Taylor v. State

Decision Date03 December 1997
Docket NumberNo. 17S00-9603-CR-202,17S00-9603-CR-202
Citation689 N.E.2d 699
PartiesChad L. TAYLOR, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).
CourtIndiana Supreme Court

Susan K. Carpenter, Public Defender, Gregory L. Lewis, Deputy Public Defender, Indianapolis, for Appellant.

Jeffrey A. Modisett, Attorney General, Andrew L. Hedges, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, for Appellee.

BOEHM, Justice.

Chad L. Taylor was convicted of murder. The trial court sentenced him to sixty years imprisonment. In this direct appeal, Taylor raises four issues for our review:

I. Did Taylor invoke his federal or state constitutional right to counsel during police interrogation such that his subsequent incriminating statements were inadmissible?

II. Did Taylor receive ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial attorney did not object to statements made during interrogation on the basis of Taylor's right to remain silent (as opposed to his right to counsel which was asserted)?

III. Did a detective's comparison of the circumstances of the arrests of Taylor and an accomplice constitute impermissible comments on Taylor's assertion of the right not to incriminate himself?

IV. Did the trial court commit reversible error by allowing opinion testimony in violation of Indiana Evidence Rule 704(b) as to the guilt or innocence of someone other than the defendant?

We affirm the conviction and remand for resentencing in accordance with Smith v. State, 675 N.E.2d 693 (Ind.1996).

Factual and Procedural Background

At approximately 11:30 p.m. on November 25, 1994, John West, Howard Oberlin, Tina Rhodes, and Rhodes's three children went to bed in the manufactured home they shared in rural DeKalb County. John West and Tina Rhodes slept in the front bedroom with the youngest child in a crib beside them. The two other children and their grandfather, Howard Oberlin, slept in their beds in the back bedroom.

Several hours later, West was awakened by a booming sound and an impact that knocked him off the bed and onto the floor. He heard at least three more booming sounds, two of which came from the back bedroom. Realizing that he had been shot in the arm and was bleeding badly, West drove to a gas station where the police were called. Upon arriving at the residence, police found Howard Oberlin, Tina Rhodes, and one of the children dead from shotgun wounds. The front door of the home had apparently been kicked in, and the door bore a shoe print that forensics tests later established did not match the shoes of any of the occupants. West, who had seen one of the gunmen in a poorly lit hallway, initially told police that the gunman was Larry Lee, a former boyfriend of Tina Rhodes with whom West had clashed over Lee's relationship with Rhodes. Lee was investigated and eliminated as a suspect for reasons described in Part IV below.

Almost four months after the shootings, Shane Delagrange came to the police station with his parents and confessed to his involvement in the crime. Delagrange told police that he had agreed to help defendant Chad Taylor kill West because of West's alleged molestation of a female friend of Taylor's. Delagrange said that the two had arrived at the crime scene with shotguns that Taylor had provided. Delagrange and Taylor had planned to shoot West when he answered the door. When no one answered the door, Taylor kicked the door in, and the two men entered the home. Finding several people inside the residence, Delagrange and Taylor decided to kill everyone to eliminate all witnesses. Delagrange went to the front bedroom and shot Tina Rhodes and West. Taylor shot Oberlin and a child in the back bedroom.

After Delagrange's confession, police obtained a search warrant for Taylor's residence. The search produced two shotguns later identified by police forensics experts as those used in the shooting, several rounds of ammunition, and a pair of tennis shoes later found to match the shoe print on the door of the home. Taylor was not at home when the search warrant was executed, but returned home to learn from his mother that police were looking for him. He went to the DeKalb County Jail where he signed a waiver of rights form and was questioned by Detective Miles Stacey. When asked if he was involved in the crime Taylor said: "I don't know what to say. I guess I really want a lawyer, but, I mean, I've never done this before so I don't know." Stacey continued to question Taylor who eventually made two statements described below. He was subsequently arrested and charged with the murder of Howard Oberlin.

Taylor filed a motion to suppress his statements made during the interrogation, claiming that the statements were involuntary because they occurred after he requested counsel. The trial court denied the motion, the case went to trial, and a jury found Taylor guilty of murder. This appeal followed.

I. Admissibility of Statements to Police

Taylor contends that his rights under both the federal and state constitutions were violated when police continued to question him after he said: "I don't know what to say. I guess I really want a lawyer, but, I mean, I've never done this before so I don't know." Specifically, Taylor contends that two of his statements made during the interrogation were admitted over his objection and were prejudicial. First, after he was told that Delagrange had confessed, he was asked if Delagrange's story was believable, and he answered affirmatively. Second, Taylor stated that he was "involved" and that he had lent the shotguns to Delagrange. At trial he explained his admission that he was "involved" as being limited to having lent the shotguns to Delagrange for hunting. Both statements were made shortly before the interrogation terminated when Taylor unequivocally requested a lawyer.

At the outset of the interrogation, Taylor signed a written waiver of rights form and orally acknowledged that he had been advised of his rights and had agreed to waive them. Although Taylor is not always precise in describing the rights he asserts were violated in this case, it is clear his waiver applied to both the right to counsel and the right to be free from self-incrimination under both the state and federal constitutions. The issue, therefore, turns on whether, after the waiver, Taylor asserted a valid right under the federal or state constitution that requires suppression of his subsequent statements.

Review of the denial of a motion to suppress is similar to other sufficiency matters. The record must disclose substantial evidence of probative value that supports the trial court's decision. We do not reweigh the evidence and we consider conflicting evidence most favorably to the trial court's ruling. See, e.g., Wilcoxen v. State, 619 N.E.2d 574, 577 (Ind.1993); Warner v. State, 579 N.E.2d 1307, 1309 (Ind.1991).

A. Federal constitutional claim

Taylor first argues that his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966) were violated when police continued to question him after he made the quoted statement. Assertion of this right is governed by the objective standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court in Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452, 114 S.Ct. 2350, 129 L.Ed.2d 362 (1994). "Invocation of the Miranda right to counsel requires, at a minimum, some statement that can reasonably be construed to be an expression of a desire for the assistance of an attorney." Id. at 459, 114 S.Ct. at 2355 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The level of clarity required to meet the reasonableness standard is sufficient clarity such that a "reasonable police officer in the circumstances would understand the statement to be a request for an attorney." Id. It is not enough that the defendant might be invoking his rights; the request must be unambiguous. In Davis, the defendant's statement "maybe I should talk to a lawyer" was held not to be a request for counsel. Id. at 462, 114 S.Ct. at 2357. Consequently, police officers had no duty to stop questioning Davis, and any statements he subsequently made were admissible. Davis established as a matter of Fifth Amendment law that police have no duty to cease questioning when an equivocal request for counsel is made. Nor are they required to ask clarifying questions to determine whether the suspect actually wants a lawyer.

In this case, Taylor's statement of "I guess I really want a lawyer, but, I mean, I've never done this before so I don't know" is an expression of doubt, not a request. A reasonable police officer in the circumstances would not understand that Taylor was unambiguously asserting his right to have counsel present. In fact, Detective Stacey's response to Taylor's comment was: "Okay. Like I told you, I can't make that decision for you." This response communicated that Stacey did not take Taylor's statement to be an assertion of the right to counsel and makes clear that if Taylor wanted a lawyer, he would have to communicate that desire. The trial court properly applied the Davis standard in finding that Taylor's purported assertion of his Fifth Amendment rights was not an unambiguous request for a lawyer. The trial court's ruling was also consistent with pre Davis decisions of this Court. 1

B. Indiana constitutional claim

Taylor next claims that the same interrogation violated his rights under the Indiana Constitution. Taylor argues that the right to have counsel present during a custodial interrogation is broader under Article I, § 13 of the Indiana Constitution than under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Specifically, Taylor contends that the right to counsel secured by § 13, unlike the federal Sixth Amendment right to counsel, attaches at an earlier stage than indictment or information. Over forty years before Miranda was decided on Fifth Amendment self-incrimination grounds, this Court held that a suspect's right to counsel--not the right to be free from self-incrimination--attaches when a suspect...

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