People v. Rivas

13 P.3d 315, 2000 Colo. LEXIS 1237, 2000 WL 1568420
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedOctober 23, 2000
DocketNo. 00SA50
StatusPublished
Cited by55 cases

This text of 13 P.3d 315 (People v. Rivas) 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. Rivas, 13 P.3d 315, 2000 Colo. LEXIS 1237, 2000 WL 1568420 (Colo. 2000).

Opinion

Justice COATS

delivered the Opinion of the Court.

The People appealed pursuant to section 16-12-102(2), 6 C.R.S. (2000), and C.A.R. 4.1, challenging the district court's order suppressing certain of the defendant's statements, apparently as the product of custodial interrogation after invocation of his right to counsel. Because the defendant's statements were not made in response to interrogation, the district court's order is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

Following a report of a shooting incident in Greeley on the night of January 21, 1999, the seventeen-year-old defendant was charged as an adult with three counts of aggravated intimidation of a witness or victim,1 four counts of felony menacing,2 and one count of second degree assault.3 He filed a number of pretrial motions, including a motion to suppress statements he made to police officers on the night he was arrested. The testimony of Detectives Schrimpf and Con-nell was the only evidence presented at the suppression hearing relative to this particular motion.

According to the uncontradicted testimony of the detectives, the defendant was arrested shortly after witnesses claimed that he assaulted a man with a bat, pointed a gun at the witnesses, and fired several rounds in their direction. He was taken into custody at the Greeley Police Department. Because he was a juvenile at the time, the defendant's father was contacted and asked to come to the police station. After arriving, the father was read a Spanish translation of the Miranda v. State of Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 LEd.2d 6944 rights, and the defendant was read his Miranda rights in English in his father's presence. Following a private consultation with his father, the defendant told Detective Connell that he wanted to speak with a lawyer because either way, ... he was going to jail. Detective Connell then told the father that the defendant would in fact be going to jail and escorted the father out.

The defendant was rehandcuffed and left in the interviewing room while Detective Connell worked on the attendant bonding paperwork in his office. About ten minutes later, Connell gave the completed paperwork to Detective Schrimpf for the purpose of taking the defendant to jail. However, Schrimpf returned in a moment and notified Connell that the defendant wanted to tell his [318]*318side of the story. Connell testified that he did not initially respond because the defendant's father had already left. However, after another five minutes and several more requests by the defendant, including shouting out to him by name, Connell went to the interview room. When Connell reached the doorway, the defendant asked him what charges were being filed.

The detective responded by reciting the charges, at which point the defendant began talking about the incident and continued for about thirty seconds. The defendant acknowledged that he was present at the confrontation and had a peliet gun, but he claimed that he wasn't shooting at anybody and was just trying to seare people. Detective Connell testified that he then tried to find the defendant's father because he wanted to pursue the defendant's statement with follow-up questions. When it was clear that the father was already gone, the defendant was taken to jail without being questioned.

In its ruling the district court did not make specific findings of fact. It expressly presumed for its holding, however, that there had been an adequate advisement of Miranda rights with the defendant's father present. Although the court indicated that once the defendant had a change of heart, the custodial authority was obligated to remi-randize the defendant in his father's presence or do something to ensure that [his] age and lack of sophistication were considered, it ultimately appeared to rest its holding on a determination that Detective Connell's response to the defendant's inquiry was likely to elicit an incriminating response. Therefore, notwithstanding its finding that the defendant's statements were voluntary, the district court suppressed them because they were tainted by the whole procedure, including the absence of either a lawyer or the defendant's father at the time the statements were made.

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 LEd.2d 405 (2000). The due process test, which is also referred to as the voluntariness test, takes into consideration the totality of all the surrounding cireumstances-both the characteristics of the accused and the details of the interrogation-in determining whether the accused's will was actually overborne by co-ereive police conduct. See id. at 2331; People v. Valdez, 969 P.2d 208, 211 (Colo.1998). This test applies to any out-of-court statement of the accused, whether or not the statement was made during custodial interrogation. See id.

Because the inherently coercive nature of custodial police interrogation heightens 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. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Statements made during custodial police interrogation are admissible only if the person making them has already been properly advised concerning his right to remain silent and his right to have a lawyer, and if he has made a voluntary, knowing, and intelligent waiver of those rights. See id. at 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602. Once the person in custody invokes his right to a lawyer, all questioning must cease until that request is complied with or he is released. See id. at 444-45, 86 S.Ct. 1602; see also People v. Trujillo, 773 P.2d 1086, 1092 (Colo.1989). Furthermore, the police are prohibited from reinitiating contact with the suspect, even to see whether he has changed his mind. See Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 485, 101 S.Ct. 1880, 68 L.Ed.2d 378 (1981); Trujillo, 773 P.2d at 1092.

By statute in Colorado, the Fifth Amendment privilege of juveniles is further protected by requiring the presence of a parent or guardian during custodial interrogation. See § 19-2-511(1), 6 C.R.S. (2000). No statement of a juvenile made as the result of custodial interrogation is admissible unless the juvenile's parent or guardian was present [319]*319for the Miranda advisement and either the parent or counsel was present during the interrogation. See id. It is clear, however, that section 19-2-511(1) mirrors the Miranda safeguards in that it applies only to statements made by someone while in custody and responding to interrogation by law enforcement officials. See People in Interest of J.C., 844 P.2d 1185

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
13 P.3d 315, 2000 Colo. LEXIS 1237, 2000 WL 1568420, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-rivas-colo-2000.