U.S. v. Haddon

• Decision Date: 08 March 1991
• Docket Number: Nos. 89-3671,s. 89-3671
• Citation: 927 F.2d 942
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Richard G. HADDON, Defendant-Appellant. & 89-3723.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 942

927 F.2d 942

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Richard G. HADDON, Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 89-3671 & 89-3723.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 7, 1990.

Decided March 8, 1991.

L. Lee Smith, Darilynn J. Knauss, Asst. U.S. Attys., Office of the U.S. Atty., Peoria, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee.

G. Trent Marquis, Klockau, Mcarthy, Ellison & Marquis, Rock Island, Ill., for defendant-appellant.

Before CUMMINGS and COFFEY, Circuit Judges, and GORDON, Senior District Judge. ¹

MYRON L. GORDON, Senior District Judge.

Richard Haddon, formerly a civilian employee of the United States Army appeals following a jury trial that ended in his conviction on one count of making a false claim to the Army, under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 287, and two counts of making a false statement to government officials, each under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001. We affirm.

I.

In May 1986, Mr. Haddon was transferred from the Rock Island (Illinois) Arsenal to Fort Riley, Kansas. To effectuate this transfer, the Army permitted Mr. Haddon an advance of the expenses it expected he would incur during the transfer of his household. It was Mr. Haddon who provided the information upon which the Army's expectation was based. Mr. Haddon informed the Army that he would be joined in the move by his wife and seven children. The Army advanced Mr. Haddon $9,043 in reliance upon that information. One week later, based upon Mr. Haddon's representation that he had under-estimated the weight of his household goods, the Army adjusted the total advance to $11,092. Several weeks later, again based upon Mr. Haddon's representation that he and his family would be spending an additional thirty days in temporary lodging, the Army advanced him another $5,102.

In early 1987, the Army had not yet received any travel or moving expense vouchers from Mr. Haddon. Its accountants contacted Mr. Haddon, who reported that he had lost his receipts and that his mover had moved to Alaska. He reported that the motel in which he and his family had temporarily lodged had burned, along with its records. The accountants permitted Mr. Haddon to submit a statement of expenses where vouchers were unavailable. In response, Mr. Haddon ultimately submitted vouchers for his travel and moving expenses as well as two handwritten statements. [Government Exhibit Nos. 3, 4 (exhibits hereafter referred to as "GX ____") ] In 1988, Mr. Haddon submitted two estimates of his moving costs placing his total actual expenses nearer $3,000 than the total advanced expenses--a figure over $15,000. [GXs 16, 17] Moreover, the Army accountants became suspicious when they found that Mr. Haddon had claimed daily meal costs for his nine member household of approximately $100-150, yet daily lodging costs of but $26.60. This suspicion triggered their closer scrutiny of the relationship between Mr. Haddon's actual moving and travel expenses and his sizable advance. Unable to resolve their concerns, they contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). On April 22, 1988, two FBI agents conducted an interview of Mr. Haddon, who appeared voluntarily and without counsel.

During the interview, Mr. Haddon initially clung to his original story that his family had joined him in the move. By the time the interview was completed, the FBI agents had secured a signed confession by Mr. Haddon stating that his family had not moved with him to Fort Riley and that he had instead used the money to bribe officials of the government of the Philippines to allow his children to emigrate to this country. [GX 19 (a copy of which is appended hereto) ]. Armed with Mr. Haddon's confession, the government ultimately charged Mr. Haddon in a four-count criminal indictment.

Count One charged that on March 11, 1988, Mr. Haddon presented a false claim to the Army in which he sought remuneration for expenses incurred by himself, his wife, and his children during the relocation to Fort Riley. That claim was false, the government charged, because Mr. Haddon knew that he had not relocated his wife and children. Count Two charged that on March 11, 1988, Mr. Haddon concealed the fact that his wife and children had not relocated with him to Fort Riley by falsely representing to the Army that he had moved his household goods. That claim was knowingly false, the government charged, because Mr. Haddon knew he had not moved his family or his household goods. Count Three charged that on May 7, 1986, Mr. Haddon falsely stated to the Army that all of his seven children would be moving with him to Fort Riley. The government charged that Mr. Haddon then knew that his children would not be relocating with him. Count Four charged that on September 12, 1986, Mr. Haddon falsely stated to the Army that his wife and seven children had moved from Davenport, Iowa, to Fort Riley. The government charged that Mr. Haddon then knew that they had not moved with him. Count One was brought under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 287; the remaining counts were brought under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001.

At trial, the government endeavored to prove the substance of the indictment--that Mr. Haddon had, indeed, made a series of false claims and representations to the Army. Mr. Haddon defended these charges by asserting that the concededly false information on his vouchers had been placed there contrary to his instructions--by Army accountants--and was, in any event, simply an estimate of his expenses. Mr. Haddon further testified that he was under the influence of prescription drugs at the time he submitted the vouchers.

After a two-day trial, the jury found Mr. Haddon guilty as charged in Counts One, Two, and Four, and not guilty of having falsely stated that his family would move to Fort Riley with him, the offense charged in Count Three. The district court sentenced him under the Sentencing Guidelines, and this appeal followed.

II.

A.

Mr. Haddon challenges the voluntariness, hence the admissibility, of a written statement he provided to two investigating FBI agents, Anne Lorraine McNair and Mark Lewis, when he visited with them at their office and at their invitation. There is no question that Mr. Haddon was neither in custody nor under arrest when he was interviewed by the agents.

The interview culminated in an inculpatory written statement signed by Mr. Haddon. [GX 19]. Mr. Haddon did little of the actual "writing" of his written statement; it was done almost exclusively by Agent McNair--presumably in Mr. Haddon's words. Mr. Haddon later challenged the admissibility of the statement into evidence, claiming that he was under the influence of prescription drugs during the meeting. Further, Mr. Haddon claimed that his request for counsel was not honored--indeed, that it was met with a hostile and threatening response.

The district court conducted a suppression hearing and concluded that the statement was voluntarily made and admissible as evidence of Mr. Haddon's guilt. Underlying the district court's determination was the finding that Mr. Haddon's version of the events surrounding his "confession" did not have the same "ring of truth" to it as the version proffered jointly by Agents McNair and Lewis.

We accept the factual determinations made by the trial court when ruling on a motion to suppress unless they are clearly erroneous. United States v. Oglesby, 764 F.2d 1273, 1278 (7th Cir.1985); United States v. Ganter, 436 F.2d 364, 368 (7th Cir.1970); see also United States v. Fazio, 914 F.2d 950, 955 & n. 5 (7th Cir.1990); United States v. Rodgers, 755 F.2d 533, 546 (7th Cir.1985) (clearly erroneous standard governs determination of voluntariness of confession). This standard is particularly deferential to the credibility determinations of the district judge who has conducted a suppression hearing wherein the conflicting testimony of witnesses was observed and afterward resolved. Rodgers, 755 F.2d at 546. That was the case here.

A confession will be adjudged "voluntary" if the government demonstrates that under the totality of the circumstances and by a preponderance of the evidence that it was not secured through psychological or physical intimidation but rather was the "product of a rational intellect and free will." United States v. Holleman, 575 F.2d 139, 142 (7th Cir.1978); United States v. Madison, 689 F.2d 1300 (7th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1117, 103 S.Ct. 754, 74 L.Ed.2d 971 (1983). The "test for a voluntary confession is 'whether the defendant's will was overborne at the time he confessed.' " United States v. Hocking, 860 F.2d 769, 774 (7th Cir.1988) (quoting Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U.S. 528, 534, 83 S.Ct. 917, 920, 9 L.Ed.2d 922 (1963)). Accordingly, coercive police activity is a "necessary predicate" to a determination that a confession was not voluntarily made. Fazio, 914 F.2d at 955 (quotation omitted) (citing Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 166, 107 S.Ct. 515, 521, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986)). Moreover, while a confession secured from a defendant during custodial interrogation is attended with a presumption of coercion, there is no such presumption attendant to a confession secured during non-custodial interrogation. Fazio, 914 F.2d at 956; Hocking, 860 F.2d at 774.

"The issue of coercion is determined from the perspective of a reasonable person in the position of the suspect." Fazio, 914 F.2d at 955 (citing Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 442, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3151, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984)). See also United States v. Shelby, 573 F.2d 971, 975 (7th Cir.) (non-custodial confession voluntary and hence admissible where the defendant, although a "little frightened" and perhaps feeling "in his own mind some coercion," was not the subject of misconduct by the investigating FBI agents), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 841, 99 S.Ct. 132, 58 L.Ed.2d 139 (1978); United States v. Hawkins, 823 F.2d 1020, 1023 (7th Cir.1987).

Examining the totality of the circumstances, we have no occasion to upset the district court's finding that Mr. Haddon's will...