On Point: 5. Confessions

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State v. Miguel Muniz-Munoz, 2014AP702-CR, 3/1/16, District 1 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)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State v. Jeanette M. Janusiak, 2015AP160-CR, 1/28/16, District 4 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)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.

State v. Gregory Tyson Below, 2014AP2614-2616-CR, 1/12,16, District 1 (not recommended for publication); case activity, including briefs

This was a high profile case in Milwaukee. Below was convicted of 29 charges of kidnapping, strangulation and suffocation, sexual assault, battery, reckless injury and solicitation of prostitutes. He appealed and asserted 4 claims for a new trial. The court of appeals rejected all of them.

United States v. Antonio West, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Case No. 14-2514, 12/30/15

The trial court erroneously excluded expert evidence that West sought to admit regarding factors that made him susceptible to making an unreliable confession to a crime.

State v. Brian I. Harris, 2016 WI App 2, petition for review granted 4/6/16, affirmed 2017 WI 31; case activity (including briefs)

Incriminating statements Harris made while he was in custody were admissible despite the lack of Miranda warnings because the statements were either sufficiently attenuated from the taint of police questioning or were not made in response to police interrogation.

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

Issues (composed by On Point from the PFR)

1. Does the inevitable discovery doctrine require the State to show that information gained through police misconduct did not prompt or influence the purportedly lawful investigation?
2. Does the inevitable discovery doctrine require the State to show that it was actively pursuing an alternative line of investigation prior to the illegal conduct?
3. Does the Wisconsin Constitution bar use of the inevitable discovery doctrine to allow admission of evidence obtained through an intentional violation of constitutional rights?

State ex rel. Rockie L. Douglas v. Brian Hayes, 2015 WI App 87; case activity (including briefs)

Douglas’s probation was improperly revoked based on his refusal to answer his probation agent’s inquiry about Douglas’s suspected involvement in various criminal activities while on probation because he was not sufficiently informed, prior to his refusal, that he had both use and derivative use immunity related to any information he would have provided the agent.