State v. Vincik

• Citation: 398 N.W.2d 788
• Decision Date: 14 January 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-1125,85-1125
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. William Henry VINCIK, Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

Page 788

398 N.W.2d 788

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. William Henry VINCIK, Appellant.

No. 85-1125.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 14, 1987.

Leon F. Spies, Iowa City, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Pamela Greenman Dahl, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver D. Dillard, Co. Atty., and Harold Denton, Asst. Co. Atty., for appellee.

Considered en banc.

WOLLE, Justice.

Defendant William Henry Vincik was arrested and charged by trial information with the first-degree murder of his wife, Inez Vincik. The jury found him guilty of murder in the second degree and he was sentenced to an indeterminate term of fifty years in prison. See Iowa Code §§ 707.1, 707.3, 902.9(1) (1983). In this direct appeal from the judgment of conviction Vincik asserts seven separate assignments of error: two of constitutional dimension concerning motions to suppress an inculpatory statement and certain physical evidence seized during a warrantless search of his home; and the other five pertaining to the trial court's denial of a requested protective order during discovery, refusal to give a requested jury instruction, and exclusion of certain proffered expert testimony. We conclude that Vincik was deprived of a fair trial when the prosecution used in evidence against him an inculpatory signed statement police officers coercively extracted from him while his mind was clouded by drugs administered by medical professionals. We reverse the conviction and remand this case for a new trial.

I. Motion to Suppress Post-Arrest Statement.

Vincik first assigns as error the refusal to sustain his motion to suppress an inculpatory statement allegedly given to police officers two weeks after his wife had been shot and killed. He contends he did not voluntarily waive his Miranda rights and did not voluntarily give the police officers an inculpatory statement which later was admitted in evidence against him at trial. He contends the prosecution's use of that statement violated his rights under the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 467, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1624, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 719 (1966). (Vincik in this appeal has abandoned a sixth amendment challenge presented to the trial court.) We review de novo the record concerning such constitutional issues, making our own independent evaluation of the totality of the relevant circumstances. State v. Nelsen, 390 N.W.2d 589, 591 (Iowa 1986); State v. Whitsel, 339 N.W.2d 149, 152 (Iowa 1983).

The burden of proof was on the State to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Vincik's waiver of constitutional rights was knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently given. See State v. Reid, 394 N.W.2d 399, 402 (Iowa 1986). An express written waiver alone is not enough to establish waiver. Fryer v. State, 325 N.W.2d 400, 409 (Iowa 1982). The State also has the burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant's inculpatory statement was made voluntarily. State v. Hodges, 326 N.W.2d 345, 347 (Iowa 1982). Thus, the voluntariness of both the waiver and the statement is at issue.

The test for voluntariness is whether the "totality of circumstances" demonstrates that the statement was the "product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice, made by the defendant at a time when his will was not overborne nor his capacity for self-determination critically impaired." Id. (quoting State v. Snethen, 245 N.W.2d 308, 311 (Iowa 1976)). Other factors to be considered include:

The defendant's knowledge and waiver of his Miranda rights, the defendant's age, experience, prior record, level of education and intelligence, the length of time defendant is detained and interrogated, whether physical punishment was used, including the deprivation of food or sleep, defendant's ability to understand the questions, the defendant's physical and emotional condition and his reaction to the interrogation, whether any deceit or improper promises were used in gaining the admissions, and any mental weakness the defendant may possess.

State v. Whitsel, 339 N.W.2d at 153. It is also now clear that "coercive police activity is a necessary predicate to the finding that a confession is not 'voluntary' " under the fourteenth amendment. Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, ----, 107 S.Ct. 515, 522, 93 L.Ed.2d 473, 484 (1986).

A few of the background facts on this issue are undisputed. Shortly after noon on June 26, 1984 the Cedar Rapids Police Department received a "911" call from a person who identified himself as Bill Vincik and reported that he had been shot. Ambulance and police cars were dispatched to Vincik's home, where Vincik and his wife Inez were discovered lying on a bed, with bullet wounds to the head. Inez was dead and Vincik unconscious. Vincik was taken to a Cedar Rapids hospital where he underwent major surgery.

On July 9, 1984, at about 4:30 p.m., Vincik was arrested by two Cedar Rapids police officers at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Iowa City where he had been taken to recuperate from brain and eye surgeries. Hospital personnel released Vincik, in a wheelchair, into the custody of the two police officers, and they transported him to the Cedar Rapids police station. There, in a windowless room ten feet square, from about 5:45 p.m. to 8:45 p.m., the two police officers interrogated Vincik. In the first few minutes Vincik was read and then signed a standard rights waiver form. About three hours later Vincik signed a typewritten statement which first had to be read to him because he could not see very well. No notes were taken and no audio or video tape was made of the questioning. The two-page typewritten statement Vincik signed referred to his recollections of violent Vietnam war experiences, recent suicidal thoughts brought on by those experiences, and recollection of the events on the day his wife Inez and he were shot. Included are three blunt statements:

I got this gun out of the dresser and while Inez was sleeping I shot her twice in the head. The reason I shot her twice is I did not want her to suffer. I laid down next to her in the bed and then shot myself.

Before Vincik was questioned, he was charged by trial information with murder in the first degree. After the typewritten statement was signed Vincik spent the night in jail. The following day he was arraigned on the murder charge, then readmitted to the Veterans Administration Hospital.

The critical detailed facts relevant to the question of voluntariness are very much in dispute. The State's version, based almost entirely on testimony of the two police officers and their secretary, focuses on Vincik's apparent understanding of what was taking place from the time he was arrested until he signed the statement.

The officers testified that they arrested Vincik only after receiving a phone call from hospital personnel notifying them that Vincik would be released from the hospital that afternoon. They maintain that Vincik was alert throughout the time he was with them, even joking while they slowly climbed the thirty steps into the police station. Although conceding that defendant had obvious physical problems--a head wound, visible catheter, and difficulty with eyesight--they emphasized that his verbalizations were appropriate and understandable and that he stated he understood the waiver form when it was read to him. They said they made no threats or promises and that Vincik never requested that the questioning cease but complained only that his eyes were dry. They said they administered eyedrops when requested, provided soda pop, and allowed Vincik to use the restroom on one occasion. They both testified the words in the typewritten statement were taken directly from Vincik's answers to their questions, then dictated by one of the officers at the completion of the questioning and typed by a secretary. Finally, the officers emphasized that they not only read the typed statement to Vincik before he signed it, but they made corrections at his request and had him initial those corrections.

Vincik's version of the facts on this issue, based largely on testimony of medical personnel, emphasizes overreaching by the police officers given Vincik's infirm mental and physical condition just before and during the hours when he was being interrogated. The hospital chief of ward administration who phoned the officers on the morning of July 9 testified that she phoned to notify them of Vincik's discharge only because they earlier had asked her to phone when the neurosurgeons were ready to release him from the hospital. She told them he still was in need of a psychiatric evaluation, and she understood that the police officers were planning to take Vincik to the care facility at Oakdale for a necessary psychiatric evaluation. When discharged, Vincik had only enough medicine for that night and the next morning. Doctors and nurses at the hospital all testified that they assumed from what the police officers told them that Vincik was merely being moved to Oakdale for further treatment. The officers did not tell hospital personnel they had a warrant for his arrest and were going to drive him straight to Cedar Rapids for interrogation.

Although hospital personnel turned over to the police officers Vincik's medical records, the officers neither read those reports nor discussed Vincik's condition with qualified medical personnel when they took him into custody. The officers testified they were not aware he had just undergone a surgical procedure and been injected with the drug valium, a sedative. Indeed, one of the officers described as "excellent" Vincik's medical and mental condition upon discharge into their custody. The officers' testimony concerning Vincik's mental and physical condition is not credible when all of the evidence in this record is considered. A neurosurgeon testified that the type of brain damage suffered by Vincik frequently results in a lack of inhibition and a...