State v. Samuel, 99-2587-CR.

• Decision Date: 27 December 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-2587-CR.,99-2587-CR.
• Citation: 623 N.W.2d 565,2001 WI App 25,240 Wis.2d 756
• Parties: STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Stanley A. SAMUEL, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Wisconsin Court of Appeals

240 Wis.2d 756

2001 WI App 25

623 N.W.2d 565

STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent,¹ v. Stanley A. SAMUEL, Defendant-Appellant.²

No. 99-2587-CR.

Court of Appeals of Wisconsin.

Oral argument October 4, 2000.

Decided December 27, 2000.

On behalf of the defendant-appellant, the cause was submitted on the briefs of and oral argument by Robert R. Henak of Henak Law Office, S.C., Milwaukee.

On behalf of the plaintiff-respondent, the cause was submitted on the brief of Lara M. Herman, assistant attorney general, and James E. Doyle, attorney general. There was oral argument by Lara M. Herman.

Before Brown, P.J., Nettesheim and Snyder, JJ.

¶ 1. BROWN, P.J.

This is a case where the State introduced into its case-in-chief a prior statement of a hostile prosecution witness who then claimed that the statement was a product of government coercion. She asserted that she was compelled to tell a lie in order to implicate the defendant, Stanley A. Samuel, as the perpetrator of a second-degree sexual assault upon her. The issue is whether Samuel had standing to object to the admission of that prior statement on grounds that the witness's statement was coerced. We conclude that he did and thus reverse the trial court's order to the contrary. Our decision necessitates a reversal of all Samuel's convictions, at least for the time being, for reasons we will explain in the opinion. We remand with specific directions which we will also detail. Samuel also raises sufficiency of the evidence issues relating to the interference with child custody and abduction convictions, but we hold the evidence was sufficient. ¶ 2. Samuel was convicted of the following charges: interfering with child custody contrary to WIS. STAT. § 948.31(2) (1997-98),³ abducting another's child contrary to WIS. STAT. § 948.30(1)(a) and second-degree sexual assault of a child contrary to WIS. STAT. § 948.02(2), all as a repeat offender. The convictions grow out of the following facts: On January 26, 1996, Tisha L., age fifteen at the time, left Oshkosh in a car driven by Samuel, age forty-six at the time. The pair first traveled to Milwaukee for a few weeks and then left Wisconsin until March 9, 1997, when police in Missouri stopped them. They were both then returned to Wisconsin where Tisha gave birth to a daughter on March 10, 1997. Samuel is the father of the child.

WITNESS'S ALLEGEDLY INVOLUNTARY STATEMENT

¶ 3. We will only relate those facts necessary to the first issue at this point. The facts relating to the other two convictions will be discussed later. Two days after the birth of Tisha's daughter, March 12, 1997, a nonsecure detention hearing was held. At that hearing, Tisha's father, Peter, was given custody of Tisha and the Winnebago County Department of Social Services was given custody of her child.

¶ 4. On the same day, an intake conference took place, the purpose of which was to determine where the baby should be temporarily placed pending a March 15 hearing to determine permanent placement. An intake worker, the corporation counsel, a social worker and Tisha's attorney were present during the entire conference. Peter, his girlfriend Catherine and a police officer were in attendance during the latter half of this conference. Tisha did not receive temporary placement at this conference. It is at this conference where Tisha claims that the police and the government employees threatened her with the loss of her baby unless she helped them prosecute Samuel. Tisha claims that to get her baby, she lied to the police and told them what they wanted to hear—namely, that she and Samuel had sex while in Wisconsin. Samuel brought a motion to suppress the statement prior to trial and the court held an evidentiary hearing on the matter. Following is an account of the evidence taken at that hearing.

¶ 5. Tisha testified that during the intake conference, she was asked a number of questions, among them being who she had sex with, when and where. She refused to answer these questions because she felt that they were irrelevant to the issue of her baby's placement. Tisha claimed that in response, she was told "countless times" that if she did not cooperate, she would not get her child back. Catherine testified that someone at the intake conference told her "if they saw some cooperation, they would consider giving the baby back [to Tisha]." Tisha testified that she was told she had to give a statement to the police before the March 15 hearing to determine the baby's permanent placement.

¶ 6. Tisha further testified that although she was never directly told "to give Samuel up, get him in trouble," she was indirectly told to do so. Tisha stated that she thought she was not given temporary custody of her baby at the conclusion of the intake conference precisely because she refused to tell the authorities what they wanted to hear. But after discussing the situation with her father, Tisha decided that she would "say whatever they deemed worthy . . . what they thought happened, or just whatever they wanted" in order to get her child back.

¶ 7. Tisha then testified that as instructed, she made an appointment to speak with the police officer the next day, March 13. At this conference, in which the social worker was also in attendance, Tisha told the officer that she had sex with Samuel in Wisconsin before she was sixteen. Tisha went on to testify, however, that she and Samuel actually did not have sex for the first time until April 1996 when they were no longer in Wisconsin. She told the court that she was coerced into making a false statement because she thought that this is what she needed to do to get her baby back.

¶ 8. Peter also testified at the motion to suppress hearing. He said that he spoke to the social worker after the intake hearing. The social worker told him that the police needed to know where and when Tisha and Samuel had sex. He testified that he conveyed this information to Tisha. Peter acknowledged that, during the intake conference itself, he did not hear any direct threats made by the authorities if Tisha did not cooperate. The social worker also testified and denied telling Peter that the police needed to know where and when Tisha and Samuel had sex.

¶ 9. After hearing the evidence, the trial court declined to decide whether Tisha's statement had been coerced. Instead, the trial court ruled that Samuel had no standing to raise the issue. The trial court reasoned that the exclusionary rule allowing for suppression of involuntary statements before trial is a prophylactic rule designed to deter Fifth Amendment concerns where it has been alleged that the defendant has personally been a victim of illegal government activity. Since it was not the defendant's statement that was allegedly coerced, the trial court concluded that Samuel could not assert the constitutional rights of others. The trial court further reasoned that when a witness claims that a prior statement was the result of coercion by the police, it is up to the jury or finder of fact in each individual case to decide whether the witness's claim is credible.

¶ 10. At trial, the State called Tisha to the witness stand in its case-in-chief. After Tisha denied that she and Samuel had sex in Wisconsin while she was fifteen years old, the State submitted into evidence her prior statement. When asked about the statement, Tisha denied that it was true and claimed that it was coerced. Samuel called a number of witnesses who testified regarding the circumstances of the allegedly coerced statement. The jury found Samuel guilty, inter alia, of second-degree sexual assault, which includes sexual intercourse with a minor under the age of sixteen. Samuel then appealed and made the trial court's ruling on the motion to suppress one of the issues in his appeal.

¶ 11. In his brief to this court, Samuel claimed that the trial court had given too narrow an interpretation of the Fifth Amendment. He agreed that individuals who are not personally the victims of illegal government activity generally cannot assert the constitutional rights of others. However, he argued that a violation of another's rights may rise to the level of a violation of a defendant's rights to a fair trial when the government seeks a conviction through the use of evidence obtained by coercion. Thus, a defendant has standing to assert a Fifth Amendment right to due process as a valid objection to the introduction of statements extracted from a nondefendant by coercion or other inquisitional tactics. The issue, he maintained, is whether the government's investigatory methods would result in a fundamentally unfair trial. He argued that such motions are also viable under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. He maintained that he has standing to raise Tisha's claim of having given a coerced statement because, as a matter of the truth-finding process of American jurisprudence, all coerced statements are inherently unreliable. This is so whether the statements are extracted from a defendant or whether they come from the mouth of a witness. He contended that the duty of the court is to keep out of evidence all statements obtained by illegal means so as to avoid infecting the process which, he maintained, is particularly a Fourteenth Amendment concern.

¶ 12. In its response brief, the State asserted that standing was "questionable," but maintained that we did not have to reach the issue because, here, it was clear that Tisha's statement was not coerced. The State pointed out that nowhere is there any direct evidence that the police or its agents told Tisha she would not get her baby unless she gave a statement saying that Samuel had sex with her in Wisconsin when she was fifteen. The State argued that Tisha's "beliefs" as to what she needed to do to get her baby back were conclusions that she alone drew. Finally, the State argued that even if we did not accept the State's view of the facts, since the Fourteenth...