State v. Shifflett
| Decision Date | 20 May 1986 |
| Citation | 508 A.2d 748,199 Conn. 718 |
| Parties | , 54 USLW 2642 STATE of Connecticut v. Martin W. SHIFFLETT. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Susan C. Marks, Deputy Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on brief, were John J. Kelly, Chief State's Atty., and Carl Schuman, Asst. State's Atty., for appellee State.
Before HEALEY, SHEA, DANNEHY, SANTANIELLO and DEAN, JJ.
The defendant, Martin W. Shifflett, was indicted for murder in violation of General Statutes § 53a-54a. The defendant was tried by a jury, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of twenty-five years. His appeal raises a number of issues which center on the admission into evidence of the defendant's confession given during custodial interrogation by Connecticut state police officers. Relevant facts will be discussed as needed for an examination of the issues presented by the defendant.
Testimony at trial revealed that on February 14, 1980, Cara Quinn, age sixteen, was reported missing. She was found dead in a wooded area of Shelton on March 2, 1980. Her death resulted from gunshot wounds to the neck and head. An autopsy of the victim showed that she had been raped before she was murdered.
Connecticut state police ballistics specialists soon determined that the fatal shots had been fired from a Basque .380 caliber semi-automatic pistol, manufactured by the Echasa Company of Spain. The defendant became a suspect in the slaying when police learned that he had acquired such a gun between twelve and eighteen months earlier. The defendant was on parole at the time of the murder, and had been identified as the perpetrator of two recent sexual assaults, one in Fairfield on February 22, 1980, and the other in Greenwich on March 20, 1980. The attendance records maintained by the defendant's employer showed that the defendant had not reported for work on February 14, 1980, the day the victim disappeared. Police also learned that the defendant's in-laws lived in On the basis of these facts, the police obtained a warrant to search the defendant's apartment in Bridgeport, which was executed on March 21, 1980. Although the search failed to produce the murder weapon, the police seized a weapon container--a red and black plastic box with the name "Basque" inscribed on its top--and various paraphernalia for such a gun. The police also seized a photograph of the defendant standing beside a rather extensive gun collection. One of the guns in the photograph was a Basque .380 caliber pistol.
the vicinity of the wooded area where the victim's body had been found.
Sometime thereafter, the defendant left the state, in violation of the conditions of his parole. A parole violation warrant was issued for his arrest. On July 11, 1980, the defendant was arrested in Alabama on unrelated charges. When a routine computer check indicated that the defendant was wanted in Connecticut, New York and Ohio, the Alabama authorities immediately notified the Connecticut state police. The next day, July 12, 1980, troopers James Cavanaugh and Paul Reid of the Connecticut state police major crimes task force arrived in Alabama to interview the defendant at the place where he was confined. A series of interviews, extending over the next four days, culminated in the defendant's confession to the February 14, 1980 murder and sexual assault. At his trial, the defendant objected to the admission into evidence of his confession, claiming that it had been obtained in violation of his rights under the fourth, fifth and fourteenth amendments to the federal constitution, and article first, § 8, of the Connecticut constitution. We now turn to the claims.
The defendant was arrested on the Alabama state charges on July 11, 1980. Later that same day he was arraigned in the United States District Court for the District of Alabama on the federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid confinement in Connecticut. The United States Magistrate advised the defendant of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and appointed counsel to represent him on the federal charge. The defendant on this appeal does not challenge the legality of his arrest or confinement in Alabama.
Cavanaugh and Reid commenced custodial interrogation of the defendant at 2:30 p.m. on July 12, 1980. The interview lasted for two hours and ten minutes, ending at 4:40 p.m. Before any questioning the troopers read the defendant his Miranda rights from a standard form. The defendant marked each statement of rights printed on the form with his initials to indicate that he had been so advised. He expressly refused, however, to sign the bottom portion of the form which would have acknowledged his consent to waive those rights. The defendant explained his refusal to sign the waiver portion of the form by stating that although he was willing to speak with the troopers, he did not desire to give a written statement. The troopers then advised the defendant that they were investigating the February 14, 1980 homicide, and related the details of their ongoing investigation. They informed the defendant that he had become a suspect because he was known to possess a Basque .380 semi-automatic pistol of the type used to murder the victim. The defendant was already aware that he was wanted for questioning in connection with the homicide investigation because he had been so informed by his family, with whom he had maintained contact while a fugitive. The defendant in fact complained to Cavanaugh and Reid that certain members of his family had been harrassed by police in their attempts to ascertain the defendant's whereabouts.
The interrogation of the defendant was not transcribed or recorded. We must, therefore, reconstruct what occurred from the testimony adduced at the pretrial hearing conducted on the defendant's motion to Although the precise sequence of events cannot be determined from the record, it is fairly clear that the dominant theme of the interrogation involved the troopers' attempts to persuade the defendant to divulge the location of the gun. It is also clear that at the very beginning of the July 12, 1980 interview session the defendant informed the troopers that he did not want to talk about the gun. Thereafter, during the remainder of the interview, the troopers were cautious to approach the subject of the gun only indirectly. They produced a National Crime Information Center (NCIC) "rap sheet" listing the various charges pending against the defendant in several states, and initiated a discussion of these charges. At some point during this discussion, the defendant stated that he would like to resolve all of these charges in one "package deal," to be worked out between his attorney and the state's attorney upon his return to Connecticut. The troopers replied that no one wanted him to plead guilty to a murder that he did not commit, and stressed, apparently several times, that ballistics testing on the gun might positively clear him of all suspicion of the February 14, 1980 homicide. The defendant again demurred, explaining that he did not want to "cop out" to any of the charges against him until a "package deal" could be arranged. Cavanaugh asked the defendant if the package would include the February 14, 1980 homicide, and the defendant responded that it would. Soon thereafter, as they were about to leave, the troopers one last time reemphasized that recovery of the gun and ballistics testing might lead to the defendant's complete exculpation. In response, the defendant's face settled into a grin. He said nothing.
suppress his oral statements. While we are assisted in this case by the trial court's detailed memorandum of decision, " 'our usual deference to fact-finding by the trial court is qualified, on questions of this nature, by the necessity for a scrupulous examination of the record to ascertain whether such a factual finding is supported by substantial evidence....' " State v. Pellegrino, 194 Conn. 279, 288-89, 480 A.2d 537 (1984), quoting State v. Harris, 188 Conn. 574, 579-80, 452 A.2d 634 (1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1089, 103 S.Ct. 1785, 76 L.Ed.2d 354 (1983)
Cavanaugh and Reid returned to the defendant's cell the next day, July 13, 1980, and interviewed him for approximately one hour, between 4 and 5 p.m. The defendant was again read the standard Miranda warnings, and he initialed each of his rights on a standard advisement form. He again expressly refused to sign the waiver portion. The troopers began by showing the defendant the photograph of the gun collection which had been seized during the search of his apartment. The defendant was then asked to identify the Basque .380 caliber pistol, which he did. After further questioning, the defendant confessed to the February 14, 1980 murder and sexual assault, relating specific details of the incident that only the perpetrator could have known. He also admitted his guilt in the recent Greenwich and Fairfield sexual assaults. The defendant explained that the reason for the "package deal" was that he would have difficulty admitting to his wife and mother that he had murdered the young victim of the February 14, 1980 incident, whom he described as "a nice girl." He stated that his intention was to tell his wife and mother that he had been forced to plead guilty to the murder in order to dispose at once of all of the various charges pending against him. The defendant again refused to give a written statement, stating that he "wanted to hold something back."
The defendant was interviewed again the following day, July 14, 1980, from 11:50 a.m. until 2 p.m. He provided additional details of the crime, describing in particular how he had melted the Basque .380 pistol with a blowtorch at his former place of employment in Bridgeport. Upon arrival in Connecticut...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Chung
...... See, e.g., State v. Toste, 198 Conn. 573, 579-80, 504 A.2d 1036 (1986). In addition, our examination of the record in this case demonstrates that the trial judge was aware of the voluntariness component involved. See State v. Shifflett, 199 Conn. 718, 729, 508 A.2d 748 (1986). In making its ruling, the trial court said, inter alia: "So that [the defendant] knew fully what he was doing. That he voluntarily, intelligently and knowingly waived any rights that he might have." (Emphasis added.) We therefore will review the ......
-
State v. Mitchell
...... Page 150 . including most constitutional violations." United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 509, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 1980, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983). This court has frequently applied this principle to violations of constitutional [200 Conn. 341] rights of an accused. State v. Shifflett, 199 Conn. 718, 508 A.2d 748 (1986) (use of photograph obtained during illegal search to obtain confession); State v. Fleming, 198 Conn. 255, 258-63, 502 A.2d 886 (1986) (illegal arrest does not void subsequent prosecution and conviction); State v. Harman, 198 Conn. 124, 131, 502 A.2d 381 ......
-
State v. Doehrer
......684, 690, 492 A.2d 190 (1985). . In determining whether the defendant's constitutional rights have been infringed, we are not limited to the evidence before the trial court at the time of the ruling but may review the record in its entirety. State [200 Conn. 648] v. Shifflett, 199 Conn. 718, 729, 508 A.2d 748 (1986); State v. Toste, 198 Conn. 573, 576, 504 A.2d 1036 (1986). Our review of the record reveals no evidence whatsoever that the defendant's statements were given in response to interrogation. Significantly, the defendant himself testified at trial that he ......
-
State v. Orhan
......If the instructional error is nonconstitutional, the defendant has the appellate burden of establishing that it is reasonably probable that the jury was misled. State v. Shifflett, 199 Conn. 718, 754, 508 A.2d 748 (1986) ; State v. Mason, 186 Conn. 574, 585-86, 442 A.2d 1335 (1982) ; State v. Greene, 11 Conn. App. 575, 581, 528 A.2d 855, cert. denied, 205 Conn. 804, 531 A.2d 938 (1987). If the instructional error is constitutional, the state has the appellate burden ......