State v. Ortega, A10–507.
| Decision Date | 01 June 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. A10–507.,A10–507. |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Respondent,v.Danny ORTEGA, Jr., Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Syllabus by the Court
1. An invocation of the right to remain silent is ambiguous if the suspect's statement could be interpreted as either a general refusal to answer any questions or as an expression of unwillingness to discuss a specific topic.
2. The district court did not err when it denied appellant's motion to suppress statements made to law enforcement officials because appellant did not unambiguously invoke his right to silence.
3. When a suspect makes an equivocal invocation of the right to counsel, providing the suspect with a Miranda warning is sufficient as a matter of law to satisfy the “stop and clarify” rule.
4. The district court did not err when it denied appellant's motion to suppress statements made to law enforcement officials because the agents properly clarified appellant's ambiguous request for counsel.
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Kelly O'Neill Moller, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul, MN, Paul Kiltinen, Dodge
County Attorney, Mantorville, MN, for respondent.David W. Merchant, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Rochelle R. Winn, Assistant State Public Defender, St. Paul, MN, for appellant.
Appellant Danny Ortega Jr., following a jury trial, was convicted of aiding and abetting first-degree premeditated murder, Minn.Stat. §§ 609.185(a)(1), 609.05, subd. 1 (2010), in the stabbing death of Troy Ulrich. Appellant challenges his conviction on appeal, arguing that the district court erred when it denied his pretrial motion to suppress statements made to law enforcement officials after appellant allegedly invoked his state and federal constitutional rights to remain silent and to have counsel present during custodial interrogation.1 We affirm.
On February 16, 2008, Troy Ulrich was stabbed to death in a garage at his apartment building in Claremont, Minnesota, where he lived with his fiancé. Appellant Danny Ortega Jr. lived with his grandfather in Apartment A, which was on the same floor as Ulrich's Apartment C. Appellant's girlfriend, Marissa Lane, and appellant's father, Danny Ortega Sr. (Ortega Sr.), sometimes stayed overnight at Apartment A. Appellant's uncle, Arnulfo Bermea Sr., also lived in the apartment building. Arnulfo rented the garage where Ulrich was killed. 2
On the afternoon of February 15, 2008, a group of people—including appellant, Lane, and appellant's cousins Eric and Anthony Bermea—gathered in Apartment A to play cards and drink alcohol. When the group ran out of beer, appellant went across the hall to Apartment C and asked Ulrich to join them. Ulrich came to Apartment A and brought beer that he shared with the others. Several members of the group, including appellant and Ulrich, snorted cocaine at some point during the night.
Soon after Ulrich arrived, Ulrich and appellant left the apartment together for ten to fifteen minutes. When they returned, appellant and Lane went into appellant's bedroom. Meanwhile, Ulrich told Eric and Anthony that appellant had warned him that the brothers “were bad people to be around.” The brothers went into appellant's room to confront him. Appellant denied making any such comments and called Ulrich a liar. Appellant and Ulrich began to argue. Appellant grabbed a baseball bat from his bedroom and demanded that Ulrich leave the apartment. Lane took the bat away, but appellant then picked up a machete and threatened Ulrich, saying that appellant would “fuck him up.” To avoid an argument, Ulrich, Eric, and Anthony left the apartment. As they were leaving, Eric heard appellant call someone whom Eric assumed was Ortega Sr. and complain that “somebody was fucken [sic] with him.” Anthony retrieved the garage key from his father's apartment. Eric, Anthony, and Ulrich then went to the garage, where the men continued to drink.
Lane testified that when Ortega Sr. arrived at Apartment A, he was drunk and “ranting and raving.” Appellant and Ortega Sr. began talking in Spanish, which Lane could not understand. Before leaving the apartment, the Ortegas told Lane they were going to the garage to confront Ulrich.
When appellant and his father reached the garage, they walked in through the unlocked door without knocking. Eric testified that the Ortegas looked angry and, based on the Ortegas' expressions, Eric thought there would be a fight. Anthony tried to stop the Ortegas from approaching Ulrich because he did not want the altercation from Apartment A to resume, but appellant pushed Anthony out of the way. Anthony tripped and cut his hand on an air compressor.
Ortega Sr. went to Ulrich, shoved him, and asked, “What the fuck do you have with my son?” Ulrich pushed back and said that he did not have any problem with appellant. Eric attempted to intervene, but Ortega Sr. told Eric to “[g]et the fuck out of the way.” Ortega Sr. then started throwing punches at Ulrich. Ulrich picked up a metal light stand and hit Ortega Sr. hard enough to cause him to fall to the ground. After Ulrich hit Ortega Sr., appellant began striking Ulrich with a pair of bolt cutters. Ortega Sr. stood up and both he and appellant continued hitting Ulrich. Eric and Anthony heard Ulrich yell, “He's got a knife.” Ulrich, who had only one arm after an amputation, fell to the ground. Neither Eric nor Anthony saw a knife in the hands of appellant or his father, but they saw Ortega Sr. make a stabbing motion during the fight, and Anthony saw appellant hit and kick Ulrich. At that point, Eric saw that Ulrich was bleeding and Eric and Anthony left the garage. Ulrich died that night as a result of the altercation.
Eric and Anthony went back to Arnulfo's apartment and told him there was a fight in the garage. Arnulfo told the brothers to get everyone out of the garage and lock it up. Anthony called appellant and told him to move Ulrich's body out of the garage. Appellant asked Eric and Anthony to help him move the body, but the brothers refused. The Bermeas did not call the police; Eric testified that he was afraid he would get in trouble for using cocaine earlier that night.
Appellant, his father, and Lane attempted to clean up the scene and destroy incriminating evidence. Appellant and Ortega Sr. entered Apartment A covered in blood. The Ortegas washed off the blood, and Ortega Sr. asked Lane to dispose of their clothes and shoes in the dumpster located outside the apartment building. Lane saw Ortega Sr. washing a knife with bleach. Appellant dragged Ulrich's body out of the garage and into the apartment hallway. On the way back to Apartment A, appellant asked another cousin who lived in the building whether Ortega Sr. could stay with the cousin because appellant and Ortega Sr. had killed someone.
When Lane and appellant returned to Apartment A around 2 a.m., Ortega Sr. was talking to Bradley Schmoll. Ortega Sr. gave Schmoll the murder weapon and asked him to keep it. Schmoll agreed and hid the knife in his home. He later turned it over to the police. Lane heard Ortega Sr. tell appellant that Ortega Sr. would take the blame for everything. Appellant and Lane then fled to a friend's house in Austin, Minnesota.
On the morning of February 16, 2008, at least three people called 911 to report Ulrich's body in the apartment building hallway. After the police arrived at the building, Eric and Anthony decided to talk to investigators. They made statements to police on three different occasions, having omitted details in the first two interviews in an attempt to minimize their involvement in the incident. The police arrested Ortega Sr. at Apartment A. Appellant and Lane were arrested at their friend's house in Austin around 8:30 p.m. on February 16, 2008.
Appellant was transported to the Mower County Law Enforcement Center. Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Agents Michael Wold and Scott Mueller conducted a recorded interview with appellant on the night of February 16, 2008. As the agents entered the interview room, before the recording began, appellant asked the agents for information about his father and his girlfriend. Agent Wold told appellant to “just hold on a second” while everyone took their seats and Agent Wold started the recording device. Immediately after the recording began, appellant asked, “Am I suppose[d] to have a lawyer present?” Agent Wold replied, “Well that, that's what I'm going to tell ya, I'm going to give you your rights, okay?” Agent Wold first told appellant that the BCA was investigating Ulrich's death and described the possible charges pending against appellant's father and girlfriend. The following exchange then occurred:
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