State v. Sawyer

Citation561 So.2d 278
Decision Date05 January 1990
Docket NumberNo. 88-02307,88-02307
Parties15 Fla. L. Weekly D135 STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Tom Franklin SAWYER, Appellee.
CourtCourt of Appeal of Florida (US)

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Carol M. Dittmar, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tampa, for appellant.

Sondra Goldenfarb and Joseph G. Donahey, Jr., Clearwater, for appellee.

RYDER, Acting Chief Judge.

The State of Florida challenges two trial court orders which granted appellee Tom Sawyer's motion to suppress his interrogation and granted his motion in limine to exclude hair evidence in a capital first degree murder case. The state obtained a confession from Sawyer after several cadres of city of Clearwater Police Department detectives had continuously interrogated Sawyer over a period of approximately sixteen hours regarding the murder of Janet Staschak. The trial court orders were rendered after a six-week hearing on the motion to suppress during which forty-seven witnesses testified.

The state urges this court to reverse the trial court orders. One order suppressed substantial portions of the police's interrogation on the ground that Sawyer's statements, admissions, and confession were obtained involuntarily and in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). The other order granted Sawyer's motion in limine to exclude hair evidence because the evidence was not probative of his guilt.

As appellee Sawyer correctly argues, the order granting his motion in limine is amenable to review by this court only by a petition for common law certiorari, not appeal. State v. Pettis, 520 So.2d 250, 252-53 (Fla.1988); State v. Wilson, 483 So.2d 23, 24-25 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985). Accordingly, we treat the state's challenge on this issue as a petition for writ of certiorari. In reviewing the trial court's ruling which prohibits admission of a hair sample, we do not find that it departs from the essential requirements of the law. Therefore, we deny the state's petition for writ of certiorari.

In considering the admissibility of Sawyer's admissions and confession, the trial court not only had before it numerous witnesses who testified to the circumstances under which the confession was obtained, but the court also reviewed tape recordings of the actual sixteen-hour interrogation session. We wish to commend the Clearwater Police Department in its practice of maintaining a record of interrogations through the use of tape recording and express hope that this policy will continue. We also recommend this practice to all other law enforcement agencies so that challenges to future confessions can be exposed to the light of truth.

In this case, after hearing six weeks of testimony from forty-seven witnesses and listening to approximately sixteen hours of tape recordings of the actual interrogation We begin our analysis by noting that for purposes of appellate review, the trial court's ruling concerning the voluntariness of Sawyer's confession is clothed with a presumption of correctness. DeConingh v. State, 433 So.2d 501, 504 (Fla.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1005, 104 S.Ct. 995, 79 L.Ed.2d 228 (1984); Stone v. State, 378 So.2d 765, 769 (Fla.1979), cert. denied 449 U.S. 986, 101 S.Ct. 407, 66 L.Ed.2d 250 (1980). The burden is upon the state to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the confession was freely and voluntary given. Thompson v. State, 548 So.2d 198, 204 (Fla.1989); DeConingh, 433 So.2d at 503; Roman v. State, 475 So.2d 1228, 1232 (Fla.1985); cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1090, 106 S.Ct. 1480, 89 L.Ed.2d 734 (1986). The trial court's ruling on this issue cannot be reversed unless it is clearly erroneous. Furthermore, the Florida Supreme Court has suggested that the clearly erroneous standard applies with "full force" where the determination turns upon live testimony as opposed to transcripts, depositions or other documents. See Thompson, 548 So.2d at 204 n. 5.

the trial judge rendered a lengthy opinion to support his reasoning that the state did not carry its burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that appellant's confession was voluntary. In accompaniment to his order, the trial judge issued a twenty-five page opinion and a seventy-seven page summary of evidence which contains detailed factual findings. In his carefully drafted opinion, the trial judge set forth the operative facts and legal analysis upon which he based his decision. The trial court suppressed substantial portions of the interrogation because it found the statements and confession were a product of psychological coercion by the police and were, therefore, involuntary. The trial court also found the police had illegally failed to honor Sawyer's two requests for an attorney and failed to end the interrogation when Sawyer asserted his right to terminate the questioning. After reviewing his thoughtful and detailed analysis of these issues, we affirm the order granting the motion to suppress the results of the interrogation.

In order to find that a confession is involuntary within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, there must first be a finding that there was coercive police conduct. Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986). Police coercion can be not only physical, but psychological. Rickard v. State, 508 So.2d 736, 737 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987). The test of determining whether there was police coercion is determined by reviewing the totality of the circumstances under which the confession was obtained. Thompson, 548 So.2d at 203-04; Roman, 475 So.2d at 1232.

As part of the totality of the circumstances analysis, many factors have been considered by the courts, including: whether the confession was given in the coercive atmosphere of a station-house setting, Drake v. State, 441 So.2d 1079, 1081 (Fla.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 978, 104 S.Ct. 2361, 80 L.Ed.2d 832 (1984), Spradley v. State, 442 So.2d 1039, 1043 (Fla. 2d DCA 1983); whether the police suggested the details of the crime to the suspect, Langton v. State, 448 So.2d 534, 535 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984), Williams v. State, 441 So.2d 653, 655 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983), review denied, 450 So.2d 489 (Fla.1984); whether the suspect was subjected to a barrage of questions during predawn hours and not given an opportunity to sleep or eat, Spradley, 442 So.2d at 1043; whether psychological coercion was applied, DeConingh, 433 So.2d at 503, Martinez v. State, 545 So.2d 466, 467 (Fla. 4th DCA 1989); whether the police made threats, promises of leniency, or made statements calculated to delude the suspect as to his or her true position, Brewer v. State, 386 So.2d 232, 237 (Fla.1980), Williams, 441 So.2d at 655; whether the police made threats of harm, Williams, 441 So.2d at 656; and whether the police exerted undue influence or made direct or implied promises of benefits, Rickard, 508 So.2d at 737. Although particular statements or actions considered on an individual basis might not vitiate a confession, when two or more statements or courses of conduct are employed against a suspect, courts have more readily found the confession In this case, all of the above factors were present. The record contains overwhelming, substantial evidence that Sawyer's confession resulted from psychological police coercion, as is thoroughly documented in the trial judge's opinion.

                to be involuntary.  Williams, 441 So.2d at 656.   Furthermore, an accused's emotional condition is an important factor in determining whether statements were voluntarily made.  Rickard, 508 So.2d at 737
                

The state also argues that the trial judge erroneously ruled there were several Miranda violations throughout the interrogation. The police gave Sawyer Miranda warnings approximately four hours into the interrogation. Thereafter, they ignored two requests for counsel and refused to stop the questioning when Sawyer insisted he no longer wanted to talk and said he needed to sleep. The state admits that Sawyer made one equivocal request for an attorney which the police had an obligation to clarify under Long v. State, 517 So.2d 664 (Fla.1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1017, 108 S.Ct. 1754, 100 L.Ed.2d 216 (1988). Where there is an equivocal request for an attorney, the police must cease all questioning until the meaning of the request or statement is clarified and if the police fail in this requirement, all portions of the confession occurring after the request must be suppressed. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981); Miranda, 384 U.S. at 436, 86 S.Ct. at 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d at 694; Thompson, 548 So.2d at 203. After his first equivocal request for an attorney, Sawyer once again made another unequivocal request for an attorney which the police simply ignored. The record is clear that both times when the interrogation continued the police made no attempt to clarify Sawyer's requests for counsel, which was the only further inquiry the police were constitutionally permitted to make at that time. Thompson, 548 So.2d at 203; Long, 517 So.2d at 667. Accordingly, the trial judge correctly ruled that suppression of all portions of the interrogation after Sawyer's requests for counsel must be suppressed.

Additionally, the police failed to scrupulously honor Sawyer's request to cut off questioning in violation of Miranda, Spradley, 442 So.2d at 1043, and made persistent and repeated efforts to wear down his resistance and make him change his mind. See Michigan v. Mosley, 423 U.S. 96, 105-06, 96 S.Ct. 321, 327, 46 L.Ed.2d 313, 322 (1975). The trial court properly ruled that the interrogation should be suppressed on this ground after Sawyer's request for counsel.

We now set forth an abbreviated synopsis of the factual surroundings which led the police to consider Sawyer to be their prime suspect and culminated in the state's procurement of his confession, and also to provide the factual background on which the motion in limine was based.

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  • Chavez v. State
    • United States
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    • 21 d4 Novembro d4 2002
    ...that they had power to reduce the charge against him and that his confession would lead to lesser charge), and State v. Sawyer, 561 So.2d 278, 290-91 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990) (finding confession to be involuntary where it was the product of enforced sleeplessness resulting from a sixteen-hour ser......
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7 books & journal articles
  • Suppressing Involuntary Confessions
    • United States
    • James Publishing Practical Law Books Archive Suppressing Criminal Evidence - 2017 Contents
    • 4 d5 Agosto d5 2017
    ...of the day during which it was given”. Id . at 395. Sleep deprivation was one factor in suppressing a confession in State v. Sawyer , 561 So.2d 278, 288 (Fla. 1990), where the trial judge listened to a recorded interrogation and noted the defendant yawned on the tape and stated he was tired......
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    ...of the day during which it was given”. Id . at 395. Sleep deprivation was one factor in suppressing a confession in State v. Sawyer , 561 So.2d 278, 288 (Fla. 1990), where the trial judge listened to a recorded interrogation and noted the defendant yawned on the tape and stated he was tired......
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    ...of the day during which it was given”. Id . at 395. Sleep deprivation was one factor in suppressing a confession in State v. Sawyer , 561 So.2d 278, 288 (Fla. 1990), where the trial judge listened to a recorded interrogation and noted the defendant yawned on the tape and stated he was tired......
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