State v. Marquis

175 N.H. 730

301 A.3d 812

STATE of New Hampshire v. Caleb Douglas MARQUIS

No. 2021-0394

Supreme Court of New Hampshire.

Argued: September 20, 2022

Opinion Issued: May 4, 2023

John M. Formella, attorney general, and Anthony J. Galdieri, solicitor general ( Elizabeth C. Woodcock, senior assistant attorney general, on the brief and orally), for the State.

Stephanie Hausman, deputy chief appellate defender, of Concord, on the brief and orally, for the defendant.

HANTZ MARCONI, J.

The State brings this appeal pursuant to RSA 606:10, II(a), arguing that the Superior Court ( Colburn, J.) erred in suppressing statements made by the defendant, Caleb Douglas Marquis. See RSA 606:10, II(a) (2001). The trial court ruled that the defendant was subject to custodial interrogation at the time he gave the statements, and, because he was not given the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), those statements were obtained in violation of his right against self-incrimination.

We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

I.

The trial court found, or the record supports, the following facts. In September 2020, Nashua emergency services responded to a call about an unconscious 16-month-old child who was hurt in the shower while under the defendant's care. The toddler was the defendant's girlfriend's child. Several uniformed officers arrived to secure the apartment "as a scene" and asked the defendant if he would go to the station for an interview. The defendant asked if he was under arrest, and, after an officer told him that he was not, he agreed to an interview. The defendant asked for a ride, and an officer drove him to the Nashua police station in the back of a cruiser. He entered the station's lobby, signed in as a visitor, and was issued a visitor's badge. Officers escorted the defendant to and from the interview room on the second floor of the station.

Two detectives questioned the defendant inside the interview room. The interview was recorded. The trial court, having viewed the recording, described the room as "a 10-foot-by-12-foot room with a square table pressed up against one wall and three chairs around the table. The room has no windows and a single door. ... [It] is not large enough to allow a person to exit it while the chairs are occupied." The defendant sat in the chair farthest from the door, with the two detectives between him and the door. The detectives wore "professional clothing," were not armed, and did not display badges. There were three interviews in this setting. The first two were held on the evening of September 15, shortly after the incident, and the third was held on the afternoon of September 16. The detectives did not give the defendant Miranda warnings before any of the interviews.

The first interview began with Detective Durden asking the defendant, "You know you're here voluntarily, right? You're signed in as a visitor?" The defendant answered, "Yeah." Durden told the defendant he was free to leave or to stop talking, and began questioning him. The defendant described showering the child, briefly leaving the bathroom to check on the dog, and returning to find the child unconscious. The trial court found that the detectives’ tone was "cordial" and "calming" throughout. During a break, the defendant asked if he could use his cell phone, but Durden asked him to "hold off on that." The defendant kept his cell phone and can be seen in the video using it anyway. In all, the first interview lasted about 75 minutes.

The defendant remained in the interview room, and the second interview, also recorded, began about 15 minutes later. The detectives again assured the defendant that he was a visitor and was free to "stop talking." They informed the defendant that the child had suffered first- and second-degree burns and was being transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital. The detectives compared the defendant's story to reports from the hospital and began to ask about inconsistencies, though the trial court found that "the conversation remained cordial." The second interview lasted about 17 minutes.

The next day, Durden called the defendant and asked if he would come in for a third interview. The defendant agreed and got a ride to the station from a friend. He again signed in as a visitor and was escorted to the interview room where the interview was again recorded. Durden reminded the defendant that he was there voluntarily and was free to leave, and the defendant responded that he understood. Durden continued, "If at any point in time you feel uncomfortable and don't want to talk to me, you need more water, you need to go to the bathroom or anything like that just let me know and we'll be more than happy to accommodate that, ok?" The defendant answered affirmatively, and the interview began.

Durden began by telling the defendant, "[W]e have more questions. Obviously we're putting a case together." He explained that he had received a report from the hospital and believed "there's more to the story" than what the defendant had told him the day before. In response, the defendant volunteered that he had learned from his girlfriend that the doctors had found "a significant amount of THC ... in the baby's system." He admitted that he smoked marijuana with his girlfriend the day of the incident and that they sometimes smoked around the children. But he expressed disbelief that marijuana had caused the child to pass out. Instead, he theorized that flushing the toilet caused the shower to overheat, causing the child to pass out. The detectives shifted the conversation back to marijuana:

[Durden]: [The doctors] know for a fact there was a high level of THC in his blood. Ok? It didn't just get there from walking in a room where you smoked earlier in the day. That's, that's not how it works.

[Defendant]: Right. So, like he must have got in weed then. ...

[Durden]: Well, here's my issue with that. He didn't ingest the weed because he had petechiae, which is the, like, blood vessels across all red right here, and that's from coughing, excessive coughing. He had large amounts of that around his chest and his neck and they said that's from him coughing.

[Defendant]: Ok.

[Durden]: So your story's not adding up right now. So that's why we're having this conversation, because there's a lot of unanswered questions and I have a theory what I think, and I'm fairly certain I know what happened and your story is not jiving with that, so it looks like you're trying to be deceitful ....

The defendant denied giving the child marijuana and said that he felt like he was being looked at like a "baby killer" and a "monster." Durden told him:

[W]e don't think you're a monster. ... [B]ut the fact of the matter is, we have facts that the doctor's giving us, stuff that we can't deny, that's facts, that certain things lead to this. And your story of what happened is not, it doesn't, 1 and 1 is not equaling 2 right there. ... [I]n Colorado there's kids that take THC all the time to get them to calm down. Is it something like that? Did you do that because that would explain it and then I could be like alright. He did that to get the kid to calm down and obviously it went a little too carried away, and then it shows that you're not lying. You're not being deceitful. ... Or, if that's not the case, then, we've got a lot more digging to do .... [I]t looks like it could be a neglect case, like that you purposely tried hurting the kid.

The defendant denied intentionally getting the child high, but admitted that he had smoked a joint while bathing the child. Durden explained that second-hand smoke in a small bathroom could cause a child to become intoxicated, and the defendant agreed it was possible. Detective Miller then spoke for the first time:

[Miller]: Be honest about what happened. That's where you're at right now. ‘Cause we know that, like detective Durden was saying, the best specialists in the world ... tell us that your story that you said yesterday is not accurate, ok?

[Defendant]: [Begins to speak] [Miller]: Hold on. Hear me out. It's not accurate. 98% of the people that we see in this room are good quality people trying to do the right thing. ... 2% that we see in this very room are monsters. Absolute trash, terrible, terrible people. ... You don't look like a 2%. But when we have the, the most world renowned doctors in the world saying he's, he's, he's lying to you. He's not, he's not being truthful, right? That, that makes you look like that 2%, which is terrible. ... We know what you said yesterday and what you're saying here today is not accurate.

For the next few minutes, the detectives pressed the defendant to "[j]ust tell the truth," and insisted his story was "not adding up."

As the conversation continued, the defendant described teaching the child to get used to showering. He explained that he kept the child in the shower despite the child attempting to get out, but denied forcing the child under scalding water.

[Defendant]: I wouldn't be like alright, dude, stay in the red.

[Miller]: Caleb, Caleb. We know that that's what happened. Ok. We know it wasn't a quick flush [of] the toilet and that's what happened. I'm not saying you looked at him and said ha ha, look at this kid, he's burning and I'm gonna prove him a lesson. I'm saying that I think that it got a little bit far .... You're trying to show, just give him tough love and show water's ok.

....

[Miller]: And then after the fact, I think you realized, oh s**t. It went a little too far. ... I was trying to teach him a lesson and boy did I mess up. Right? That's the truth that happened here. He knows it. I know it. All the doctors that looked at the young kid yesterday know it.

After a few more minutes, Durden said the following:

[Durden]: So you're 28 years old. At what point do you stop lying to yourself? Because ... you told me two different stories just today alone on certain

...