On Point: 5. Confessions

State v. J.T.M., 2015AP1585, 7/19/16, District 3 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity

A detective interrogated 16-year-old J.T.M. while he was in a juvenile residential facility without first giving Miranda warnings. Because J.T.M. was in custody and wasn’t given the warnings, his statement regarding a sexual assault allegation must be suppressed.

State v. Johnnie Mertice Wesley, 2015AP590-CR, District 1, 7/6/16 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Wesley asserted his right to remain silent during an initial interrogation, and the detectives stopped questioning him. Detectives approached him two more times to resume questioning, and during the third interrogation Wesley made incriminating statements. The court of appeals holds that the detectives didn’t violate Wesley’s invocation of the right to remain silent by resuming interrogation. The court also rejects Wesley’s claim that he invoked the right to remain silent again during the third interrogation.

State v. Mastella L. Jackson, 2016 WI 56, 7/1/16, affirming a published decision of the court of appeals, 2015 WI App 49, 363 Wis. 2d 553, 866 N.W.2d 768; case activity (including briefs)

Despite the “flagrant” and “reprehensible” violations of Jackson’s Fifth Amendment rights by police, the supreme court holds that physical evidence seized based in part on information obtained from those violations should not be suppressed because the evidence would have been inevitably discovered. In the course of this ruling, the court alters Wisconsin’s long-established inevitable discovery standard and refuses to rule out using the doctrine in cases where the police intentionally violate a suspect’s rights.

State v. Karl L. Quigley, 2016 WI App 53; case activity (including briefs)

Karl Quigley confessed to sex offenses during an interrogation by a police detective, and later confessed to additional offenses while being questioned by his probation officer. The court of appeals rejects his Miranda challenge to his initial confession, but agrees that the state failed to show that evidence obtained after the statement to the P.O. was “derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of” that statement, as required by Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1972). Because Quigley’s plea bargain incorporated charges from both sets of offenses, the court remands for plea withdrawal.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Miranda v. Arizona. In honor of the occasion, The Marshall Project asks: For 50 years, you’ve had “the right to remain silent.” So why do so many suspects confess to crimes they did not commit? Read the full report here.

State v. Bradley L. Kilgore, 2016 WI App 47; case activity (including briefs)

The execution of the search warrant at Kilgore’s home started with a heavily armed officers, including a SWAT team, entering and putting Kilgore down on the floor at gunpoint; but once the home was “cleared” and weapons were secured and the SWAT team left, Kilgore was not in custody for Miranda purposes. Thus, the statements he made to police while they searched his home were admissible despite the lack of a Miranda warning.

Review of a published court of appeals decision; case activity (including briefs)

Issue (from petition for review):

Is a defendant deprived of his constitutional right against self-incrimination and his rights guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, § 8 of the Wisconsin Constitution by the admission at trial in the state’s case-in chief of his unwarned custodial statements made in response to law enforcement’s asking for a statement?

State v. Miguel Muniz-Munoz, 2014AP702-CR, 3/1/16, District 1 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

By the time Muniz-Munoz went to trial for first degree intentional homicide, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy of the victim was dead. The trial court allowed another medical examiner who reviewed the case record to give his independent opinion about the cause of the victim’s death. This did not violate Muniz-Munoz’s right to confrontation.

Today’s New York Times notes a study finding that in 2015 a record 149 people in the United States were found to have been falsely convicted of a crime. Official misconduct played a role in 65 exonerations and false confessions were seen in 27. The National Registry of Exonerations, based at the University of Michigan law school, reported the findings.

State v. Jeanette M. Janusiak, 2015AP160-CR, 1/28/16, District 4 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Pregnancy does not by itself make a suspect particularly vulnerable to police pressure and tactics during custodial interrogation, the court of appeals holds, so the fact that Janusiak was in an advanced state of pregnancy didn’t render her statement to police involuntary. The court also rejects Janusiak’s claims that her statement was coerced because she was threatened with the loss of her children and was promised she could go home if she made a statement.