State v. Mitchell, (SC 18219) (Conn. 6/1/2010)

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STATE OF CONNECTICUT,

v. PHILIP MITCHELL,

(SC 18219).

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued February 9, 2010.

Officially released June 1, 2010.

James M. Ralls, assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Jonathan Benedict, former state's attorney, and Nicholas Bove, senior assistant state's attorney, for the appellant (state).

Charles F. Willson, special public defender, for the appellee (defendant).

Rogers, C. J., and Norcott, Katz, Palmer, Vertefeuille, Zarella and McLachlan, Js.^*

Opinion

VERTEFEUILLE, J.

In this certified appeal,¹ the state appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court reversing the judgment of conviction of the defendant, Philip Mitchell, following a jury trial, of assault in the third degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-61. State v. Mitchell, 108 Conn. App. 388, 390-91, 948 A.2d 335 (2008). On appeal to this court, the state claims that the Appellate Court improperly concluded that the trial court's decision denying the defendant's motion to suppress his prearrest statements constituted reversible error in violation of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966). We conclude that, even if the defendant's statements were improperly admitted into evidence, their admission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The Appellate Court opinion sets forth the following facts, which reasonably could have been found by the jury. "At approximately 4:30 in the morning on August 20, 2004, the victim was driving on Connecticut Avenue in Bridgeport looking to purchase marijuana. She asked two young women for marijuana, and they told her to follow them. The women turned and walked along Fifth Street, and the victim followed and parked her car. The women went across the street and returned with two men, one of whom was the defendant. The defendant told the victim to turn off her car's engine. Once she did so, all four people attacked her by punching her head, hitting her face, pulling her hair and trying to pull her through the car window. The victim screamed, pulled back, honked her car's horn and held onto the steering wheel so that she would not be pulled from the car. The victim testified that the defendant was `right in [her] face' during this attack, told her to `shut the fuck up or I'm going to blow your head off' and acted as though he had a gun. Eventually, the attackers opened the car's passenger door, and the defendant dragged the victim out of her car by the wrists. One of the women took $20 from the victim's pocket while the defendant continued to drag the victim. The victim hooked her foot around a metal fence post and when the defendant let go of her, she stood up. The defendant then kicked her in the stomach and she fell back down. When she got up again, the defendant tried to kick her a second time, but she managed to escape by running away.

"The victim ran back to Connecticut Avenue and, seeing a taxicab, explained to the driver that she had just been robbed and asked him to call the police. She also pointed out her attackers as they were getting into a car. The taxicab driver made a U-turn and followed the car. He also called the police department and reported the license plate number of the car. "State police Trooper Christopher Kick was on duty that morning when he was notified of an assault in Bridgeport and provided with a description of a four door, blue vehicle with the license plate number 254-RPY driving on Interstate 95. Upon seeing the car, Kick followed it until he was joined by two other state police troopers, at which point he stopped the vehicle. All three troopers approached the car with weapons drawn, removed the three occupants from the vehicle, placed them on the ground and handcuffed them.²

"Meanwhile, the victim was met by Officer Barry Jones of the Bridgeport police department. After she told him about the assault and described the four assailants, she was transported to the site where the suspects had been apprehended. As each suspect was brought in front of the cruiser in which the victim was sitting, she positively identified each as one of the assailants. Subsequently, the victim was taken to the police station where she provided a written statement after which she was taken to a hospital to be treated for her injuries." State v. Mitchell, supra, 108 Conn. App. 391-92.

Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion to suppress the prearrest statements that he had made to Kick while waiting for the victim to come to the site and make an identification. The trial court held a hearing on the motion. As the Appellate Court summarized: "On March 30, 2005, at the pretrial hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress, the state called Trooper Kick to testify. Kick testified that he received word in the early morning hours of August 20, 2004, of an assault that had occurred in Bridgeport and that he had received a description of the alleged perpetrator's vehicle as blue, bearing the license plate number 254-RPY and traveling in the direction of Interstate 95. Kick positioned his vehicle on the highway near the Fairfield rest area, and when he observed a vehicle that matched the description, he drove out to prevent it from exiting the highway. When two other state police cruisers arrived, Kick activated his lights and siren and stopped the car, boxing it in with the police cruisers. The troopers approached the vehicle with guns drawn and ordered the defendant and the other suspects to exit the vehicle and to lie on the ground. The troopers then searched the suspects for weapons, placed them in handcuffs and separated them. While awaiting the Bridgeport police for a possible identification, Kick testified that he individually questioned the suspects as to where they were going and what they were doing to confirm whether he had stopped the right vehicle and whether the suspects were the individuals who had been involved in the assault. As Kick moved from suspect to suspect, he ensured that a trooper remained with each individual because `[i]f you leave them in handcuffs, they could run.' Kick testified that he asked the defendant `if anything had happened that possibl[y] [came] to mind this evening on why you would have been stopped.' Kick testified that in response, the defendant `basically came up with nothing. . . . [He] basically replied that he had just taken a ride, he wasn't paying attention, doesn't know where they'd been.' Prior to and during this encounter, the suspects were not informed of their rights pursuant to Miranda.

"After the pretrial hearing, the [trial] court issued a memorandum of decision on March 31, 2005, denying the motion to suppress. The [trial] court concluded that the state had conceded that the defendant was in police custody while being questioned by Kick. The [trial] court found, however, that Kick's questions did not amount to an interrogation, and, therefore, Miranda warnings were unnecessary. Accordingly, the [trial] court found that the defendant's statements were admissible. The [trial] court opined that `Kick's questions, "What is going on?" [and] "Why were you stopped?" ' were asked at the threshold of the encounter and were arguably aimed at determining the nature of the situation confronting the police at that time. There is no suggestion that Kick's queries were probing, accusatory or likely to elicit an incriminatory response. The [trial] court stated: `The fact that Kick asked questions about "what was going on" without the intent of eliciting a confession or inculpatory information, but simply to investigate the situation before him, was not an interrogation.' " Id., 393-95

The defendant's prearrest statements to Kick were admitted into evidence during trial. At the conclusion of the evidence, the trial court charged the jury on, inter alia, consciousness of guilt.³ Id., 399. The jury subsequently found the defendant guilty of assault in the third degree, but not guilty of the other charged offenses, specifically, robbery in the second degree, conspiracy to commit larceny in the second degree, unlawful restraint in the first degree and threatening in the second degree. Id., 392. The trial court rendered a judgment of guilty in accordance with the verdict and imposed a sentence of eight months incarceration.⁴ Id.

The defendant appealed from the trial court's judgment of conviction to the Appellate Court, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court improperly had denied his motion to suppress his prearrest statements. Specifically, the defendant claimed that his statements to Kick were the result of an impermissible custodial interrogation because he had not received Miranda warnings. Id., 393. The defendant additionally asserted that the state could not demonstrate that the admission of the prearrest statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the trial court highlighted the statements to the jury through the consciousness of guilt charge. Id. The state responded that the statements were not the product of custodial interrogation, but that, even if they were, the admission of the statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the statements were not inculpatory and were merely cumulative of the other evidence presented demonstrating his guilt. Id., 395 n.3, 399.

The Appellate Court ultimately concluded "that Kick's questioning of the defendant constituted a custodial interrogation," which therefore triggered the need for Miranda warnings. Id., 399. The Appellate Court reasoned that Kick was not merely "trying to assess the situation at hand; rather, he was attempting to confirm whether he had the right suspects. It is manifest that an officer may not ask a person in custody⁵ questions that the officer knows are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response [without giving Miranda warnings]." Id. The Appellate Court further concluded that the admission of...