State v. Tolbert

• Citation: 381 Md. 539,850 A.2d 1192
• Decision Date: 08 June 2004
• Docket Number: No. 83,83
• Parties: STATE of Maryland v. Terrence TOLBERT.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

850 A.2d 1192

381 Md. 539

STATE of Maryland v. Terrence TOLBERT.

No. 83, Sept. Term, 2003.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 8, 2004.

Annabelle L. Lisic, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. of MD, on brief), Baltimore, for Appellant.

William E. Nolan, Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender), Baltimore, for Appellee.

Argued before BELL, C.J., RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA and JOHN C. ELDRIDGE, (Retired, specially assigned), JJ.

RAKER, Judge.

In this interlocutory appeal by the State,¹ the issue presented is whether the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County erred in granting the defendant's motion to suppress his statements on the grounds that the statements were in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) and that the statements were involuntary. This Court issued its Per Curiam Order on February 11, 2004, reversing the Order of the Circuit Court and remanding the matter for trial.²State v. Tolbert, 379 Md. 424, 842 A.2d 63 (2004). We now give the reasons for that Order.

I.

Terrence Tolbert, appellee, was indicted by the Grand Jury for Anne Arundel County for the offenses of first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter, armed carjacking, armed robbery, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit armed carjacking, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. Prior to trial, he filed a motion to suppress all oral and written statements that he made to the police on the ground that the statements were obtained in violation of the United States Constitution, Maryland Declaration of Rights, and Maryland Rules.

The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County held an evidentiary hearing. We set forth the facts from the record of the suppression hearing.

Straughan Lee Griffin, a resident of Annapolis, was shot and killed in front of his home on September 19, 2002. His assailant[s] shot him in the head, stole his automobile, and ran over his body as they fled from the scene. The police became interested in appellee as a possible witness or suspect because they had received information that the suspects in the murder were two black males, one of whom had a missing arm; appellee is a black male who is missing one arm. On October 16, 2002, several officers went to appellee's home, where he lived with his mother. Corporal Thomas Hannon explained that the police wanted to talk to appellee and his mother about the homicide. Appellee agreed to go to the police station and answer questions. During the questioning, which lasted approximately half an hour, appellee denied that he knew anything about the murder and provided an alibi. He returned home.

Shortly after 11:00 p.m. that night, Detective David Cordle, chief investigator for the Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office, and two other officers went to appellee's home and offered to place his family in a hotel for the evening due to threats made to his family by the family of another suspect. Appellee's mother declined the offer. Detective Cordle asked if appellee would be willing to talk about the murder case, and appellee responded that he was not interested at that time. The police then left. The following day, Detective Cordle contacted appellee's mother and asked if she would meet with him. Appellee's mother and sister went to the State's Attorney's Office that afternoon and met with Detective Cordle and Detective Kevin Lloyd. The detectives asked appellee's mother for her help in getting appellee to cooperate and talk with the police. Appellee's mother said that she could not force her son to talk to them but that she would encourage him to do so. Detective Cordle set up another meeting with appellee's mother for the following week. At that meeting, on October 24, 2002, Detectives Cordle and Lloyd discussed the possibility of appellee taking a polygraph examination and persuaded appellee's mother to bring him into the State's Attorney's Office the following day.

On October 25, 2002, appellee and his mother met with Detective Cordle, Detective William Johns, and Corporal Hannon at the State's Attorney's Office. No Miranda warnings were given. Detective Johns asked appellee several questions. At one point, appellee's mother interrupted to inquire whether she should get an attorney for her son. Detective Cordle told her that "she could do what she had to do." Detective Cordle asked appellee whether he would be willing to take a polygraph test to verify his unwavering claim that he had no involvement in the murder. Although at first reluctant, appellee agreed to take the polygraph examination.

Arrangements were made for Corporal Lloyd White to administer the polygraph test at the Maryland State Police Barracks, about one mile away. Appellee's mother drove him to the Barracks, and Detective Johns drove there separately. When Corporal White arrived, he spoke briefly with Detective Johns in the lobby and then escorted appellee to the polygraph suite in the basement. Appellee's mother left to do an errand. Corporal White explained to appellee that the test would take approximately two hours and consisted of three phases—a pre-test interview, the instrumentation phase, and a post-test interview. Appellee expressed reluctance about taking the test. After Corporal White told him that he "did not want to make him do anything he didn't want to do," appellee said that he did not want to take the test. Corporal White then escorted him back to the lobby.

Once in the lobby, appellee discovered that his mother was not present. After some time passed, appellee changed his mind about taking the polygraph test and told Corporal White that he wanted to get it over with. Corporal White then took appellee back to the polygraph suite.

Pursuant to Maryland State Police policy for the administration of polygraph examinations, Corporal White then advised appellee of his Miranda rights. Appellee signed a waiver of rights form at 6:05 p.m. He also signed the State Police polygraph request and release form.³ After asking appellee some background information about his education, employment, and health, Corporal White went over the polygraph questions with appellee and then administered the actual test.

When the instrumentation phase of the test was completed, Corporal White took appellee upstairs to another office and did not give additional Miranda warnings. Corporal White told appellee that he had shown deception during the test, and appellee responded by asking whether the polygraph indicated that he had shot the victim. Corporal White asked appellee why he would ask such a question and told him that, if appellee had any involvement in the murder, he should say so. Appellee was quiet for several minutes and then admitted that he was more involved than he had said during the test. He then spoke for about five minutes, making a statement implicating himself in the murder and finally stating, "I guess it's a robbery gone bad."

After appellee made this statement, Corporal White left the room and summoned Detective Johns, telling him that appellee had confessed. Corporal White returned to the office with Detective Johns, and no additional Miranda warnings were given by either officer. Corporal White asked appellee if he would repeat his story to Detective Johns. Appellee nodded yes and repeated what he had told Corporal White. Following his confession, appellee was placed under arrest and transported to the police station. At the station, appellee spoke with Detective Johns and signed the notes taken by Detective Johns during the interview.

The Circuit Court ruled on the motion on September 4, 2003. The court found that appellee voluntarily went to the State's Attorney's Office and to the State police barracks and that, up until the time that appellee made the first set of statements to Corporal White, he was free to leave and a reasonable person under the circumstances would have felt free to leave. The court found that the police had made no promises to appellee in exchange for his taking the polygraph test and had not acted in a coercive manner. Considering the totality of the circumstances, the court held that appellee's statement to Corporal White was voluntary and not the product of any custodial interrogation. The court thus denied the motion to suppress the first statement.⁴

The court determined that appellee was in custody as of the time that Corporal White summoned Detective Johns and they asked him to repeat the statement he had made to Corporal White. The court explained that "there is no doubt in my mind that a reasonable person would not have believed that they were free to leave having just indicated that they had, or made an incriminating statement that they had killed someone." Having determined that appellee's status changed from noncustodial to custodial, the court held that the police should have repeated the Miranda warnings and that the "premature" administration of Miranda warnings, i.e., the issuance of warnings prior to the time appellee was in custody, was ineffective. The court granted the motion to suppress the statements appellee made to Detective Johns—the second and third statements.

Regarding the voluntariness of the statements made to Detective Johns, the court stated as follows:

"[H]e was there for a polygraph. He agreed to go and nobody coerced him or threatened him. But he agreed to go there for the purpose of the polygraph.

I don't believe that that statement was voluntary. I believe he should have been given his Miranda warnings. He was not. The circumstances were different. He may have been, it's one thing when you are about to take a polygraph examination. It's a totally different circumstance once you have just made an incriminating statement to have two detectives, officers, come back and further question him."

The prosecutor requested the Circuit Court to clarify its ruling and...