U.S. v. Bradshaw

• Decision Date: 07 June 1991
• Docket Number: No. 90-3105,90-3105
• Citation: 290 U.S.App.D.C. 129,935 F.2d 295
• Parties: , 33 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 241 UNITED STATES of America v. Larry P. BRADSHAW, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 295

935 F.2d 295

290 U.S.App.D.C. 129, 33 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 241

UNITED STATES of America v. Larry P. BRADSHAW, Appellant.

No. 90-3105.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued April 16, 1991.

Decided June 7, 1991.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Criminal No. 89-00038-01).

Susan L. Coskey, appointed by the Court, with whom Richard G. Taranto was on the brief, Washington, D.C., for appellant.

Shanlon Wu, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Jay B. Stephens, U.S. Atty., John R. Fisher, Thomas C. Black, Craig S. Iscoe, and Kathleen M. O'Connor were on the brief, Washington, D.C., for appellee.

Before MIKVA, Chief Judge, WALD and SILBERMAN, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.

SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Larry Bradshaw was convicted of one count of bank robbery and one count of attempted bank robbery. He was sentenced to 210 months. He challenges his convictions and sentence on several grounds. We find merit in one claim--that the district court admitted incriminating statements made by Bradshaw without determining whether his waiver of Miranda rights was knowing and intelligent--and, therefore, remand for that determination. On all other issues, we affirm the convictions and the sentence.

I.

Bradshaw has a long history both of bank robberies and of mental illness. He first began showing symptoms of what was later diagnosed as schizophrenia in the late 1970's. By the early 1980's his condition became acute. After his condition intensified, Bradshaw robbed a bank in Montreal and attempted to rob one in Miami. ¹ In 1986, the Veterans Administration initiated proceedings at the instigation of Bradshaw's family to have him committed as an incompetent. Before these proceedings concluded, however, Bradshaw disappeared. He was not heard from again until he was arrested later in the year in the District of Columbia for bank robbery. After a year of commitment and treatment with medication, Bradshaw was deemed competent to stand trial and pled guilty; he was sent by the court to the mental health division of a federal correctional facility. He was released seven months later and placed on probation on the condition that he seek continued treatment.

Bradshaw visited the VA Hospital, where a doctor prescribed intravenous medication. The hospital mailed the medication to Bradshaw, along with a self-injection kit, but Bradshaw was unable to determine how to administer it, and his health again deteriorated.

The events giving rise to the convictions on appeal occurred on January 9, 1989. Bradshaw testified that he began drinking heavily that morning and had consumed over a liter of liquor by afternoon. Early that afternoon, he entered a bank and demanded money from a teller and a manager. Each refused to give him any money (they were stationed behind bulletproof glass); instead, they activated the silent alarm system. Bradshaw pounded repeatedly on the glass but eventually left the bank.

One hour later, Bradshaw entered a second bank, where he proved superficially more successful. He told a teller to give him money and not to move or he would kill her. The teller gave Bradshaw approximately $6,000 in a bag, but the bag also included an explosive dye pack. The dye pack exploded shortly after Bradshaw left the bank, covering him with red dye. He was apprehended only a few blocks from the bank.

The police arrested Bradshaw and told him his Miranda rights both orally and in writing. He asked questions concerning his rights (the officers and Bradshaw disagree as to what he asked; their conflicting versions are discussed more fully infra at 134), and signed a form waiving them. He then gave a statement admitting that he committed the second robbery because he "just needed some money ... [and] did something foolish." He further admitted in the statement, contrary to his later testimony, that he was not drunk.

Before trial, Bradshaw moved to suppress this confession, arguing that as a result of his mental illness and the enormous amount of alcohol he claimed to have consumed he was unable knowingly and intelligently to waive his Miranda rights, and that his statement to the police was accordingly inadmissible. The district court denied the motion, apparently on the assumption that a waiver of Miranda rights is invalid only if caused by police coercion.

At trial, Bradshaw admitted to committing the acts charged and relied entirely on an insanity defense. Defense counsel sought to establish Bradshaw's insanity through expert testimony based in part on Bradshaw's past commitments but requested that the prosecution be prevented from cross-examination concerning the reason (the prior robberies) for the commitments. The prosecution objected and the court concluded that it would permit cross-examination on that issue. Defense counsel then asked the expert about Bradshaw's prior convictions on direct examination.

The jury reported itself unable to reach a verdict, but after an Allen charge found Bradshaw guilty of both attempted robbery and robbery. The district court found Bradshaw to be a career offender as defined by the sentencing guidelines and determined a sentencing range under the guidelines of 210-262 months. It then denied Bradshaw's motion for a downward departure and sentenced him to 210 months.

II.

Bradshaw argues that the district court erroneously admitted the statements he made to the police after his arrest. He does not dispute that before he incriminated himself the police advised him of his Miranda rights and that he signed a form waiving those rights. He nonetheless maintains that the waiver was ineffective and his statements should therefore have been suppressed.

Miranda itself provided that a defendant's statements can be used against him if he "voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently" waives his rights. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1612, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Whether such a waiver occurred has generally been thought to depend on two "distinct" questions: was the waiver "voluntary in the sense that it was the product of a free and deliberate choice rather than intimidation, coercion, or deception," and was it "made with a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it." Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 421, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 1141, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986). Only if both questions are answered affirmatively "may a court properly conclude that the Miranda rights have been waived." Id.

Bradshaw insists that the answer to each question is in the negative. He first claims that his waiver was not made with "full awareness," i.e., was not knowing and intelligent, because he was unable due to mental illness and extreme intoxication to understand either his rights or the consequence of waiving them. He also argues that his waiver was involuntary under Edwards v. Arizona, in which the Supreme Court held that when an individual is given Miranda warnings and requests an attorney, any further police-initiated questioning before counsel is provided is per se coercive, see Minnick v. Mississippi, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 486, 489-90, 112 L.Ed.2d 489 (1990); Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484-85, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 1884-85, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981). We will address each contention in turn.

A.

As the government now concedes (Br. at 25 n. 12), the question whether a Miranda waiver was knowing and intelligent traditionally has embraced concerns apart from police activity, including whether the defendant was too mentally ill to understand the warnings, see, e.g., United States v. Gaddy, 894 F.2d 1307, 1312 (11th Cir.1990). At the suppression hearing, however, the government argued in response to Bradshaw's claim that his waiver was not knowing and intelligent that, under the Supreme Court's decision in Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986), an accused's statement cannot be suppressed as the product of a non-knowing waiver of Miranda rights unless there is evidence of police coercion. The district court apparently adopted the government's position. The court observed that Bradshaw "probably ... had been drinking" and that he "conceivably was not as mentally stable as he should have been." The district judge did not, however, make any explicit finding as to Bradshaw's capacity to understand his rights. Instead, the court considered only whether Bradshaw's waiver was voluntary, observed that Connelly held that police coercion is a necessary predicate for finding a waiver involuntary, and, finding no coercion, denied the motion to suppress.

We think that the government and the district court misread the Connelly case. Connelly was a schizophrenic who claimed he was driven by the "voice of God" to waive his Miranda rights and to confess to a murder. 479 U.S. at 161, 107 S.Ct. at 518. Unlike appellant here, he did not maintain that he did not comprehend his rights. Indeed, all the evidence indicated the contrary; Connelly himself stated to the officers that he understood the warnings and a psychiatrist testified that although Connelly's schizophrenia interfered with his volitional abilities, it did not significantly impair his cognitive functions. See id. at 160-61, 107 S.Ct. at 518. Connelly instead emphasized the extent to which his mental illness left him incapable of exercising "free will" and "rational intellect." Id. at 159, 162, 170, 107 S.Ct. at 518, 519, 523.

Connelly's principal argument was that his confession was involuntary within the meaning of the due process clause. That provision of the Constitution requires that a confession be voluntary quite apart from whether or not Miranda's prophylactic procedures are followed. A confession is inadmissible as a matter of due process if under the totality of circumstances it was involuntarily obtained (for example, if the police beat a...