State v. Wolfgang

379 P.3d 759, 278 Or. App. 781, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 724
CourtYamhill County Circuit Court, Oregon
DecidedJune 15, 2016
DocketCR120205; A156467
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 379 P.3d 759 (State v. Wolfgang) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Yamhill County Circuit Court, Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Wolfgang, 379 P.3d 759, 278 Or. App. 781, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 724 (Or. Super. Ct. 2016).

Opinion

GARRETT, J.

Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for murder, ORS 163.115, and first-degree assault, ORS 163.185.1 On appeal, defendant assigns error to (1) the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress statements to police that defendant asserts were involuntary and violated his constitutional rights against compelled self-incrimination, and (2) the court’s imposition of a partially consecutive sentence on the assault conviction. We conclude that the trial court did not err in either respect and, accordingly, affirm.

Defendant was employed as a caretaker on the victim’s property and lived on the premises in one of the outbuildings. In April 2012, deputies conducted a welfare check on the victim that included a search of his property. During the search, Deputy Schwartz found the victim dead on the floor of the barn. The deputies arrested defendant, advised him of his Miranda rights, and placed him in a patrol vehicle. Once inside the vehicle, defendant informed deputies that he has a hypoglycemia problem and sometimes passes out as a result. The deputies gave him some peanuts and water and transported him to the sheriffs office.

At the office, the detectives gave defendant food and water, advised him again of his Miranda rights, and began questioning him after defendant confirmed that he understood those rights. Among the things that defendant said was that he had seen the victim leave with three men in suits and that he heard one guy ask, “Where’s our money?” Defendant also said that the victim was “wanted by his Jewish family” and “owes the Federal Government over a hundred grand.” When the detectives explained that they needed to eliminate defendant from consideration in the investigation, defendant replied, “You’re not shooting me?”

The interrogation continued until approximately 3:30 a.m., at which time the detectives told defendant that he was free to leave but “welcome to stay here for the next couple of hours or so.” Defendant responded that it would be [783]*783a long walk back to where he lived. The detectives explained to defendant that he could not return to the victim’s property, but he could stay in the interview room to get some sleep. They also explained that the door to the interview room would be locked due to the secure nature of the station, but they would be able to hear him if he needed anything.

The detectives left defendant alone until approximately 8:30 a.m., when they told him that “some things changed” and that he was no longer free to leave. They advised him again of his Miranda rights, defendant again acknowledged that he understood those rights, and the interrogation resumed. One of the detectives then stated:

“Well, I want you to try and rebuild that with me by kind of telling me what’s happening. Okay. We’re here now. Nothing’s going to happen to you, okay. Nothing’s going to happen to you at all. So what we need to do now is going to build this rapport back up, okay. And part of doing that is you explaining not this silliness, not his ridiculousness about this far-fetched—these guys in these uniforms and whatnot, actually what happened that day, the argument, the yelling, all of it. The out of control, the—everything that happened at that point.”

(Emphasis added.) As the interrogation continued, detectives also made statements asserting that defendant was withholding information, that the police knew that he was responsible for the victim’s death, and that defendant’s story was just “not jiving.”

Defendant confessed to killing the victim inside his home by striking him repeatedly in the head with a piece of wood, then relocating the victim’s body to the barn. Following the confession, defendant agreed to do a video-recorded walk-through of the victim’s property. Defendant then walked detectives around the crime scene and explained how he had killed the victim and moved the body.

Before trial, defendant moved to suppress his statements to police during the interrogation and subsequent walk-through on the grounds that they were involuntary and obtained in violation of his rights against compelled self-incrimination under Article I, section 12, of the Oregon [784]*784Constitution and the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, defendant’s written motion argued:

“The officers were awar[e] prior to taking him into custody that he had a hypoglycemia problem, because he told them that, and they found him passed out. They knew he was vulnerable.
“Here, there was not only a coercive atmosphere, but the interrogation was such that [defendant’s] capacity for self-determination was critically impaired, and even further damaged by the interrogation techniques used. [Defendant] was told that he was withholding information, that the police knew that he was responsible, that ‘it just did not add up’ and that he needed to come clean (referred to as minimization), and interrogating [defendant] when he was traumatized and tired and sick.”

According to defendant, those were “all classic interrogation techniques used by the police in obtaining false confessions.”

At a hearing on the motion, defendant reiterated that, during the interrogation, his “capacity was impaired in two ways”—first, by being “under a great deal of stress and fear,” and second, a “physical incapacity due to his physical condition.” He asserted that, as a result, his statements to police were “unreliable” and “involuntary” because of his “physical, emotional and mental impairment.”

The trial court denied defendant’s motion:

“[T]he chain of events that’s most central to the Court’s ruling are those interactions with the police starting with the point where he was advised of his rights well before he needed to be and repeatedly so.
“He repeatedly acknowledged that he understood those rights. He repeatedly chose to proceed with questions. There was no show of force. There was nothing on the conduct of the law enforcement agencies that would tend to override his ability to freely and voluntarily respond to those questions.
“Some of the factors cited by [defense counsel] * * * may have been present in some degree but not to the point that it would again interfere with the—his ability to understand where he was, what he was doing, what his rights were and [785]*785to freely and voluntarily respond to questions. He was even at times eager to respond to questions.
“So I conclude that the statements were all preceded by advice of rights that were delivered in an understandable way, that the Defendant expressed that he understood those, and that he was willing to answer questions further.
“There’s nothing about the conduct of the police or the circumstances that would suggest that those statements, whether they were true or false, whether any of the statements were not anything but voluntarily made to the police.”

On appeal, in assigning error to the trial court’s ruling, defendant continues to argue that his statements to detectives during the interrogation and walk-through of the property were involuntary.

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Related

State v. Fleming
343 Or. App. 465 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2025)
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342 Or. App. 813 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2025)
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Morris v. Kanne
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
379 P.3d 759, 278 Or. App. 781, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 724, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-wolfgang-orccyamhill-2016.