| Venue: | WI SC |
| Facts: | Shaken baby dies. Ward is isolated and interrogated a few times. She asks for her husband. A lawyer is waiting outside the door. Incriminating statements ensue. |
| Posture: | Motion to suppress the statements denied. Convicted. Affirmed on appeal. |
| Issue: | Were the statements voluntary? |
| Holding: | Yes, there was no need to suppress them. Affirmed. |
| Rule: | If you knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waive your 5A rights to silence and counsel, and there's nothing in the police conduct or your personal characteristics that would make your statements coerced, they stay in. |
| Reasoning: | Totality of the circumstances: length of questioning, conditions or
circumstances underwhich the statements were taken, the degree
of psychological or physical pressure, inducements, threats,
etc. Also the age, intelligence and experience of the suspect.
Ward was an adult, HS grad, child of a police officer. The police isolated her, and misrepresented some thngs to her, but the tone of the interview was not coercive. Only the defendant can exercise his constitutional rights: your family or attorney can't do it for you. Facts you're not aware of can't influence your decisions. There was this short (1hr 40min) when she was held in a constitutionally impermissible status, but she didn't make any statements during that. There's no right to speak to your husband in the constitution-- just a right to counsel. |
| Dicta: | Crooks, dissenting: we should be very concerned about the reliability of these statements, given that there's reason to doubt the cause of death. Holding her incommunicado and repeatedly questioning her might well have made the statements involuntary. The point of a trial is the search for truth. |