People v. Mangum

48 P.3d 568, 2002 WL 1359637
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedJune 24, 2002
Docket02SA70
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 48 P.3d 568 (People v. Mangum) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Mangum, 48 P.3d 568, 2002 WL 1359637 (Colo. 2002).

Opinion

Justice COATS

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

The People appealed pursuant to section 16-12-102(2), 6 C.R.S. (2001), and C.A.R. 4.1, challenging the district court's order suppressing certain of the defendant's statements to the police. Because we agree that the statements were the product of custodial interrogation without the benefit of Miranda warnings, the district equrt's order is affirmed. , >

1.

Following his apprehension and arrest on May 5, 2001, the defendant was charged with the five-year-old murders of Janet and Jennifer Davis, child abuse resulting in death, sexual assault on a child, and a number of violent crime and juvenile direct file counts. 'The defendant moved to suppress the statements that he made to the police on the day of his arrest. After hearing the defendant's motion on February 4, 2002, the district court made detailed written findings of fact and conclusions of law.

According to the district court’s findmgs, on April 30, 2001, the Mesa County Sheriff's Department received information from the Department of Human Services that Shawna Mangum had implicated her husband, Verle, in the double homicide. She also told a Human Services employee that Mangum had said he would commit suicide if he were contacted by the police. On May 4, 2001, the Sheriffs Department obtained a Crim. P. 41.1 order for non-testimonial identification evidence.

Based on information that the defendant would be driving from Utah to Grand Junetion sometime on May 5, 2001, to pick up his two-year-old sor, officers began surveillance of his wife's residence, intending to interrogate the defendant and then execute the non-testimonial identification order. The officers watched the car in which the defendant was riding leave his wife's residence carrying two children, who were apparently not in car seats, and a crib poorly secured to the roof, and they decided to pull it over. While the driver was being questioned about documentation, the defendant agreed to speak with another officer outside the car. After being told that the police were reopening the Davis homicide case, that they would like him to come to the Sheriff's Department to speak with them, and that Human Services wanted them to take custody of his son, the defendant fled.

Two officers éhased him, ordered him at gunpoint to drop .a knife he had put to his *570 throat, and sprayed him in the face with pepper spray after he sliced his throat several times. When the defendant escaped and ran again, he was pursued by officers on foot and in a patrol car, and was ultimately ordered at gunpoint to come out of the bushes where he was hiding with his hands up. The defendant complied, asking not to be hurt and indicating that he was done. When it was clear that the defendant no longer had a knife, he was ordered to drop to his knees and then to his stomach. He was handcuffed and searched and his wallet was seized. Despite the large gashes on the defendant's throat and the arrival of paramedics with an ambulance, one of the police officers ordered a delay in medical attention to speak with the defendant for a few minutes alone.

After another officer told him that he was not under arrest but had been handcuffed for his own protection, the defendant said that he had "serewed up" his life and that his life was over. When the officer indicated that they could work things out, the defendant responded that he would not survive in prison and that he was seventeen at the time, and after being further consoled by the officer, that he was going to prison and that his life was over. After telling the defendant that no one knew what would happen and that the most important thing was to take responsibility, the officer questioned him about what happened, and the defendant gave details of the murders.

Following several minutes of conversation, the defendant was examined by the paramed-ies and, still cuffed, was strapped to a gurney and taken by ambulance to the hospital. The officer continued to interrogate the defendant as he was being treated for his injuries on the way to the hospital, encouraging him as he gave more details by telling him that he was starting to take responsibility and could help the Davis family by revealing what happened and why. The defendant then gave considerably more detail about how and why he committed the murders.

After arriving at the hospital, the defendant remained handcuffed but was again told that he was not under arrest and that the handcuffs were for his own protection. The deputy who "stood by" the -defendant's bed was told that the defendant was not in custody but was detained for execution of the Rule 41.1 order. About three hours later, the defendant was taken to the Sheriff's Department, where blood was drawn and fingerprints taken. Between two and three hours later, the defendant was placed in jail. Although the defendant made other statements during the course of these events, he was never told that he was free to leave or advised of his constitutional rights.

In a detailed, written analysis of the controlling law and its application to these facts, the trial court concluded that in the totality of the cireumstances the defendant was in custody for purposes of his entitlement to Miranda warnings from the time he was handcuffed. Although it found all of his statements voluntary in the constitutional sense and many of them actually volunteered rather than made in response to interrogation, it suppressed those of the defendant's statements that were made in response to interrogation conducted after he was handcuffed. The prosecutor filed an interlocutory appeal, challenging the trial court's determination that the defendant was in custody for purposes of Miranda and asserting that suppression was not the proper remedy in any event because the police held a good faith belief that they lacked probable cause to arrest the defendant at the time of the questioning.

IL.

There are two federal constitutional bases for the requirement that a confession be voluntary in order to be admitted into evidence: the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. See Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 120 S.Ct. 2326, 147 L.Ed.2d 405 (2000). The due process or "yoluntariness" test takes into consideration the totality of all the surrounding © cireumstances-both the characteristics of the accused and the details of the interrogation-to determine whether the accused's will was actually overborne by coercive police conduct. Id. at 2881; People v. Valdez, 969 P.2d 208, 211 (Colo.1998). However, because the inherently coercive na *571 ture of custodial police interrogation height ens the risk that an individual will not be accorded his privilege under the Fifth Amendment, the Supreme Court has also laid down concrete constitutional guidelines governing the admissibility of statements given during custodial interrogation. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 486, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

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Bluebook (online)
48 P.3d 568, 2002 WL 1359637, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-mangum-colo-2002.