State v. Tucker

• Decision Date: 22 April 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-1627,96-1627
• Citation: 692 N.E.2d 171,81 Ohio St.3d 431
• Parties: The STATE of Ohio, Appellant, v. TUCKER, Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 431

81 Ohio St.3d 431

692 N.E.2d 171

The STATE of Ohio, Appellant, v. TUCKER, Appellee.

No. 96-1627.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted Dec. 3, 1997.

Decided April 22, 1998.

James F. Stevenson, Shelby County Prosecuting Attorney, and Michael F. Boller, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for appellant.

Elsass, Wallace, Evans, Schnelle & Co., L.P.A., and Thomas A. Ballato, Sidney, for appellee.

ALICE ROBIE RESNICK, Justice.

This case requires us to resolve two issues. The first is whether Tucker was subjected to an "interrogation" by the corrections officers without being given the requisite Miranda warnings. The second issue is whether admission of Brock's taped statements was prejudicial error. For the reasons which follow, we determine that neither of the trial court's separate decisions to allow Tucker's statement and Brock's statements into evidence was prejudicial error requiring a reversal of Tucker's convictions. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and reinstate Tucker's convictions.

I

After his apprehension in Kentucky, Tucker was brought to the Logan County Jail on April 12, 1994, and held there while awaiting trial. Tucker was in a "day room" with several other inmates at the jail on December 4, 1994, when corrections officers guarding him noticed that he was nervous and "wasn't himself." Tucker had been watching television news coverage of Brock's separate trial.

The guards, Logan County Deputy Sheriff Larry Garwood and Jail Corporal Phil Bailey, also with the Logan County Sheriff's Department, decided to remove Tucker from the day room and to take him to another room in the jail, away from other prisoners. The guards gave him a cigarette and a soft drink, in an effort to calm him down. Tucker had undergone some mental health counseling while being detained, and the guards asked him if he wanted them to contact a mental health professional to come to the jail. Tucker told them that he did not want a counselor. Tucker began talking about Brock's trial to the guards, telling them he wished "this would just get over" so he could "start [his] time." He had in the past told the guards that it helped him to talk about it and to get it off his chest because it helped him sleep. Tucker told the guards he was going to plead guilty when he was tried (unless Brock got the death penalty, because he wouldn't plead guilty then). At this point, one of the guards remarked, "when this is all said and done, I'd like to hear about what happened that day." Tucker stated that he would tell them "right now" what happened "if it doesn't go any further." One of the guards said, "you don't have to talk about it." Tucker said it helped him to talk about it, and proceeded to tell the guards of the plan he and Brock came up with to rob Thomas Herring's house of the guns, describing the shootings of Herring in the kitchen and the taking of Herring's guns.

At the hearing held on Tucker's motion to suppress, both Deputy Garwood and Corporal Bailey testified to the circumstances surrounding Tucker's statement to them at the Logan County Jail, as well as to the details of the statement itself. After the trial court denied the motion to suppress the state's use of this statement, Deputy Garwood also testified at Tucker's trial, over renewed defense objections, about the statement's factual setting and its contents.

At issue is whether Tucker's motion to suppress the statement should have been granted by the trial court because he was subjected to an "interrogation" without being given Miranda warnings at the time, so that the statement should not have been used against him at his trial. We must therefore consider what "interrogation" means in this context.

In the course of its opinion in Miranda v. Arizona (1966), 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 706, the United States Supreme Court, in establishing the well-known "Miranda rules" for advising suspects of their rights, stated that "[b]y custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way." In Rhode Island v. Innis (1980), 446 U.S. 291, 298, 100 S.Ct. 1682, 1688, 64 L.Ed.2d 297, 306, the court undertook to refine the contours of the term "interrogation" in light of the use of the word "questioning" in Miranda.

The Innis court determined that the Miranda rules are not so narrow as to apply to only "those police interrogation practices that involve express questioning of a defendant * * *." Innis, 446 U.S. at 298, 100 S.Ct. at 1688, 64 L.Ed.2d at 306. The Innis court read the term "interrogation" more broadly, to also include the more subtle "techniques of persuasion" sometimes employed by police officers that do not rise to the level of express questioning, but which also can be extremely coercive in some situations. Id., 446 U.S. at 299-300, 100 S.Ct. at 1689, 64 L.Ed.2d at 306-307.

However, as the Innis court emphasized, the Miranda rules do not operate to prevent the use as evidence of every statement made by a person in custody: " 'Confessions remain a proper force in law enforcement. Any statement given freely and voluntarily without any compelling influences is, of course, admissible in evidence. The fundamental import of the privilege [against compulsory self-incrimination] while an individual is in custody is not whether he is allowed to talk to the police without the benefit of warnings and counsel, but whether he can be interrogated.' " (Emphasis sic.) Id., 446 U.S. at 299-300, 100 S.Ct. at 1689, 64 L.Ed.2d at 307, quoting Miranda, 384 U.S. at 478, 86 S.Ct. at 1630, 16 L.Ed.2d at 726. Moreover, the Innis court determined that " '[i]nterrogation,' as conceptualized in the Miranda opinion, must reflect a measure of compulsion above and beyond that inherent in custody itself." 446 U.S. at 300, 100 S.Ct. at 1689, 64 L.Ed.2d at 307.

Thus, to determine whether a suspect has been "interrogated," the heart of the inquiry focuses on police coercion, and whether the suspect has been compelled to speak by that coercion. This compulsion can be brought about by express questioning, but also can be brought about by the "functional equivalent" of express questioning, i.e., "any words or actions on the part of the police (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect." (Footnotes omitted.) Id., 446 U.S. at 300-301, 100 S.Ct. at 1689-1690, 64 L.Ed.2d at 308. See, also, State v. Williams (1983), 6 Ohio St.3d 281, 6 OBR 345, 452 N.E.2d 1323, paragraph five of the syllabus ("For purposes of application of the Miranda rule, custodial interrogation refers not merely to explicit questioning but also to any words or actions on the part of police officers, excepting those normally incident to arrest and custody, that the officers should know are reasonably likely to induce an incriminating response from the suspect."); State v. Knuckles (1992), 65 Ohio St.3d 494, 605 N.E.2d 54, paragraph two of the syllabus ("When a statement, question or remark by a police officer is reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from a suspect, it is an interrogation.").

Initially, there is no evidence in the record of any actual coercive practices employed by the corrections officers. It is clear that no actual express questioning, in the sense of the first prong of Miranda regarding "interrogation," occurred in this case. Furthermore, the officers cannot be said to have designed their words or actions in an attempt to elicit an incriminating response from Tucker, so that it is apparent that the officers did not invite, nor did they expect, a response. The testimony of the corrections officers regarding the making of Tucker's statement reveals that no questions meant to elicit information from Tucker about the incidents at the Herring home were voiced. However, pursuant to Innis, the inquiry does not stop there. In this context, what the officers should have known as to the reasonable impact their statements would have had on Tucker is just as important.

Our inquiry thus focuses on the second, "functional equivalent," interrogation prong of Miranda, as discussed in Innis. Even if the words or actions of the corrections officers were not designed to elicit an incriminating response, should the officers have realized that their conduct would, in fact, elicit an incriminating response? In other words, should the officers have realized that their actions, while not coercive, were being interpreted as coercive by the suspect, Tucker, so that Tucker felt compelled to speak?

Our answer to this question is "no." The concept of "functional equivalent of questioning" compulsion would have to be extended beyond its recognized boundaries as explained in Innis in order that "functional equivalent" compulsion sufficient to invoke the Miranda principles be found on the facts of this case. ¹ On the record before us, the officers reasonably should not have anticipated that their actions or words would be likely to evoke an incriminating response.

Tucker himself is the one who voluntarily turned the conversation to the subject of Herring's killing. Tucker told the guards he was going to plead guilty, because then he could "start [his] time" and get this "over." Any further interaction between Tucker and the guards was a continuation of the conversation and flowed from the initial volunteered incriminating statement of Tucker.

Even given the guards' knowledge of Tucker's past mental health counseling, and given their awareness of his uneasiness over seeing coverage of Brock's trial on television, their interaction with him has all the earmarks of casual conversation. The officers were simply looking out for Tucker's well-being. They engaged him in casual conversation, as they had in the past when they observe...