State v. Scales

• Decision Date: 30 June 1994
• Docket Number: No. C4-93-1541,C4-93-1541
• Citation: 518 N.W.2d 587
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Michael Jerome SCALES, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 587

518 N.W.2d 587

63 USLW 2078

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Michael Jerome SCALES, Appellant.

No. C4-93-1541.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

June 30, 1994.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 22, 1994.

Syllabus by the Court

1. All custodial interrogation including any information about rights, any waiver of those rights, and all questioning shall be electronically recorded where feasible and must be recorded when questioning occurs in a place of detention. If law enforcement officers fail to comply with this recording requirement, any statements the suspect makes in response to the interrogation may be suppressed at trial.

2. The trial court did not err in admitting the photographs or in instructing the jury.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Marie L. Wolf, Asst. State Public Defender, Minneapolis, and Michael J. Scales, Stillwater, for appellant.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, and Michael O. Freeman, Linda K. Freyer, Asst. County Atty., Minneapolis, for respondent.

Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

WAHL, Justice.

Michael Jerome Scales appeals from a judgment of conviction, after a jury trial in a Hennepin County District Court, of two counts of first degree murder ¹ and one count of second degree intentional murder ² in connection with the stabbing death of Otha Brown. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The primary issue on appeal is whether appellant has a due process right under the Minnesota Constitution to have his entire interrogation by law enforcement authorities recorded or whether this court should exercise its supervisory powers to mandate such a requirement. Appellant also challenges the admission of three photographs and the trial court's instruction on reasonable doubt. In the exercise of our supervisory powers we mandate a recording requirement for all custodial interrogations. We affirm the conviction.

Otha Brown was the mother of Angela Walker, appellant's girlfriend, and the grandmother of Michael Scales, Jr., appellant's two-year-old son. Appellant, Angela, Angela's three children, including Michael Jr., and two of the Browns' other grandchildren lived with Otha and her husband Leon in Minneapolis. In spite of her poor health, Otha Brown raised her grandchildren, was active in her church, and was a school bus driver.

At approximately 1:00 a.m. on October 4, 1992, appellant walked into the Browns' bedroom, told Otha Brown that he was sick, and asked her to drive him to the hospital. Otha Brown agreed to drop appellant off at the hospital, threw a coat over her nightgown, and went out to her van. Leon Brown testified that appellant came back to the bedroom a few minutes later explaining that Otha Brown had forgotten her purse and had asked him to get it. After appellant left, Leon Brown went back to sleep but woke up around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. and discovered that his wife had not returned and that Michael Jr. was missing.

Around 7:00 a.m., Otha Brown's body was found in an alley on Osseo Road. She had been stabbed 26 times with a single-edged knife. Two or three of the wounds could have caused Otha Brown's death. No weapons were found in the area where the body was discovered, but the police recovered a bloody "Emperor Steel" butcher knife and a bloody knit hat at a different location. The blood on the knife and the hat was consistent with Otha Brown's blood and the knife matched an "Emperor Steel" knife found in the Browns' kitchen.

Appellant's statements to the police and the testimony at trial established that during the early morning hours of October 4, appellant was at a crack house getting high and making drug runs in Otha Brown's van. Timothy Hill, an individual who accompanied appellant on one of these drug runs, testified that he noticed a red substance on the running board of the van. David Neal testified that while he was on a drug run with appellant, appellant mentioned that he had killed someone for money so he could repay people who were threatening to hurt him. While at the crack house, appellant handed out Otha Brown's checks and credit cards. Jeffrey Pearson, who received several of these items, testified that the plan was for him to purchase merchandise, sell it for cash, and share the proceeds with appellant. Appellant himself made two unsuccessful attempts to use Otha Brown's bank card shortly after the time she was killed.

Otha Brown's van was found on October 5. Blood, consistent with Otha Brown's blood, was found throughout the van, but the greatest concentration was on the driver's door, the signal and shift levers, the driver's seat, the carpet, and the running board. Her purse was recovered in the vicinity where the van was found.

When appellant and his son returned home around 7:00 p.m. on October 4, the police placed him in a squad car and took him to the police station. Sergeant Michelle Smolley, Minneapolis Police Department homicide unit, and Special Agent Rick Loewen, a BCA investigator on loan to the Minneapolis police, began questioning appellant around 8:40 p.m. Both officers testified that before they questioned appellant, they gave him Miranda warnings. Appellant said he understood his rights, and indicated that he wished to waive them. The officers interrogated appellant for approximately three hours before conducting a formal question-and-answer statement that was simultaneously transcribed. No other part of the interview was recorded.

At the Rasmussen hearing, appellant disputed much of what the officers had said about the nature of the interview and the timing and content of the Miranda warnings. Appellant testified that he was not told he was under arrest or given any warnings until the interrogation was well underway, that when the warnings were given he was not asked if he understood his rights or was willing to waive them, that he was told, untruthfully, that his fingerprints had been found on the suspected murder weapon, and that he was "half liquored" and unable to use the bathroom during the interview. Appellant also denied giving several of the answers contained in the written statement and said that he was not permitted to read the statement before signing it. Appellant moved to suppress the formal statement and his other comments to police on the grounds that he had not received timely Miranda warnings, that the waiver of his rights was not explicit, and that neither the reading of his rights nor his three-hour interview was recorded. The trial court, in denying the motion, declined to rule on whether there is a constitutionally based recording requirement.

At trial, Agent Loewen testified that appellant told two accounts of the events of October 4, 1992. In both versions, appellant said he and Otha Brown drove to the hospital and then decided to leave. When they returned home appellant, at Otha Brown's request, went inside to get her purse. He noticed that Michael Jr. was awake and brought him out to the van. Otha Brown then drove to a grocery store. At this point, the stories diverged. Initially, appellant said that Otha Brown dropped him off at the store after giving him $20, and he told the police he had not seen her since. He later changed his story and admitted to being "involved" in Otha Brown's death.

In a formal statement consistent with his second story, appellant said that while he was looking for his ID on the way to the hospital, he reached into the seat pocket and felt a knife. As in the first story, appellant said he returned to the house where he picked up Otha Brown's purse and his son. Consistent with the second story, however, appellant stated that when they reached the grocery store Otha Brown tried to give him more money than he wanted. He pushed her away while holding the knife in his hand and she fell to the floor of the van.

The next thing appellant remembered was driving away with bloody hands and throwing the knife out the window. When the officers asked appellant if he had blood on his sweatshirt, appellant said he did and admitted that it "most likely" was Otha Brown's blood. Forensic tests confirmed that the blood on appellant's clothes, shoe, wallet, players card, and pocket knife was consistent with the blood of Otha Brown. In addition, appellant's bloody fingerprints were found inside the van. He also had an abrasion on the inside of his thumb that was consistent with the use of a knife.

This appeal clearly focuses on whether there should be a recording requirement for custodial interrogations under either the Due Process Clause of the Minnesota Constitution or the supervisory authority of this court. In previous cases, we have been concerned about the failure of law enforcement officers to record custodial interrogations. State v. Robinson, 427 N.W.2d 217, 224 (Minn.1988); State v. Pilcher, 472 N.W.2d 327, 333 (Minn.1991). In Robinson we observed that, as a practical matter, many factual disputes about the denial of a defendant's constitutional rights would be avoided if all conversations between the police and a suspect were recorded. 427 N.W.2d at 224 n. 5. More recently, in Pilcher we "urge[d] * * * law enforcement professionals [to] use those technological means at their disposal to fully preserve those conversations and events preceding the actual interrogation" and warned that we would "look with great disfavor upon any further refusal to heed these admonitions." 472 N.W.2d at 333. Appellant claims that by failing to preserve the entire interrogation, the police deliberately ignored our warning, thereby depriving him of his right to due process under the Minnesota Constitution.

The trial court distinguished Robinson and Pilcher on the grounds that the police conduct in those cases raised questions about an ambiguous or equivocal statement regarding the need for counsel, whereas in this case appellant does not allege that he asked for an attorney, failed to understand the Miranda warnings, or asked to terminate the interview....