20 August 2012

What not to do when stopped by police after killing your business partner

People v Doll, 2012 NY Slip Op 05450 [4th Dept 2012] [available here]

Police responded to a report of a suspicious person and observed a man wearing blood-stained clothing and wielding a lug wrench. When the cop asked the blood-spattered man what he was doing, the man said "he was walking in order to lower his cholesterol because he had a doctor's appointment the next morning." OK. What about all that blood? "[D]efendant replied that it was cold out so he put on the coveralls that he wore when he butchered deer."

This all happened in Genesee County, so the Deer Hunter explanation actually might not have moved the needle much. But then the soon-to-be-defendant did something very peculiar: he asked the officer for a ride back to his van.

Why peculiar, you ask? Because the van, like the defendant, was covered in blood. From the decision:

Diehl (the police officer) drove to the location where defendant parked his van. Diehl observed blood in several places on both the inside and outside of the van, and on the ground next to the van. He also observed a pair of gloves, which appeared to be blood-soaked, on top of a car near the van.

When the defendant tried to explain that the blood was old, the officer pointed out that the blood appeared fresh and that the "defendant's sneakers were leaving bloody footprints in the snow." The police offered to let the defendant go if he could show them the dead deer or explain the source of blood.

Defendant responded by asking for an attorney.

The police continued to interrogate the defendant. They also searched for a victim, checking the defendant's ex-wife and the area where the defendant was stopped. More than four hours later, the police checked the home of defendant's business partner. The partner's dead body was in the driveway of the home.

After the body was found, the defendant's girlfriend and a friend went to the police station where defendant was being held. The friend asked repeatedly to speak with the defendant, and eventually a sheriff's investigator allowed her to do so. However, the investigator stressed that he was not asking the friend to talk to the defendant, and that he (the investigator) would remain in the room the entire time. From the decision:

During the ensuing conversation, defendant told his friend that the situation did not involved an animal, that he had been "present" but did not do anything, that it was an open and shut case, that he was going to be in jail somewhere, and that he guessed that he would get what he deserved. Defendant's friend specifically asked defendant to tell her that there was not a dead body, and defendant replied, "I can't do that." [The sheriff investigator] stayed in the room during the conversation, standing a few feet from defendant and his friend, within defendant's view.

Remember, this all happened after defendant asked for an attorney.*1

The defendant moved to suppress his statements, both to the responding officers before the body was found, and the later statements to his friend at the police station. The Fourth Department, in a majority decision by J. Nancy Smith, affirmed the trial court's decision refusing to suppress the statements.

As to the statements defendant made after he asked for an attorney but before the body was found, the Court held that "inasmuch as the evidence at the suppression hearing established that an objective need to rescue a member of the public existed and that the deputies were doing everything possible to aid that person or persons, the emergency exception applied notwithstanding the deputies' additional intent to obtain incriminating evidence."

The statements made by the defendant to his friend, although made after the body was found and therefore after the "emergency" was resolved, did not violate defendant's right to counsel because the friend was not acting as an agent of the police. The defendant was entitled to a "competent advocate in confronting the power of the State," but that right did not extend to "encounters with private citizens absent collusion of the State." (Doll, citing People v Velasquez, 68 NY2d 533.)

The Court also invoked the emergency doctrine to excuse the "temporary" detention of defendant while the police searched for a body.

Justices Centra and Fahey dissented. The dissenters noted that defendant was first handcuffed and detained at about 845p.m., and then interrogated for at least the next four hours, without Miranda warnings and in spite of his request for an attorney. The dissenters would not have applied the emergency exception, because unlike every other case to invoke the emergency exception, "the police in this case were not aware that there was even a victim who needed police assistance." The defendant claimed the blood was from butchering deer, "certainly a reasonable explanation"*2 according to the dissent.

In the dissent's opinion, to "allow the police to disregard a person's invocation of the right to counsel based on the mere fact that the person has blood on his or her clothing is an unwarranted expansion of the emergency exception."

The dissent is no doubt correct that the majority's opinion extends the emergency doctrine into new and unsettling territory. It is easy to understand on the facts of Doll: blood covered defendant offers ridiculous reason for being out and about, and leads the officers to his blood-spattered van (with bonus blood-soaked gloves nearby). It is hardly surprising that the police held onto the defendant and questioned him until a body was found, and that both the trial court and the Appellate Division ratified the conduct by refusing to suppress the statements.

But the Doll case does not exist in a vacuum, and now there is authority for the police to seize and interrogate a suspect, for hours and hours, without Miranda and in spite of a request for an attorney, based on blood-stained clothing (or what looks like blood stained clothing), if the police do not like the explanation for the blood. That is a pretty breathtaking expansion of police authority.

*1 An attorney may have been able to point out, "Dude, the sheriff investigator is standing right there. For the love of God, shut up."
*2 Again, at least in Genesee County.

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