State v. Williams

• Decision Date: 14 July 1995
• Docket Number: No. C7-94-782,C7-94-782
• Citation: 535 N.W.2d 277
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Jason Ryan WILLIAMS, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 277

535 N.W.2d 277

64 USLW 2100

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Jason Ryan WILLIAMS, Appellant.

No. C7-94-782.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 14, 1995.

Syllabus by the Court

1. If defendant desired to invoke his right to remain silent by behaving as he did during custodial interrogation, defendant's desire to invoke right was ambiguous or equivocal at best.

2. Absent a defendant's unambiguous or unequivocal invocation of the right to remain silent, police are not required to stop questioning the defendant, and police are not required to ask only clarifying questions.

3. Defendant knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his right to remain silent and voluntarily confessed to the crime.

4. Defendant's confession was admissible into evidence even though the police failed to record the entire interrogation.

5. Defendant spontaneously volunteered inculpatory statements while being held at Juvenile Detention Center and fundamental fairness did not require them to be excluded from evidence.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Susan K. Maki, Asst. State Public Defender, Minneapolis, for appellant.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Atty., Donna J. Wolfson, Asst. County Atty., Minneapolis, for respondent.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

ANDERSON, Justice.

Defendant, Jason Ryan Williams, aged 16, was referred for prosecution as an adult on charges arising from his involvement in a double homicide and an attempted homicide. Williams was indicted on seven counts, including two counts of first-degree murder, two alternate counts of first-degree murder, two alternate counts of first-degree attempted murder, and one count of first-degree burglary. A jury convicted Williams on all seven counts.

Williams appeals from the judgment of conviction, claiming that the trial court prejudicially erred in admitting evidence of a confession that he made while in custody. Williams maintains that this confession was obtained in violation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. Williams further maintains that his confession should have been excluded from evidence because the interrogating officers failed to tape record his entire interrogation. Williams also claims that the trial court prejudicially erred in admitting evidence of inculpatory statements that he made while being held at the Juvenile Detention Center. Williams maintains that these statements should have been excluded from evidence as a matter of fundamental fairness. We hold that Williams's confession and his inculpatory statements were properly admitted into evidence, and we affirm.

On the evening of October 12, 1992, Michael Hage returned from work to his home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Upon arriving home, Hage discovered his wife, Julie Hage, dead from various injuries, including one shotgun blast to the back of her head and another shotgun blast to her lower back. He also discovered his three-year-old daughter, Nicole, dead from being stabbed with a knife. His four-year-old son, Mathew, had also been stabbed, but was still alive and survived due to medical treatment. Before being taken to the hospital, Mathew remained conscious long enough to answer some questions. When asked if he had seen his assailant, Mathew responded that a black man had hurt him. Several items of personal property had been stolen from the Hage residence, including a 1992 Hyundai Sonata automobile.

Later that evening, at approximately 10:15 p.m., a police patrol officer identified the Hages's 1992 Hyundai Sonata being driven in Champlin, Minnesota. The driver of the Hyundai was ordered to pull the car to the side of the road and to stop. Several police squad cars arrived at the scene. Using aggressive felony arrest maneuvers, the police arrested the car's five occupants: Ray Turner, who was driving, Williams, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, Wendy Cox, Victoria (Tory) Dorkins, and Michael Anthony Nehmzow. All five of the occupants were arrested, handcuffed and transported by squad car to the Brooklyn Park police department for questioning.

Sergeant James Penaz drove Williams, a black male aged 16, to the police department. During the drive, Williams asked Penaz why he had been arrested. Penaz answered that he had been arrested for "being in and/or driving a stolen vehicle." Penaz did not mention the homicide investigation. Williams then reportedly told Penaz, "we picked up Wendy, Tory and Mike later. They had nothing to do with it."

Upon arriving at the police department, Williams was booked, and Officer Jonathan Wilson conducted a property inventory and performed a medical screening. During the medical screening, Officer Wilson bandaged Williams's right hand, the palm of which had been cut. At 10:45 p.m., Williams was placed alone in a detention cell. Williams's detention cell contained a bed, which was bolted to the wall, a toilet, and a sink with running water.

At approximately the same time Williams was placed in his detention cell, Brooklyn Park police detectives Robert Bozovsky and Harry Christensen attended an update meeting at the police department to learn what details had already been discovered by the homicide investigation. After the meeting, the detectives interviewed three persons, in the following order: Victoria Dorkins and Mike Nehmzow, who were both arrested occupants of the Hages's car, and Josh Jones, who had been arrested later and brought to the station. From these interviews, which lasted until approximately 5:00 a.m., October 13, 1992, the two detectives learned that Williams had told the occupants of the Hages's car that he had stolen the car and that he had cut his hand while shooting a shotgun.

During this six-hour period, Williams remained alone in his detention cell. Williams did not ask for or use the telephone, did not have visitors, did not watch television, and did not listen to music. During several routine security checks, Williams was observed lying on his bed with his eyes closed. At approximately 1:12 a.m., Officer Wilson rebandaged Williams's hand. At approximately 5:02 a.m., Officer Wilson allowed Williams to use the asthma inhaler that Wilson had confiscated from Williams during the property inventory.

At approximately 5:20 a.m., Williams was taken from his detention cell to an interview room located across the hall. The interview room measured 10 feet, 8 inches long by 7 feet, 5 inches wide. The room had no exterior windows. Two banks of lights, each containing three 48-inch tube fluorescent bulbs, illuminated the room's only furniture: one table, measuring 48 inches long by 30 inches wide, and three chairs.

Detectives Bozovsky and Christensen were waiting in the interview room when Williams arrived. They introduced themselves and sat at opposite ends of the table, while Williams sat between them with his back to the door. Although the police did not test Williams's blood-alcohol level, Williams reportedly walked without difficulty, did not smell of alcohol, and spoke clearly without slurring. Williams was not wearing handcuffs.

After Williams sat down, Detective Bozovsky orally recited a full Miranda warning and asked Williams if he understood the rights of which he had just been advised. Williams responded affirmatively. Bozovsky then asked Williams if he was willing to talk with them. Williams responded that he was willing to talk.

Williams had not yet been informed about the homicide investigation. Instead, he was questioned about being in a stolen car. Williams initially maintained that he had stolen the car from a black man who had left the keys in its ignition while parked outside of a south Minneapolis liquor store. Responding to preliminary questions, Williams told the detectives his mother had kicked him out of the house, he did not know her phone number, and he had not seen his father in a long time. Williams reported that he had been staying with friends, and he reported staying with a friend at an address on Park Avenue in Anoka, Minnesota, the night before. Later, in a car parked at that address, police found a sawed-off shotgun, wrapped in a plaid bloodstained shirt.

Approximately 45 minutes into the interview, Detective Bozovsky informed Williams that the car he had been riding in had been stolen from the home of people who had been murdered. Bozovsky stated that he suspected Williams had injured his hand during the murders. Bozovsky next said that he wanted Williams's side of the story because if he didn't explain "how it happened people would believe the worst about what had happened * * *." Williams denied any involvement in the homicides. When Detective Christensen explained that the homicide scene would be processed for fingerprints and blood analysis, Williams responded that neither his fingerprints nor his blood would be found at the homicide scene.

Detective Christensen continued to hypothesize about the homicides and explained to Williams that if the adult female victim had been sexually assaulted, physical evidence, such as semen, could be traced back to the assailant. Williams emphatically denied that anything like that had happened, and Christensen accused him of lying. Williams then lost his composure, stood up from his chair, turned towards Christensen and said, "I don't have to take any more of your bullshit." Then Williams walked out of the interrogation room, into the hall, and back to his detention cell, where he was placed by the detention officer. This episode occurred approximately one hour into the interview. Williams never said that he wanted to stop answering questions. Christensen testified that he was shocked by Williams's behavior because, in over 17 years of police experience, a suspect had never stood up and simply walked out of the interview room. Christensen interpreted Williams's behavior to be a ...