State v. Pearson

• Decision Date: 30 September 2011
• Docket Number: No. 09–1798.,09–1798.
• Citation: 804 N.W.2d 260
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee,v.Jesse John PEARSON, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

804 N.W.2d 260

STATE of Iowa, Appellee,

v.Jesse John PEARSON, Appellant.

No. 09–1798.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Sept. 30, 2011.

Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, David Arthur Adams, Assistant State Appellate Defender, and Jordan T. Smith, Student Legal Intern, for appellant.Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Darrel L. Mullins, Assistant Attorney General, Thomas J. Ferguson, County Attorney, and Kimberly A. Griffith, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.WATERMAN, Justice.

This case presents our first opportunity to address the impact of a defendant's underage status on the Miranda custody analysis in light of J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 2394, 180 L.Ed.2d 310 (2011) (remanding to reconsider custody issue in light of thirteen-year-old suspect's age). Our analysis turns on the specific circumstances of this interview: a confession received by a familiar social worker conducting the juvenile's status assessment at his youth home—without the coercive pressure of an unfamiliar police officer interrogating him at the station to solve a crime.

Defendant, Jesse Pearson, a seventeen-year-old runaway from the Bremwood Residential Treatment Center in Waverly, robbed an elderly, mentally disabled man in the victim's Waterloo home and beat him bloody with a cast iron frying pan. When apprehended later that day by the Waterloo police, Pearson refused to waive his Miranda rights and said he would not talk before he returned to Bremwood and spoke with his lawyer. The next morning, however, he promptly confessed to his social worker, Marie Mahler, without his attorney present. The district court ruled Mahler's interview was not a custodial interrogation implicating Miranda safeguards and denied Pearson's motion to suppress this confession. A Black Hawk County jury convicted him of first-degree robbery, willful injury, and going armed with intent. The court of appeals affirmed the evidentiary ruling allowing the jury to hear his confession, rejected an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, and affirmed his convictions for robbery and willful injury, but reversed his conviction on the “going armed” charge based on an instructional error. We granted further review to decide whether Pearson's confession to Mahler was admissible.

We conclude Mahler's interview of Pearson was not a custodial interrogation for Miranda purposes and that his confession to her was voluntary and admissible. Accordingly, we affirm his judgment and sentence for robbery and willful injury. The court of appeals decision shall stand rejecting the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim and granting a new trial on the “going armed” charge.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

Pearson had known Mahler for nearly eight years, since she was assigned his caseworker when he was age eleven after he was adjudicated a child in need of assistance (CINA). Mahler is a social worker employed by the Department of Human Services (DHS) in Buchanan County. As Pearson's caseworker, Mahler oversaw his juvenile proceedings and monitored his education, peer interactions, health, and general welfare. In July 2009, Pearson, seven months shy of his eighteenth birthday, resided at Bremwood by court order. Bremwood is a youth home, not a prison, jail, or juvenile detention facility. Bremwood provides a “home like” atmosphere to juveniles needing an intensive rehabilitative environment. At Bremwood, Pearson lived in a cottage with a kitchen, bathroom, living area, and bedroom. Despite these amenities, Pearson and D.S., another Bremwood resident, ran away.

They turned up the morning of July 14 at the door of the Waterloo home of Peter Weiss, a sixty-nine-year-old, mentally challenged man who lived alone. Weiss recognized D.S. from the neighborhood and let them enter when they asked to use his phone and bathroom. Once inside, Pearson began going through Weiss's drawers, over the protests of the elderly resident. Matters escalated when Pearson took a cast iron frying pan from the stove and hit Weiss over the head with it repeatedly. Pearson's blows left a clump of Weiss's hair on the kitchen floor and broke the iron handle off the pan. Weiss was knocked down with a fractured skull and multiple scalp lacerations that bled profusely. The teenagers ran out the door.

Weiss was able to call 9–1–1, and the operator kept him on the line as an ambulance and police were dispatched. Neighbors who spotted the teens hiding in bushes placed another call to police. Pearson was apprehended with Weiss's blood on his shirt and taken to the Waterloo police station. Officer Robert Michael reached Pearson's mother by phone, and she gave permission for the police to interview her son. Pearson was already a juvenile delinquent experienced in police procedures. Officer Michael read Pearson his Miranda rights, including that he had the right to remain silent, that if he chose to talk, anything he said would or could be used against him, and that he had a right to an attorney. Pearson responded by refusing to sign a form waiving his Miranda rights and by stating that he was not going to talk until he returned to Bremwood and spoke with his attorney. Pearson already had a public defender assigned to represent him on pending juvenile charges in Buchanan County. Later that afternoon, Bremwood staff picked Pearson up at the Waterloo police station and drove with him back to the youth home. His victim spent the night in the hospital with fifteen staples in his scalp to close his head wounds.

Bremwood staff moved Pearson to a different room called Trinity Cottage, but he was not locked in it. Trinity is windowless and positioned where staff can observe the doorway. Staff relocated Pearson there because he had run away and faced new charges. On July 15, Mahler arrived at 8 a.m. to meet with Pearson. She had already been told by Pearson's mother and Bremwood staff that Pearson had run away and been involved in an assault on an older man. Mahler also had spoken with a public defender assigned to Pearson's juvenile case who told her he would tell Pearson “not to talk to the officers or anybody about the incident.” This defense counsel, however, did not tell Mahler to refrain from talking with Pearson. Mahler did not speak with the Waterloo police at this time.

As Pearson's CINA caseworker, Mahler needed to interview him to reassess his status after he had run away from Bremwood and been arrested. She was concerned Bremwood would evict him. She did not interview Pearson at the request of the Waterloo police, but rather, as his social worker. When questioned about the purpose of her interview at the suppression hearing, Mahler testified as follows:

Q. Okay. So what's your protocol; what's the policy after a child is picked up after being on the run, what are you supposed to do after you're advised that he's back? A. Usually I go and meet with the child to see where they were, what they were doing, what they were thinking, why they ran, what happened while they were on the run, and just in general how he was doing; and then talk with Bremwood staff about what they were going to do afterwards, were they going to give me a ten-day notice, which means they want me to remove him from their program within ten days and find another placement for him, whether I was going to approach the juvenile judge about what was happening.

Q. What's the purpose of talking to the defendant about what you've just said in talking to Bremwood staff about placement? A. A lot of times, depending on behaviors and incidents within the facility, a program will only tolerate so much. And they have the right to give the Department of Human Services, and it has to be in writing, a ten-day notice that says you have ten days to remove him and place him in another—at that time his juvenile court order said group care, so it would have been another group care facility that I would have had to look for.

Q. So is the purpose for talking to him for—to assist law enforcement, or is it to—or act with law enforcement, or is it to talk to him for your placement issues and where you're going to be putting him and planning for the juvenile court case? A. It is to plan for the [Buchanan County] juvenile court case, but it is also to plan based on what Jesse's feeling, which his needs are, and trying to find out where his mind-set was, what caused him to want to run in the [first] place.

Pearson was sleeping when Mahler arrived the morning after he assaulted Weiss, and staff awakened him. She met with him in Trinity Cottage and kept the door open so the staff could intervene if he became aggressive. Mahler first asked Pearson how he was doing, and he said, “I'm okay.” Then she asked him, “Did you actually do what everybody's saying you did?” He said, “What did I do?” Mahler responded, “Did you actually hit an old man?” Without any further prompting, Pearson confessed: “Yeah. So? I hit him over the head with a frying pan.” After making this admission, Pearson told Mahler his lawyer “told him to shut up” and that he had not answered questions from the police. Mahler asked no further questions about the assault at that time and spent the next hour talking with Pearson about why he had run away from Bremwood and where matters would go from there.

Mahler filed a report on her caseworker interview with the Buchanan County authorities handling Pearson's previously pending CINA and juvenile proceedings. Her report noted Pearson's “cocky” attitude and lack of remorse. She did not submit a report to the Black Hawk County Attorney or Waterloo police investigating the Weiss assault and robbery. Mahler was surprised to learn that the Waterloo police arrested Pearson the afternoon of July 15 and took him to jail. Days later, Officer Michael asked Mahler to provide a statement. She assumed information from her report to Buchanan County authorities had reached Michael's attention. Mahler refused to give the police a statement...