State v. Rivas

• Citation: 251 N.J. 132,276 A.3d 143
• Decision Date: 22 June 2022
• Docket Number: A-15 September Term 2021,086051
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Abayuba RIVAS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

251 N.J. 132

276 A.3d 143

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.Abayuba RIVAS, Defendant-Appellant.

A-15 September Term 2021

086051

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued March 14, 2022

Decided June 22, 2022

James K. Smith, Jr., Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; James K. Smith, Jr., of counsel and on the briefs).

Regina M. Oberholzer, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (Matthew J. Platkin, Acting Attorney General, attorney; Regina M. Oberholzer, of counsel and on the briefs).

Jason J. LeBoeuf, East Orange, argued the cause for amicus curiae Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (Zeigler, Resnick & Epstein and the Law Offices of Robert J. De Groot, attorneys; Jason J. LeBoeuf and Oleg Nekritin, East Hanover, of counsel and on the brief).

JUSTICE ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The right to counsel holds a high preferred place in our constitutional scheme because the presence of counsel is an essential safeguard to the exercise of many other valued rights. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 462-63, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938) ; Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 68-69, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158 (1932). When a suspect invokes the right to counsel during a custodial interrogation, questioning must cease unless the accused initiates further communication or conversation, counsel is made available, or a sufficient break in custody occurs.

Maryland v. Shatzer, 559 U.S. 98, 104-09, 130 S.Ct. 1213, 175 L.Ed.2d 1045 (2010) ; State v. Wint, 236 N.J. 174, 181-82, 198 A.3d 963 (2018) ; see also Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981).

The issue in this case is whether defendant Abayuba Rivas freely initiated further communications with the police immediately on the heels of a nearly six-hour unlawful interrogation that led to a full confession.

Rivas reported to the police that his wife went missing and soon came under suspicion when his explanations about her disappearance began to fall apart. After telling the police, during one of his interviews, that he left his two-year-old daughter at home alone while searching for his wife, he was charged with child endangerment. While in jail, Rivas attempted suicide and was thereafter hospitalized and placed under police guard.

In the hospital, on March 18, 2014, three detectives interrogated Rivas for almost six hours, during which Rivas confessed to killing his wife. The next day, March 19, Rivas was interrogated in the prosecutor's office where, in two separate statements, he again admitted to the details of the killing.

At a pretrial hearing, the trial court found that the detectives violated Rivas's Miranda ¹ rights because, at the outset of the March 18 interrogation, defendant ambiguously invoked his right to counsel and the detectives neither clarified whether Rivas wanted counsel nor ceased their questioning. Accordingly, the court suppressed the entirety of Rivas's March 18 confession.

The court, however, denied Rivas's motion to suppress the March 19 statements. The court found that, at the end of the nearly six-hour suppressed March 18 interrogation, Rivas stated to the detectives that he wanted to speak with them again, and that on March 19, Rivas properly waived his Miranda rights. On that basis, the court determined that Rivas's March 19 statements were sufficiently attenuated from the unlawfully secured March 18 confession. The March 19 statements were admitted into evidence, and a jury convicted Rivas of aggravated manslaughter and related crimes.

The Appellate Division deferred to the trial court's Miranda rulings and affirmed Rivas's conviction.

We now reverse. The trial court's finding that Rivas's Miranda rights were violated on March 18, and its order suppressing Rivas's confession elicited on that date, are not challenged. The only question is the admissibility of the March 19 confession.

Once Rivas invoked his right to counsel on March 18, however ambiguously, the detectives were required to clarify the ambiguity or cease questioning. See State v. Alston, 204 N.J. 614, 624, 10 A.3d 880 (2011). The detectives did neither. Instead, the detectives interrogated Rivas for nearly six hours, eliciting a confession. After the improper interrogation and Rivas's tainted confession -- a confession Rivas had reason to believe was lawful -- Rivas asked to see the detectives again. Those remarks cannot be fairly characterized as Rivas voluntarily initiating further communications with the detectives because the questioning never truly ceased. The interrogation and the request to speak again with the detectives were inextricably intertwined.

Under Edwards, because Rivas never freely initiated further conversations with the detectives, further questioning of defendant was barred. That Rivas waived his Miranda rights on March 19 -- a day later -- does not alter the equation. An Edwards violation is not subject to an attenuation analysis. Therefore, in compliance with our constitutional jurisprudence, Rivas's March 19 statements must be suppressed.

Rivas's March 19 confession to killing his wife -- a mirror image of his March 18 confession -- was a central pillar of the State's case. The improper admission of that confession had the clear capacity to cause an unjust result and cannot be deemed harmless error. See R. 2:10-2. We are therefore constrained to vacate Rivas's convictions and remand for a new trial.

I.

A.

A Union County grand jury indicted Rivas for the first-degree murder of his wife, Karla Villagra Garzon, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(1), (2) ; second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, his two-year-old daughter, Veronica,² N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4(a) ; fourth-degree unlawful possession of a weapon, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5(d) ; third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(d) ; second-degree desecration of human remains, N.J.S.A. 2C:22-1(a)(1) ; third-degree hindering his own apprehension by concealing or destroying evidence, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-3(b)(1) ; and two counts of third-degree hindering his own apprehension by giving false information to a law enforcement officer, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-3(b)(4).

Rivas moved to suppress statements that he gave to the police on seven separate dates: February 25, February 27, March 5, March 13, March 17, March 18, and March 19, 2014. The trial court conducted a suppression hearing that spanned five days and ultimately ruled that all but the March 18 statement would be admissible. In this appeal, Rivas challenges only the admission of his incriminating statements made on March 19.

In determining the admissibility of the March 19 statements, we turn to the relevant suppression hearing testimony, which is largely undisputed, and to the recorded statements made by Rivas on March 18 and 19. Most of the critical testimony was provided by Detectives Juan Guzman, Louchan Holmes, and Raymond Smith of the Elizabeth Police Department, and Detective Danika Ramos of the Union County Prosecutor's Office.

B.Testimony at the Suppression Hearing

At 10:00 a.m. on February 24, 2014, Rivas went to the Elizabeth Police Department and reported that his wife Karla Villagra Garzon was missing -that she never returned from a trip to the pharmacy the previous evening. Several police agencies, but primarily the Elizabeth Police Department, investigated Karla's disappearance. Over the next several days, Rivas gave statements to the police to assist in the missing-persons investigation. He explained that at 10:00 p.m. on February 23, Karla left their apartment to walk to the pharmacy to buy sinus medication while he remained home with their two-year-old daughter.

Karla, however, did not appear on any store video footage that evening. When Detective Holmes visited Rivas's apartment, she noticed boots and a jacket matching the description that Rivas gave of the clothing Karla was wearing when she supposedly set out for the pharmacy.

On February 27, Rivas gave a videotaped statement to Detectives Holmes and Guzman. Rivas told the detectives that he and Karla had experienced marital problems and had discussed getting divorced, and that Karla had filed a domestic-violence complaint against him. He also disclosed that they had an argument the night Karla disappeared. Over the coming days, the police secured surveillance footage showing that the truck registered to Rivas was traveling on the streets of Elizabeth in the early morning hours of February 24, when Karla went missing.

On March 13, detectives questioned Rivas at the Union County Child Advocacy Center and, at first, he continued to insist that he remained home on the evening that Karla went missing -- until he was shown the surveillance footage. Then, Rivas stated that he had left his daughter home alone for an hour or two while he drove around looking for Karla, who, he thought, may have had a liaison with someone. At the end of the questioning, Rivas was arrested and incarcerated for child endangerment and providing false information to the police.

On March 17, after a self-inflicted wound to his scrotum in a suicide attempt while held in jail, Rivas was taken to a local hospital, where he received two rounds of blood transfusions. That evening, Detectives Guzman and Smith visited Rivas in the hospital, where two officers stood guard. After reading Rivas his Miranda rights, the detectives questioned him, and Rivas soon departed from his earlier account. According to Rivas, he and Karla had gone to the pharmacy together, leaving their daughter alone, and were carjacked by several men. Rivas claimed that under coercion, he drove his vehicle until ordered to pull to the side of the road. The men abducted Karla and threatened to kill him if he contacted the police.

The interview ended when medical personnel came to take Rivas for a CT scan. Rivas told the detectives to "come back."

1.

March 18 Statement

a.

The next afternoon, on March 18, ...