State v. Sirvio

579 N.W.2d 478, 1998 Minn. LEXIS 286, 1998 WL 254403
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedMay 21, 1998
DocketC9-97-412
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 579 N.W.2d 478 (State v. Sirvio) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Sirvio, 579 N.W.2d 478, 1998 Minn. LEXIS 286, 1998 WL 254403 (Mich. 1998).

Opinion

OPINION

TOMLJANOVICH, Justice.

Bradly Richard Sirvió appeals his conviction of first-degree premeditated murder and other offenses arising from the death of George Sehlegel on November 2, 1995. Sir-vió, who is serving a term of life in prison, argues that the trial court prejudicially erred in denying his pretrial motion to suppress incriminating statements he made to police on November 3, 1995, after he voluntarily admitted himself to a detoxification center and volunteered to a staff member during the intake process that he may have murdered someone named George and then set the house on fire to cover up what he had done. Concluding that the trial court did not *480 err in denying the motion to suppress, we affirm Sirvio’s conviction:

■ The victim in this case was George Schle-gel, a 55-year-old man who was living in an old house in rural Foley in Benton County. Schlegel was living in the house rent-free in return for watching the place for the owner. Early on November 2,1995, a passerby summoned the local fire department to the burning house. At first the firefighters attempted to douse the blaze, and they searched for occupants in the one small section of the house that was not engulfed in flames. However, the owner arrived on the scene and told them that if Sehlegel’s car was not in front of the house, then no one was inside. Thus, the firefighters abandoned their efforts to search for occupants.

Later that day, at about noon, Sirvió was stopped in Sherburne County driving Schle-gel’s automobile. The state trooper who stopped Sirvió impounded the automobile and arrested him for driving after cancellation. Sirvió, who was 24 years old and homeless, was released in St. Cloud.

At about 1 a.m. on November 3, Sirvió approached a St. Cloud police officer on the street near a downtown bar and asked to be taken to the St. Cloud Detoxification Center. There Sirvió voluntarily “signed himself in.” One of the intake workers, who knew him from his previous stays at the detoxification center, did not believe Sirvió was as intoxicated as he had been on prior occasions.

The intake process includes taking and washing the clothing of the intoxicated person for cleanliness purposes. While Sirvió was emptying his pockets, he happened upon the traffic ticket he had received earlier that day. Sirvió said to one of the employees that “he would be doing alot [sic] of time soon” and began to sob. The worker asked if it was about the traffic ticket, and Sirvió said no, that it was worse. He then asked if it would still be confidential if he said he killed or murdered someone. The employee said she did not know but that calling the police “was something that had to be done.” Sirvió continued by saying that he had met someone named George at Tom’s Bar in St. Cloud, that he had gone to George’s house somewhere between Foley and St. Cloud, and that he had hit George in the head with a hammer numerous times. He also said that he had burned down the house to cover up what he had done and that he had stolen George’s car and money.

Two St. Cloud police officers responded to the call from the detoxification center employee concerning Sirvio’s confession. These officers sat down with Sirvió an open dining area and told him that they had heard he wanted to speak with them. Sirvió said that he did, and he proceeded to tell the officers what he had already told the employees about murdering George and burning his house. One of the officers surreptitiously recorded Sirvio’s confession with a portable tape recorder. The officers then contacted the Benton County sheriff’s office and informed them of Sirvio’s confession. A detective ¡from that office arrived at the detoxification center at around 2:30 a.m. He found Sirvió in a smoking room, where he turned on his tape recorder and read Sirvió his Miranda rights. The detective questioned Sirvió in the smoking room for about one hour. Sirvió told the detective substantially the same story that he had told the St. Cloud police officers, although he added a few details.

Later that day, after Sirvió was arrested and jailed, the detective again informed him of his Miranda rights on a written waiver form, which Sirvió signed. The detective took another recorded statement from Sirvió at that time. A day later, on the afternoon of November 4, Sirvió reviewed and signed a transcribed copy of his first statement to the detective, the one made at the detoxification center.

At the pretrial suppression hearing, Sirvió challenged the admissibility of all of his statements to the police but not his incriminating statements to the workers at the detoxification center. Further, Sirvió did not challenge the admissibility of incriminating statements he made before going to the detoxification center, specifically, statements he made at a bar after being stopped for driving after cancellation and statements he made in telephone calls to his mother and his aunt. Nor, obviously, did Sirvió seek suppression of *481 the evidence that the body found in the burned house was that of Schlegel, the expert testimony that the cause of death was “homicidal violence,” or the evidence that the fire that destroyed the house had been intentionally set.

Sirvio’s first contention, that the interrogation of him at the detoxification center by the St. Cloud police officers was custodial in nature and that therefore the officers should have given him a Miranda warning, is without merit. The test of custody is an objective test that uses the perspective of a reasonable person in the suspect’s position. See Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 442, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3151, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984). The inquiry for the court is whether, under all the circumstances, “there was a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with a formal arrest.” Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 322, 114 S.Ct. 1526, 1529, 128 L.Ed.2d 293 (1994) (per curiam) (internal quotation omitted). The mere fact that the interrogation occurs at a police station does not require a determination that the questioning was custodial in nature. See, e.g., California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 3520, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275 (1983) (per curiam) (holding that a suspect is not in custody simply because the questioning occurred at the police station or because the person questioned was a prime suspect); Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495, 97 S.Ct. 711, 714, 50 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) (per curiam) (holding that Miranda warning was not required when a parolee voluntarily submitted to questioning at a state patrol office even though the questioning by the officer occurred in a room with the door closed). On the other hand, the mere fact that questioning occurs in a suspect’s house does not mean that the questioning is not custodial in nature. Compare Beckwith v. United States, 425 U.S. 341, 345-47, 96 S.Ct. 1612, 1615-17, 48 L.Ed.2d 1 (1976) (holding that a Miranda

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
579 N.W.2d 478, 1998 Minn. LEXIS 286, 1998 WL 254403, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-sirvio-minn-1998.