State v. Samuel

• Decision Date: 25 April 2002
• Docket Number: No. 99-2587-CR.,99-2587-CR.
• Parties: STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent-Petitioner, v. Stanley A. SAMUEL, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

252 Wis.2d 26

2002 WI 34

643 N.W.2d 423

STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent-Petitioner, v. Stanley A. SAMUEL, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 99-2587-CR.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Oral argument October 3, 2001.

Decided April 25, 2002.

For the plaintiff-respondent-petitioner the cause was argued by Lara M. Herman, assistant attorney general, with whom on the briefs was James E. Doyle, attorney general.

For the defendant-appellant there was a brief by Robert R. Henak and Henak Law Office, S.C., Milwaukee, and oral argument by Robert R. Henak.

¶ 1. ANN WALSH BRADLEY, J.

The petitioner, State of Wisconsin, seeks review of a published court of appeals decision reversing the circuit court's judgment of conviction entered against the defendant, Stanley Samuel, on charges of sexual assault, abduction, and interference with custody.¹ The State asserts that the court of appeals erred in concluding that the same standard for suppressing a defendant's involuntary statement should also apply when a defendant seeks to suppress an allegedly involuntary statement of a witness. ¶ 2. We conclude that the standards are different and that when a defendant seeks to suppress an allegedly involuntary witness statement, the coercive police misconduct at issue must be egregious such that it produces statements that are unreliable as a matter of law. In addition, we determine that when a defendant seeks to suppress statements under this standard, the proper procedure to follow is set forth in State v. Velez, 224 Wis. 2d 1, 589 N.W.2d 9 (1999). Finally, we apply the test we have identified to the witness statements at issue and conclude that they properly were admitted into evidence. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals.

I

¶ 3. In January 1996, Tisha L., then a minor, left Winnebago County with Samuel, a 47-year-old friend. Samuel and Tisha stayed in Milwaukee for about a week, then left Wisconsin and traveled throughout several Midwestern states. In March 1997, 13 months after they left Wisconsin, Samuel and Tisha were taken into custody by the State of Missouri.

¶ 4. Tisha was pregnant, and on March 10, the day after she returned to Wisconsin, her baby was born. Two days later, March 12, a hearing was held before a court commissioner at which it was determined that Tisha would be placed with her father. Further discussion on the issue of placement of Tisha's baby was left to an intake conference following the hearing. At the conference, Tisha was represented by an attorney. Others present for all or part of the conference included City of Oshkosh police officer Steven Sagmeister, two social workers, Tisha's father, and Cathy Stelzner, his girlfriend. Although accounts differ as to what was said at the conference, at some time during or immediately following the conference, Tisha was told to contact Sagmeister to give him a statement with regard to "what had happened the previous year." After the conference, Tisha was allowed to go home with her father and Stelzner, and the baby was temporarily placed in foster care.

¶ 5. Tisha's father and Officer Sagmeister made arrangements for Tisha to meet with Sagmeister on March 13, 1997. On that day, Tisha gave a tape recorded statement to Sagmeister and one of the social workers, Rod Schraufnagel, at the police station. She said that she and Samuel had been sexually active in Winnebago County before they left the state. At the time of that sexual activity, Tisha was under age 16.²

¶ 6. The next morning, March 14, another hearing was held before the court commissioner, at which Tisha's baby was returned to her. Following the hearing, Officer Sagmeister asked Tisha if she would give a second statement because the tape from the first day had not turned out very well. Tisha and her father agreed, and Sagmeister and Schraufnagel conducted another recorded interview with Tisha. Again, Tisha indicated that she had sexual relations with Samuel in 1995 prior to leaving Winnebago County.

¶ 7. Tisha gave a third statement on March 21, when Officer Sagmeister came to her residence. After questioning Tisha, Sagmeister summarized her answers in a written statement that Tisha signed. The written statement shows that Tisha and Samuel first had sexual relations in the middle of September 1995 and also had sexual relations twice in Milwaukee after leaving Winnebago County in January 1996. ¶ 8. Samuel was formally charged with interference with custody, abduction, and sexual assault of a child. He moved in limine to suppress all of Tisha's statements. At the hearing on the motion, Samuel argued that Tisha's statements should be suppressed because they were the result of police threats or coercion. Tisha, her father, her attorney, and Stelzner testified with regard to the circumstances surrounding both the intake conference and the times at which Tisha gave her statements.

¶ 9. The circuit court denied the motion, determining that Samuel was without standing to assert that Tisha's statements were coerced in violation of her constitutional rights. Instead, the court concluded, it was for the jury to determine the credibility and weight of Tisha's statements.

¶ 10. At trial, the State called Tisha as a witness, and she testified that she and Samuel had a sexual relationship, but that they did not have sexual intercourse until March or April 1996, which was months after she left Wisconsin with Samuel. While Tisha was still under direct examination, the State proceeded to impeach her with her prior inconsistent statements:

Q Isn't it also true, however, Tisha, that you have given three statements prior to this date which indicated you became sexually active with Mr. Samuel in September of 1995?

A Yes, I think I did.

The State showed Tisha her March 21, 1997 written statement and asked her several questions about it. Tisha maintained that she did not remember saying anything in the statement with regard to when, where, or how often she and Samuel had sexual relations. She later testified that the statements were not true, but that she had given them because she felt pressured to incriminate Samuel at the intake conference.

¶ 11. Tisha's father, Stelzner, Officer Sagmeister, and Schraufnagel also gave testimony relevant to the circumstances surrounding Tisha's statements. Although the witnesses each had different perceptions as to whether Tisha was improperly pressured, no one recalled that she was expressly told she would lose her baby unless she implicated Samuel.

¶ 12. The jury convicted Samuel on all three charges. Samuel brought a postconviction motion, again arguing that Tisha's statements should have been suppressed because they were coerced. The circuit court denied the motion. The court determined that regardless of whether Tisha's statements were coerced, Samuel had no standing to challenge them, and the question of any witness coercion was best left to the jury.

¶ 13. Samuel appealed, and the court of appeals reversed. Citing United States v. Gonzales, 164 F.3d 1285, 1289 n.1 (10th Cir. 1999), the court reasoned that police methods of coercion that are "offensive when used against an accused do not magically become any less so when exerted against a witness." Referring to the test for involuntariness set forth in State v. Clappes, 136 Wis. 2d 222, 401 N.W.2d 759 (1987), the court of appeals concluded that the standard for suppressing a defendant's involuntary statements should also apply to the suppression of involuntary witness statements.

¶ 14. In Clappes, 136 Wis. 2d at 236, this court applied a totality of the circumstances test in order to assess whether confessions are involuntary. That test requires courts to "balance the personal characteristics of the defendant against the pressures imposed upon him by police in order to induce him to respond to the questioning." Id. In determining whether a confession is voluntary, the essential inquiry is whether the confession was procured via police coercion. Id. at 235-36. The court of appeals remanded Samuel's case for the circuit court to determine whether, under the Clappes test, Tisha's statements were involuntary.

II

[1, 2]

¶ 15. We are asked to determine the proper standard under which a witness's involuntary statements must be suppressed at the trial of a criminal defendant. Whether evidence should be suppressed is a question of constitutional fact. See State v. Anderson, 165 Wis. 2d 441, 447, 477 N.W.2d 277 (1991); State v. Bermudez, 221 Wis. 2d 338, 346, 585 N.W.2d 628 (Ct. App. 1998). In reviewing questions of constitutional fact, we uphold a circuit court's factual findings unless clearly erroneous, but we independently determine whether those facts meet the constitutional standard. State v. Dagnall, 2000 WI 82, ¶ 27, 236 Wis. 2d 339, 612 N.W.2d 680; State v. Phillips, 218 Wis. 2d 180, 189-90, 577 N.W.2d 794 (Ct. App. 1998).

¶ 16. In making our determination of whether Tisha's statements should have been suppressed, we consider in turn the standards advanced by the State and Samuel. However, we conclude that neither standard strikes the proper balance between the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process and the fact that witness statements that are in some sense compelled are frequently neither unreliable nor the product of egregious police misconduct. In steering a course between the positions advanced by the parties and using due process as our guide, we recognize there are circumstances under which egregious police misconduct deprives the defendant of a fair trial.

III

¶ 17. The State contends that a defendant's right to due process is offended only where witness statements are extracted by "extreme coercion or torture." United States v. Chiavola, 744 F.2d 1271, 1273 (7th Cir. 1984). It argues that absent such extreme circumstances, it is the jury's role to weigh and assess credibility. Samuel asserts that involuntary witness statements should be subject to the same rule of suppression as a...