Wagner v. State
| Decision Date | 24 April 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. S–15419.,S–15419. |
| Citation | 347 P.3d 109 |
| Parties | Michael Louis WAGNER, Petitioner, v. STATE of Alaska, Respondent. |
| Court | Alaska Supreme Court |
Marjorie Mock, Contract Attorney for the Public Defender, Anchorage, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for Petitioner.
Elizabeth T. Burke, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions & Appeals, Anchorage, and Craig W. Richards, Attorney General, Juneau, for Respondent.
Before: FABE, Chief Justice, STOWERS, MAASSEN, and BOLGER, Justices.
The superior court ruled that the prosecution could use Michael Wagner's police interview to impeach him if he took the stand at his murder trial. Wagner contends that the police violated his right to remain silent and that the court's ruling prevented him from testifying. But on this record, it is impossible to tell whether the court's ruling affected Wagner's decision not to testify, whether the prosecution would have impeached him with his police statement, or whether this evidence would have affected the jury. We conclude that Wagner has not preserved his Miranda claim for appellate review.
Michael Wagner shot and killed his landlord, Steven Key, in October 2006. Wagner was living in the mother-in-law unit behind Key's house, and Key's body was found in that unit. Wagner has never denied responsibility for Key's death but has consistently claimed that the shooting was an accident.
On the night of the shooting, Wagner called Key reporting the smell of gas in the mother-in-law unit. Key walked over to the unit and stayed for about 13 minutes.1 Wagner called Key again about an hour later, and Key returned to the mother-in-law unit. Within seconds of his arrival, Key was shot once through the head.
Wagner called 911 almost immediately. He told the dispatcher that Key had been shot, and he claimed that the shooting
When the police arrived at Wagner's mother-in-law unit, they found Key's body on the ground by the door and Wagner sitting on a couch. An officer arrested Wagner, placed him in the back of a patrol car, and drove him to the police station. At the station, Wagner was taken to an interview room.
About an hour later, two homicide detectives arrived to question Wagner. The detectives read Wagner his Miranda rights,2 and Wagner indicated that he understood each right. The detectives then asked whether Wagner wished to talk to them, and Wagner responded:
The detectives asked whether Wagner had an attorney or wanted a phone book to try to contact one. Wagner responded: “Uh, [what did] you mean, [if] I don't have [an] attorney, then one will be appointed?” The detectives answered:
Upon learning he had not yet been charged, Wagner stated, The detectives left the room for a few minutes and consulted with a prosecutor. When they returned, the detectives reiterated that no one had been charged, and that “until somebody is actually charged the court doesn't appoint an attorney.” They also repeated that “it's still important that you understand that you do have the right to have an attorney present.” Finally, they asked Wagner, “Would you like to contact [an] attorney or would you like to talk to us about what occurred?” Wagner replied: The detectives then interrogated Wagner for the next hour and a half.
A grand jury indicted Wagner for first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and manslaughter. The indictment was later dismissed when the superior court ruled that Wagner had invoked his Fifth Amendment right to counsel before speaking to the detectives, that his statement was obtained after this invocation and in violation of Miranda, and that the indictment was based at least in part on this statement. Following this dismissal, a second grand jury indicted Wagner on the same charges without being presented with Wagner's statement to police.
Before trial, Wagner moved in limine to suppress the use of his statement for impeachment purposes if he chose to testify at trial. The superior court denied the motion, citing State v. Batts.3
The superior court held a jury trial, and the jury convicted Wagner of first-degree murder. Wagner did not take the stand at trial, but he later testified and was cross-examined at his sentencing hearing about the circumstances of the shooting.
Wagner appealed his conviction, claiming the superior court erred by denying his suppression motion. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction, concluding that Wagner had failed to preserve his claim by declining to testify.4 Wagner filed a petition for hearing in this court, urging us to reject the court of appeals' preservation holding. He further argues that article I, section 9 of the Alaska Constitution prohibits the use of his statement for impeachment. We granted the petition in whole.
The court of appeals declined to consider Wagner's claim that the superior court erred by ruling that the State could use his statement to impeach his testimony. The court of appeals concluded that, under the preservation rule of Luce v. United States5 and State v. Wickham,6 Wagner waived this claim by failing to testify. Wagner argues that the Luce / Wickham preservation rule should not have been applied to his case.7
In Luce, the U.S. Supreme Court held, as a matter of federal procedural law, that “to raise and preserve for review the claim of improper impeachment with a prior conviction, a defendant must testify.”8 The Court was concerned about the amount of speculation required to review an in limine ruling on the admissibility of impeachment evidence that is never introduced because the defendant declines to take the stand.9 And the Court articulated four specific reasons why reviewing such rulings would require an inappropriate degree of speculation.10
First, in limine rulings are preliminary and “subject to change when the case unfolds, particularly if the actual testimony differs from what was contained in the defendant's proffer.”11 The Court noted that this concern is particularly true regarding evidence of a criminal conviction because Federal Rule of Evidence 609(a)(1)(B) places a heightened burden on the prosecution, which must show that the probative value of the conviction outweighs its prejudicial effect.12 Because it is difficult for a court to evaluate both the probative value and the prejudicial effect of proposed evidence in a factual vacuum, a preliminary ruling under Rule 609(a)(1)(B) is particularly likely to be reconsidered at trial.13
Second, “an accused's decision whether to testify ‘seldom turns on the resolution of one factor,’ [and] a reviewing court cannot assume that the adverse ruling motivated a defendant's decision not to testify.”14 Though acknowledging that a defendant might make a commitment to testify in an offer of proof, the Court noted that “such a commitment is virtually risk free because of the difficulty of enforcing it.”15
Third, a “reviewing court ... has no way of knowing whether the Government would have sought to impeach with the prior conviction.”16 The Court noted that, particularly in cases where the Government's evidence is strong and where impeachment can be accomplished by other means, the prosecution may decide not to use contested evidence because of the increased risk of reversal on appeal.17
Finally, “[e]ven if these difficulties could be surmounted, the reviewing court would still face the question of harmless error.”18 The Court noted that if in limine rulings on the admissibility of prior conviction evidence for impeachment were reviewable on appeal, then “almost any error would result in the windfall of automatic reversal; the appellate court could not logically term ‘harmless' an error that presumptively kept the defendant from testifying.”19 The Court feared that in the absence of its preservation rule, defendants would introduce in limine motions “solely to ‘plant’ reversible error in the event of conviction.”20
While Luce was decided on federal procedural grounds and was not binding on the states, we concluded in Wickham that “the justifications underlying the Luce rule apply with equal force to Alaska criminal practice.”21 We were further persuaded by the unanimity of the Luce decision and by the fact that a majority of state courts that subsequently addressed the issue adopted the Luce holding.22
Although the holdings of Luce and Wickham were limited to preliminary rulings regarding evidence of a prior conviction, we conclude that the concerns articulated in Luce and Wickham apply in the present case.
First, as in Luce and Wickham, the contested ruling here was preliminary, and the superior court could have...
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...of his testimony apply whether his statement was coerced or ... obtained in violation of Miranda ."); see also Wagner v. State , 347 P.3d 109, 111, 116 (Alaska 2015) (concluding that "by declining to testify," a defendant "failed to preserve his Miranda claim for appellate review"); Jordan ......
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...have also applied Luce to impeachment by a statement obtained in violation of a defendant's Miranda rights. See, e.g., Wagner v. State, 347 P.3d 109, 109–10 (Alaska 2015) (declining to review the defendant's claim that the trial court erred by allowing the State to impeach him with a statem......