Commonwealth v. Granger

528 A.2d 244, 364 Pa. Super. 453, 1987 Pa. Super. LEXIS 8504
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 10, 1987
DocketNo. 1852
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 528 A.2d 244 (Commonwealth v. Granger) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Granger, 528 A.2d 244, 364 Pa. Super. 453, 1987 Pa. Super. LEXIS 8504 (Pa. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

ROWLEY, Judge:

We are presented, in this appeal, with the question of whether the conduct of the police in making available to the accused, who is in their custody, the unrequested opportuni[455]*455ty to consult with a law student, who everyone mistakenly believes to be a lawyer, invalidates the accused’s subsequent waiver of her Sixth Amendment right to counsel.1

This appeal arises from incidents occurring on November 16, 1983. That afternoon, Mrs. Schumacher, a 68 year old woman, was found by her son stabbed, approximately 90 times, to death in their home. The same day, upon conducting an investigation, the Philadelphia Police learned that Charles Schumacher, the victim’s son, had had an association with appellant. Appellant had occasionally solicited sex from Mr. Schumacher. Three weeks prior to the murder of Mrs. Schumacher, appellant had gone to the Schumacher house to solicit sex from Mr. Schumacher. He had declined, but agreed to go to the local speakeasy to purchase beer for her. Appellant was left alone with Mrs. Schumacher. Appellant then took from Mr. Schumacher’s closet a briefcase containing a Magnum .357 firearm and $160. Appellant told Mrs. Schumacher that Mr. Schumacher had asked her to watch the briefcase for him. Appellant then left. Thereafter, when Mr. Schumacher returned home, he notified the police of the theft and appellant was quickly apprehended. Mrs. Schumacher was the only eyewitness to the theft and had given a statement to the police implicating appellant.

On the evening of the murder, two detectives went to appellant’s home where she lived with her mother, Mrs. Granger, and two sisters. At that time, Mrs. Granger had already heard about the Schumacher murder. Mrs. Gran-ger voluntarily admitted the detectives into her home. Appellant was not present then but had stopped home earlier that day. The detectives asked Mrs. Granger to walk through the house. Though the detectives did not have a [456]*456search warrant, Mrs. Granger consented. In the bedroom which appellant shared with her two sisters, the detectives observed a pair of blood-soaked blue jeans on an ironing board which they confiscated. Mrs. Granger did not object.

The next day, an arrest warrant was issued for appellant’s arrest. She was not located until late in the evening of November 27, 1983, at which time she was arrested. At that time, appellant was seventeen years old. Immediately after her arrest, appellant was placed on a drug maintenance program for three days to ease her withdrawal from methamphetamine addiction.

At the end of the three days, appellant notified the police that she wished to give a statement implicating her boyfriend in an unrelated murder. Appellant was given her Miranda2 warnings. Thereafter both appellant and her mother signed a form containing her rights. Appellant stated that she did not want an attorney. She then talked with her mother for a short time. Appellant then began telling the police about the unrelated murder.

Suddenly, appellant changed the topic and began talking about the Schumacher murder. The police interrupted appellant and summoned someone from the Defender’s Association office to counsel appellant. Although the police believed the person to be an attorney, he was in fact a law student interning with the Defender’s Association. The student, James Waller, counseled appellant not to speak with the police. After Mr. Waller left, appellant was again given Miranda warnings, again waived her right to counsel, and told the police that while she had been present during the murder, her boyfriend had killed Mrs. Schumacher. Appellant was again advised of her Miranda rights and was then given a lie detector test, which she failed. Upon being confronted with the failure, appellant asked the police to question her again, during which time she told them that she had stabbed the victim, but only once.

[457]*457Following the denial of a motion to suppress her statements, appellant was tried by a jury and convicted of first degree murder, robbery, and possessing an instrument of crime. Post-trial motions were heard and denied. The trial court imposed a life sentence on the murder bill, with concurrent prison terms of five to ten years and one-half to five years for, respectively, robbery and possessing an instrument of crime. This direct appeal followed. Appellant requests that the verdict be set aside and a new trial granted.

The issue before us revolves around the suppression court’s refusal to suppress appellant’s statements to the police on the evening of November 30 to December 1, 1983. The suppression court determined, inter alia, that appellant knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waived her right to counsel prior to making all statements to the police. When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, our responsibility is

“to determine whether the record supports the factual findings of the court below and the legitimacy of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from those findings.” ... In making this determination, this Court will consider only the evidence of the prosecution’s witnesses and so much of the evidence for the defense as, fairly read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted.

Commonwealth v. Kichline, 468 Pa. 265, 279, 371 A.2d 282, 290 (1976) [quoting Commonwealth v. Goodwin, 460 Pa. 516, 521, 333 A.2d 892, 895 (1975) ] (citations omitted). With these standards in mind, we have reviewed the record of the suppression hearing and find, per the following analysis, no error by the suppression court.

Appellant specifically contends that because she consulted with a law student rather than with competent counsel, she was denied her constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. Our review of the record discloses no evidence that appellant ever requested counsel. Appellant argues that her act of consenting to speak with someone [458]*458who she thought was a lawyer was an invocation of her right to counsel. She concludes, “[c]learly, one cannot waive ones right to counsel, after speaking to one presumed to be counsel but later determined to be a non-attorney.” (Appellant’s Brief, p. 13). Appellant cites no authority, and we know of none, to support this determination.

In Commonwealth v. Hubble, 509 Pa. 497, 504 A.2d 168, cert. denied, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 3272, 91 L.Ed.2d 563 (1986), our Supreme Court addressed the situation where a suspect had ambiguously requested to contact an attorney. Hubble was a suspect in a triple homicide. He was interviewed by the State Troopers on three different occasions. On the second occasion, he was accompanied by his wife who advised him to get a lawyer. Hubble then stated that he wanted a lawyer. He was permitted to place phone calls to his attorney, who was not available, and to his parole officer, who advised him to contact the Public Defender’s office. Hubble did not contact the Public Defender’s office, nor did he request to make further phone calls. The' Trooper then asked Hubble to give a taped statement. Hubble complied. The statement was noninculpatory.

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Related

Commonwealth v. Brown
565 A.2d 177 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1989)
Commonwealth v. Hughes
555 A.2d 1264 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1989)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
528 A.2d 244, 364 Pa. Super. 453, 1987 Pa. Super. LEXIS 8504, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-granger-pasuperct-1987.