State v. Hazelton

• Decision Date: 20 January 1975
• Citation: 330 A.2d 919
• Parties: STATE of Maine v. Daniel HAZELTON.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 919

330 A.2d 919

STATE of Maine v. Daniel HAZELTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 20, 1975.

David M. Cox, Dist. Atty., Robert Briggs, Asst. County Atty., Bangor, for plaintiff.

Rudman, Rudman & Carter by Lawrence E. Merrill, Bangor, for defendant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.

WERNICK, Justice.

On October 18, 1973 a Superior Court jury (Penobscot County) found the defendant Daniel Hazelton, guilty of having committed the crime of 'robbery' (in violation of 17 M.R.S.A. § 3401). The conviction rested upon evidence which included an inculpatory statement made extra-judicially by defendant. Prior to trial defendant, invoking Rule 41(e) M.R.Crim.P., had sought to suppress this statement as evidence. The Superior Court Justice presiding denied suppression since he was satisfied

'beyond a reasonable doubt (that the statement) . . . had been made knowingly and voluntarily.'

Defendant has appealed from the judgment of conviction and raises the single issue that the admission of his extra-judicial inculpatory statement as evidence against him was reversible error.

We deny the appeal.

A preliminary procedural question arises because the record on appeal fails to disclose an objection by defendant at trial to the admissibility into evidence of his inculpatory statement. We must decide, therefore, whether the denial of a pre-trial motion to suppress suffices, in the absence of an appropriate objection at trial, to preserve for appellate cognizance in due course the issue of the correctness of a ruling admitting the matters sought to be suppressed as evidence at trial.

Judicial decisions delineating the practice in other states are of little assistance since they tend to reflect peculiarities unique to the particular jurisdiction.

The practice in the federal system is stated in Lawn v. United States, 355 U.S. 339, 78 S.Ct. 311, 2 L.Ed.2d 321 (1958):

'. . . generally . . . the overruling of a pretrial motion to suppress the use at the trial of particular evidence preserves the point and renders it unnecessary again to object when such evidence is offered at the trial.' (p. 353, 78 S.Ct. p. 319)

Since the language of Rule 41(e) M.R.Crim.P. parallels federal criminal Rule 41(e), our basic inclination would be to follow the federal practice enunciated in Lawn, supra, unless other facets of Maine's criminal practice and procedure demand deviation. We are aware of no such countervailing considerations but discern, rather, that a prior policy pronouncement of this Court tends affirmatively to support adherence to the federal procedure.

In State v. MacKenzie, 161 Me. 123, 210 A.2d 24 (1965), dealing with a pre-trial suppression proceeding conducted shortly before the proceeding conducted shortly 41(e) M.R.Crim.P., this Court announced that a ruling denying a pre-trial motion to suppress should serve as the 'law of the trial' if there is

'. . . no evidence additional to that recorded at the hearing on the motion to suppress . . . before the (trial) court.' (p. 141, 210 A.2d p. 34) ¹

The MacKenzie approach thus assigns to a pre-trial ruling denying suppression an impact upon the course of the trial which renders an objection at trial essentially redundant. This is in contrast to the federal practice which tends to de-emphasize the significance at trial of a pre-trial ruling denying suppression. ²

Notwithstanding its tendency to diminish the importance at trial of a pre-trial ruling denying suppression, the federal practice holds such pre-trial ruling sufficient to save the issue involved for appellate review without need for an objection at trial,-at least in terms of the record made at the pre-trial suppression hearing.

A fortiori, then, since on the particular issue now under consideration we find no reason to reject the conformity to federal practice prima facie indicated by the language parallelism of the Maine and federal criminal Rule 41(e), ³ we decide that a pre-trial ruling denying a Rule 41(e) M.R.Crim.P. motion to suppress ipso facto saves defendant's point for appellate review in terms of the record of the pretrial suppression hearing; defendant need raise no further objection at trial when the matters previously sought to be suppressed are offfered as evidence. We add the caveat, however, that we do not suggest that objection at trial may be dispensed with if defendant should seek that appellate scrutiny extend beyond the record made at the pre-trial suppression hearing. ⁴

We turn to the merits of defendant's claim on appeal.

The evidence at the suppression hearing warranted findings beyond a reasonable doubt of the following material facts.

On August 5, 1973 three youths entered the apartment of Milford Seavey, an elderly resident of Bangor, Maine, and took from him twenty-one dollars. Two days later, while Detective Maurice E. Thurston and Lt. Frederick Clark of the Bangor Police Department were investigating the incident, they came upon defendant, accompanied by an acquaintance, at a Bangor street corner. Carefully explaining to the youths that they were not arresting them, the officers requested that they accompany them to the Bangor Police Station and there submit to questioning. Without complaint or protest the youg men readily acceded to the request. At the Police Station Detective Thurston took the defendant into an office. He immediately told him the reason for the questioning and informed him in scrupulous detail of his 'Miranda' rights. ⁵

Thus duly warned, defendant proceeded to admit orally to Detective Thurston that he had participated in the 'robbery' at the Seavey apartment. Before he could arrange to have defendant's oral statement reduced to writing and signed by defendant, Detective Thurston was required to leave on other official business. Lt. Clark took over in place of Detective Thurston. Without re-advising defendant of his 'Miranda' rights or himself asking any questions of defendant, Lt. Clark proceeded to have a police stenographer listen to and record defendant's repetition of his oral admission. It was then transcribed into a typed statement. When this was submitted to defendant to read and sign, defendant told Lt. Clark that he was unable to read. Lt. Clark then read the written statement to defendant, and defendant signed ti. All of the foregoing events, from the commencement of questioning by Detective Thurston to defendant's signing the written statement, consumed approximately one hour. ⁶

Defendant's contention on appeal is that the evidence adduced at the suppression hearing was insufficient, in accordance with governing legal standards, to establish that when he made his inculpatory statement to the police, defendant (1) was legally competent to waive his privilege against self-incrimination including the 'Miranda' rights functioning as a prophylactic guarantee that such privilege will be freely and plenarily exercised or (2) in fact made such a waiver.

In support of his contention that the evidence failed to establish his legal competency to waive constitutional rights defendant relies upon portions of the evidence showing that he was below average in intellectual capacity and seriously deficient in education to the point of illiteracy, had been extensively treated at a mental institution and, as defendant had testified, 'drank two pints of Mr. Boston' whiskey approximately two to three hours prior to the time of his being questioned.

We conclude that despite this evidence, the presiding Justice was warranted in his conclusion, based on the totality of the evidence, that beyond a reasonable doubt defendant was legally competent to waive his privilege against self-incrimination and the 'Miranda' rights ancillary to it.

Interrogation of defendant at the suppression hearing revealed that he then had substantial comprehension of the workings of the legal system. ⁷ Nothing appeared in evidence to suggest that at the interrogation at the Bangor Police Station defendant's capacity for understanding, as internally constituted, was any different from what it was at the suppression hearing.

Further, nothing in the record intimates that during the police questioning defendant had been subjected to external inducements, deception or coercion. On the contrary, the evidence is clear that the Police had taken care to ensure that whatever defendant did, or said, was knowing and voluntary. Defendant was plainly and expressly informed at the outset that he was not under arrest and had no obligation to go to police headquarters for police interrogation. Defendant frely chose to go to the police station and to submit to questioning by the police. Defendant was interrogated only after he had been plainly and explicitly informed in detail of all of his rights connected with his privilege against self-incrimination. The questioning had proceeded only briefly before defendant willingly divulged his involvement in the Seavey 'robbery.'

The presiding Justice was thus justified in concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant possessed sufficient usual competency, in terms of his mental faculties and emotional and behavioral processes, knowingly and intelligently to waive his privilege against self-incrimination and the 'Miranda' rights encompassed within it. State v. Collins, Me., 297 A.2d 620 (1972).

An additional claim of defendant, however, is that notwithstanding his general competency, on the instant occasion his consumption of alcoholic beverages had caused a particular impairment of his faculties sufficient to cause him to lack capacity in this special instance to waive his privilege against self-incrimination and the 'Miranda' rights ancillary to it.

Although defendant stated at the suppression hearing that in the two or three hours before he went to police headquarters he had consumed two pints of whiskey and had 'become drunk', the presiding Justice was not obliged to credit this testimony...