Sweeten v. State

• Citation: 667 S.W.2d 779
• Decision Date: 18 April 1984
• Docket Number: 64088,Nos. 64087,s. 64087
• Parties: Charles Edmond SWEETEN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas. Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

Page 779

667 S.W.2d 779

Charles Edmond SWEETEN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

Nos. 64087, 64088.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas,

En Banc.

April 18, 1984.

Robert R. Foster, Longview, on appeal only, for appellant.

Odis R. Hill, Dist. Atty., Longview, Robert Huttash, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION

McCORMICK, Judge.

These are appeals from two murder convictions. The cases were consolidated and tried together. Punishment in each case was assessed at life imprisonment.

On January 9, 1979, officers from the Kilgore and Longview police departments were called to a homicide scene in Kilgore. Officers found the bodies of two white males, Mike Haase and Wally Parks, in the rear bedroom of a house. It appeared that both victims had died as a result of shotgun wounds. Under the body of Wally Parks, investigators found a handwritten note bearing the signature "Chuck." Investigators also found one shotgun shell at the homicide scene. One of the Longview police officers, Mike Maxey, recalled that on the previous day he had received a telephone call from appellant regarding the two victims. Maxey had been acquainted with appellant for over two years. During this telephone conversation, appellant had told Maxey that the two victims had burglarized his home. In addition, he had mentioned a shotgun. After recalling this telephone conversation, Maxey mentioned appellant's name as a possible suspect. Maxey and Joe Money of the Gregg County Sheriff's office proceeded to appellant's house in Longview. On the way, the officers called for three additional officers for backup.

When the group reached appellant's house, Maxey and Money knocked on the front door. Appellant's wife answered the door and invited the officers in. When they asked to speak to appellant, she led them into a bedroom where appellant was in the process of getting out of bed. When Officer Money entered the room, he noticed a shotgun hanging on the wall, some five to eight feet from appellant. When Money inquired of the appellant as to who owned the gun, appellant replied that it was his gun and it was loaded. Money took the shotgun down from the wall. Money also noticed a pistol lying in plain view on a closet shelf. The appellant also identified himself as the owner of the pistol, so Money seized it also. The officers asked if appellant would accompany them to the sheriff's office so they could talk and he voluntarily consented. When asked if they could take the shotgun and the pistol, appellant replied affirmatively. The officers unloaded the shotgun and Money put the three shells from the shotgun in his shirt pocket.

When appellant reached the sheriff's office at approximately 10:45 a.m., he was taken into an office where Billy Bryan of the Gregg County Sheriff's Office read appellant his Miranda rights and had him sign a waiver of rights form. Appellant and Bryan were joined by Money, Maxey and Marvin Avance of the Kilgore police department. The officers questioned appellant for approximately an hour as to his whereabouts the previous seventy-two hours. During this time, appellant told the officers that he and a friend had been target shooting on January 7 out on some rural property he owned. At the conclusion of this interrogation period, the officers contacted the district attorney's office which advised them they could hold appellant for investigation without filing charges. Appellant, although not formally arrested, was placed in jail. Later that day, the officers asked appellant if he would take them to his property where he had been target shooting. Appellant rode in the back seat with Avance, while Money and Bryan rode in the front seat. All the officers were armed with pistols and Money brought along the shotgun obtained from appellant. When they got to the farm, the officers found some .12 gauge shotgun shell hulls on the ground. These hulls were similar to the shells the officers had taken from appellant's gun and also similar to the hull found at the murder scene. At one point during the visit to the farm, Officer Money reloaded appellant's shotgun with one of the shells previously removed from it and fired it into a pine tree for the purpose of retrieving an empty hull for use in a ballistics test.

The appellant was then taken back to the Gregg County Courthouse and placed in jail. At approximately 8:00 o'clock that evening, appellant was again removed from his cell and taken to the district attorney's office. Appellant was again advised of his Miranda rights and then questioned for a two-hour period by Money, Maxey and the district attorney. At the end of this interview, appellant agreed to take a polygraph examination the next morning in Tyler. Appellant was taken back to his jail cell where he spent the night.

The next morning at 7:30 a.m. appellant was driven to Tyler by Money and Maxey. When they reached Tyler, appellant was given a pre-test interview by the polygraph examiner. At the conclusion of this interview, appellant informed the examiner that he did not want to take the polygraph exam but he did want to talk with Mike Maxey. When appellant was alone with Maxey, he admitted committing the murders. At the same time Maxey was talking to appellant, Money learned that the ballistics test had come back positive on appellant's shotgun. Appellant was then formally arrested and taken back to Longview where he was taken before a magistrate. The magistrate advised appellant of his rights and arraigned him on the two charges. Appellant was then taken to the district attorney's office where he began giving a written statement at approximately 12:15 p.m. Appellant signed the statement at 2:00 p.m. on January 10, 1979.

Appellant argues on appeal that the trial court erred in admitting his confession into evidence because his confession was the product of an illegal arrest and detention. The record is clear that appellant was not formally arrested until he told Mike Maxey in Tyler that he had committed the murders. Officer Money testified that up until that time he did not feel he had probable cause to arrest appellant. Nevertheless, the record is clear that from the first time appellant was placed in the Gregg County jail at approximately 12:00 p.m. on January 9, 1979, he was in custody. Although the facts known to the officers at that point might have raised suspicions concerning appellant, they certainly did not constitute probable cause. Thus, this investigative detention was clearly improper and amounted to an illegal arrest. See, Ussery v. State, 651 S.W.2d 767 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), and cases cited therein.

Probable cause did arise, however, on the morning of January 10, 1979, when appellant admitted to Maxey that he had committed the double murders and Officer Money learned that the ballistics test on appellant's shotgun was positive. The existence of probable cause at this point in time, however, does not negate the illegality of appellant's prior detention. It is important, though, in determining whether appellant's confession was the fruit of the illegal detention.

A confession obtained through custodial interrogation after an illegal arrest should be excluded unless intervening events break the causal connection between the illegal arrest and the confession so that the confession is sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary...