State v. Castillo

433 P.3d 467, 295 Or. App. 121
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedNovember 28, 2018
DocketA164077
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 433 P.3d 467 (State v. Castillo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Castillo, 433 P.3d 467, 295 Or. App. 121 (Or. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

AOYAGI, J.

*123This is a state's appeal of an order granting defendant's motion to suppress. See ORS 138.045(1)(d). Defendant is charged with 12 counts of first-degree assault, ORS 163.185. Before trial, he moved to suppress evidence of statements that he made during three police interviews, asserting that all of the statements were made involuntarily and that some of the statements were made after he invoked his right to remain silent. The trial court granted in part and denied in part defendant's motion. It concluded that defendant had equivocally invoked his right to remain silent during the third interview and that the police had failed to ask clarifying questions, so it suppressed defendant's statements after the invocation. As to voluntariness, the court concluded that all of defendant's statements before the invocation were voluntary, and it did not rule on the voluntariness of his statements after the invocation because it had already ruled to suppress those statements. The state appeals the order granting defendant's motion to suppress. For the reasons that follow, we reverse and remand.

FACTS

The relevant facts are undisputed. On September 22, G, a three-month old baby, was *470admitted to Rogue Valley Medical Center with serious injuries. G had a subdural hematoma and had eight bone fractures to his skull, arms, shoulders, ribs, and one leg. G also was suffering from anemia, vomiting, fever, and a bulging fontanelle. The next day, G was transported to OHSU Doernbecher Hospital in Portland for additional treatment. He was discharged from that hospital on September 25, but then was readmitted on September 30 because he was having seizures. On October 3, G was again discharged and returned home with his mother.

During the same time period, the police interviewed defendant, G's father, on three occasions. The first two interviews took place at the hospital in Portland on September 24 and 25. The details of those interviews are not relevant to our resolution of this appeal. The third interview took place at the sheriff's office in Medford on September 30. That *124interview began at 12:33 p.m. After defendant heard and waived his Miranda rights, Detective Denney questioned defendant regarding G's life, G's current situation, and what could have caused G's injuries. Along the way, Denney told defendant that, based on her conversations with the doctors and a child abuse specialist, "there's absolutely no way this child was injured accidentally or by a child." Denney also said that "the more the doctors know about how [the brain injury ] was caused, the better they can treat that and so we've got to find that out." Defendant denied any knowledge of how G had been injured,1 and he agreed to take a polygraph examination.

At 1:57 p.m., after a short break, Denney said that they had a few more questions while the polygraph was being set up. Detective Sigler-who had been present during Denney's earlier questioning-then gave a lengthy explanation as to why he felt that defendant's demeanor was inconsistent with his claims that he knew nothing about how G was injured. Sigler stated that he found defendant's description of his weekends alone with five children difficult to believe, given his own experiences alone with two children. Sigler noted defendant's lack of emotion and seeming lack of interest in the details of G's injuries, which was "not normal" in Sigler's view and "tells me some things and tells Detective Denney some things." He also pointed out to defendant that defendant had "never expressed any anger over how this might have happened to [his] child, which is very telling." All of that led Sigler to conclude that defendant was "the reason that [G] has his injuries," and he encouraged defendant to admit if he was lying and had lost his temper. After hearing out Sigler, defendant responded:

"[Defendant]: I'm sorry that-and anybody who knows me will vouch for this, I am very reserved. Am I pissed? Absolutely. Am I sad? Absolutely. I don't know what to do at this point. I'm tired of these interviews. I want to be with my family.
"[Sigler]: Okay.
*125"[Defendant]: And bring in a lie detector test. I don't know. I'm at-I-I want my-I want normalcy. I want my family.
"[Sigler]: Okay. We can do that. We'll do it today."

Defendant continued to deny injuring G. Defendant then took a 12-question polygraph examination, administered by Strickland, three times in a row.

At 5:18 p.m., Strickland told defendant that the polygraph results indicated that he was "clearly and conclusively not telling [Strickland] the truth to the questions about [G]." Upon being urged to tell the truth, defendant again denied injuring G.

At defendant's request, they took a break from 5:52 p.m. until 6:31 p.m. When the interview resumed at 6:31 p.m., defendant began making incriminating statements. Those statements resulted in defendant's arrest around 8:00 p.m.2

*471A grand jury indicted defendant on 12 counts of first-degree assault of G. Before trial, defendant moved to suppress all of his statements from the three police interviews. Defendant argued that he made the statements involuntarily as a result of coercion, particularly related to G's medical treatment. As an alternative or additional basis to suppress some of the statements, defendant argued that he had invoked his right to remain silent at 2:05 p.m. in the third interview when he said, "I'm tired of these interviews. I want to be with my family." He claimed that that statement was either an unequivocal invocation, in which case the officers were required to stop questioning him immediately, or an equivocal invocation, in which case the officers were required to ask clarifying questions, which they did not. The state responded that what defendant said was not an invocation at all. Alternatively, the state argued that, if it was an invocation, it was equivocal, and that defendant's *126immediate next statement clarified his intent and obviated the need for the officers to ask clarifying questions.

The trial court granted in part and denied in part defendant's motion to suppress. It addressed the invocation issue first. The court rejected defendant's argument that the statement at issue ("I'm tired of these interviews. I want to be with my family.") was an unequivocal invocation of his right to remain silent, ruling that "that's not an unequivocal invocation." The court concluded that the statement was, however, an equivocal invocation. As for whether the officers needed to ask clarifying questions, the court concluded that they did, notwithstanding that defendant had reinitiated the conversation by requesting to take the polygraph:

"[PROSECUTOR]: State v. Holcomb

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
433 P.3d 467, 295 Or. App. 121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-castillo-orctapp-2018.