Rose v. State

742 S.W.2d 901, 294 Ark. 279, 1988 Ark. LEXIS 10
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJanuary 19, 1988
DocketCR 87-22
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 742 S.W.2d 901 (Rose v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rose v. State, 742 S.W.2d 901, 294 Ark. 279, 1988 Ark. LEXIS 10 (Ark. 1988).

Opinion

John I. Purtle, Justice.

The appellant was charged with capital felony murder pursuant to Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1501(l)(a)(c) (presently codified as Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-101 (Supp. 1987)), and after a jury trial was sentenced to life without parole. For reversal he argues three points: (1) that the trial court erred in refusing to suppress his custodial confession; (2) that the court erred in allowing the testimony of a witness by telephone; and (3) that the court erred in refusing to grant a continuance. Finding prejudicial error in allowing the confession to be introduced into evidence, we reverse the conviction and remand for a new trial.

The facts are not in material dispute. A double murder occurred near Eudora in Chicot County, Arkansas, the bodies of the victims being discovered in the afternoon of December 2, 1985. The only information the police had connecting the appellant to the murders was that over the weekend the appellant and the victims had been seen together. On Saturday, November 30, 1985, about 2 p.m., one of the victims was arrested for DWI and released the car to the appellant. About 1 a.m. on December 1, 1985, appellant, co-defendant Whitaker, and an unidentified subject were seen in the decedent’s car. The vehicle was discovered burned in the late afternoon or evening of December 2,1985, in a gravel pit east of Lake Village, Arkansas.

About 6:00 p.m. on December 2, 1985, Officer Farris was informed that the sheriff wanted appellant and Whitaker brought in for questioning. No warrant had been issued nor had a probable cause hearing been held. The officer contacted the appellant and Whitaker at their house sometime between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. and requested that they go to the Eudora Police Department with him. After arriving at the Eudora Police Department the sheriff notified his deputy to bring the suspects to Lake Village. At Lake Village the appellant was locked up in a holding cell and given his Miranda rights. The appellant testified that at that point he felt he was under arrest and could not leave the jail. The jailer testified he would not have released the appellant from the holding cell if appellant had so requested and that appellant knew he was not free to leave. Sometime after 10:00 p.m. the sheriff arrived at the Lake Village jail where the appellant was still being held in a locked cell.

The sheriff did not remember the exact time he started talking to appellant, but he did remember that no inculpatory statement was given during the first interrogation. At the direction of the sheriff the appellant was returned to the holding cell and ordered to change into prison clothing. The sheriff then questioned Whitaker from 12:20 until 1:15 a.m. on December 3, 1985. After talking to Whitaker, the sheriff again sent for the appellant. The sheriff stated: “I talked to him [appellant] the second time from 2 a.m. until 3 a.m. That is when he told me about his involvement in the case.” The statement given at this time was used as evidence at the trial.

We have held many times that probable cause to arrest without a warrant exists when the facts and circumstances within the collective knowledge of the officers and of which they have reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution to believe that an offense had been committed by the person arrested. Roderick v. State, 288 Ark. 360, 705 S.W.2d 433 (1986); see also Burks v. State, 293 Ark. 374, 738 S.W.2d 399 (1987). At the time the appellant was arrested there was no showing of anything beyond suspicion that he might be involved. Acting on this suspicion, the sheriff simply ordered these two men brought in for questioning. A seizure pursuant to an arrest or any other detention that severely intrudes upon a person’s liberty must either be supported by probable cause or by clear and positive testimony that demonstrates consent. Foster v. State, 285 Ark. 363, 687 S.W.2d 829 (1985). At the time of the custodial statement the circumstances known to the police amounted only to a suspicion that did not rise to the level of probable cause.

Having decided that the appellant was illegally detained, we must now decide whether his inculpatory statements meet the Fifth Amendment voluntariness standard as well as whether they were sufficiently free acts as to purge from them the primary taint of the violation of his interests under the Fourth Amendment. Custodial statements are presumed involuntary and the state bears the burden of demonstrating their admissibility. Harvey v. State, 272 Ark. 19, 611 S.W.2d 762 (1981). The state must prove that the custodial statement was voluntary and had no causal connection with the illegal detention. Roderick v. State, supra.

The appellant argues the statements were inadmissible because they were “fruits of the poisonous tree” as defined in Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963),and its progeny. The United States Supreme Court considered a situation quite similar to the present appeal in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975), where Brown, the accused, was taken into custody for investigative purposes without warrant or probable cause. The officers wanted to question Brown in connection with a murder. They went to his apartment and waited for him to arrive. While waiting they broke into his apartment and searched it and upon his arrival, about 7:45 p.m., he was arrested and told he was suspected of the murder of Roger Corpus. After Brown was taken into custody he accompanied the officers in a search to locate another suspect. They returned to the police station about 12:15 a.m. the following morning, and Brown was again placed in the interrogation room. He was given coffee and left alone, for the most part, until about 2 a.m., when the state’s attorney arrived and again gave him his Miranda rights before commencing an interrogation. Brown subsequently made additional inculpatory statements.

The Illinois Supreme Court acknowledged that Brown had been taken into custody without warrant or probable cause for his arrest and concluded that the arrest was unlawful. However, the Illinois court found the confession given after 2 a.m. was a sufficiently free act on the part of Brown to purge the primary taint of violation of a Fourth Amendment right. The Illinois Supreme Court stated:

We conclude that the giving of the Miranda warnings in the first instance by the police officers and in the second by the assistant State’s Attorney serves to break the causal connection between the illegal arrest and the giving of the statements, and that defendant’s act in making these statements was “sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion.” (Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 at 486).

However, the United States Supreme Court reversed the Illinois court and stated:

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Bluebook (online)
742 S.W.2d 901, 294 Ark. 279, 1988 Ark. LEXIS 10, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rose-v-state-ark-1988.