a back office to take her statement. The SLED agents never read Evans her Miranda rights.
During the interview, Evans gave several reasons as to how the fire may have started: a faulty electrical outlet, dogs under the trailer disrupting the electrical wiring, a heating stove that was left on, and the fact that her 21 year-old sister was teaching her son how to light a fire. Ross repeatedly told Evans that he did not believe any of her explanations. Evans remained emotionally unstable during the interview. She sobbed frequently and continuously asked the agents "to get her some help." Finally, the agents determined that the interview was bearing fruit, and they stepped out of the room.
The agents met Agent Jennifer Edwards ("Edwards") of the SLED Child Fatality Division outside the room, and they requested that she attempt to talk with Evans who was shaking, sobbing, and very nervous. Edwards tried to sympathize with Evans by discussing religion, saying that her children must be in heaven. They also discussed Evans' dead mother and "female problems" that Evans had experienced with the birth of her three children. Evans kept on asking for help, and Edwards told her she would get her some help. The two women were in the room together for around 45 minutes to an hour. Evans went to the bathroom two times during this period, and Edwards accompanied her and waited outside the bathroom door.
Eventually, Evans told Edwards, Edwards immediately called Ross and then Alexander into the room, and Evans repeated the statement three times. Alexander wrote down the statement on a "voluntary statement" form, which already contained Evans' original written statement taken earlier in the interview. Evans signed and initialed the document. She testified that she believed that in signing the document that she would get some help. Shortly after making the statement, the agents arrested Evans. The interview had lasted for three hours.
Evans' cousin Inez Robinson, who accompanied Evans to the police station, attempted to go back and see Evans three times, but the officers refused her access to the back room.
The trial judge granted Evans' motion to suppress the inculpatory statement that Evans gave to the SLED agents, finding that the agents had placed Evans in the functional equivalent of a custodial interrogation and should have read Evans her Miranda rights.
Initially, the Court of Appeals upheld the trial judge's determination, finding that Evans was not free to leave the custody of the SLED agents. State v. Evans, 341 S.C. 219, 534 S.E.2d 10 (Ct.App.2000). On rehearing, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the action so that the trial judge could make a more definite ruling as to whether Evans was in custody. State v. Evans, 343 S.C. 685, 541 S.E.2d 852 (Ct.App.2001).
This Court granted a Petition for Certiorari to review the Court of Appeals' reversal of the trial judge's grant of the motion to suppress an inculpatory statement. Evans raises the following issue for review:
Did the Court of Appeals err in reversing the trial court and remanding the issue of whether Evans was in police custody when she gave an inculpatory statement?
Appellate review of whether a person is in custody is confined to a determination of whether the ruling by the trial judge is supported by the record. State v. Easier, 322 S.C. 333, 342, 471 S.E.2d 745, 751 (Ct.App.1996) affd as modified, 327 S.C. 121, 489 S.E.2d 617 (1997).
Evans asserts that the Court of Appeals erred in reversing and remanding the trial judge's finding that she was in custody when she made her inculpatory statement and that her statement should be suppressed because the agents failed to Mirandize her. We agree.
The purpose of the Miranda warnings is to apprise the defendant of her constitutional privilege to not incriminate herself while in the custody of law enforcement. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S.Ct. at 1612. Law enforcement must state the Miranda warnings "after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any way." Id. To determine whether a suspect is in custody, the trial court must examine the totality of the circumstances, which include factors such as the place, purpose, and length of interrogation, as well as whether the suspect was free to leave the place of questioning. Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82...
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