Perez v. State

A custodial statement is admissible only if voluntary under Maryland common law, due process principles, and Miranda. The State bears the burden of proving voluntariness beyond a reasonable doubt, and the inquiry considers the totality of the circumstances, including the interrogation’s duration and manner, the defendant’s condition and characteristics, and the timing of presentment to a judicial officer.

Maryland Rule 4-212 required that Perez be taken before a district court judicial officer without unnecessary delay and, in any event, within twenty-four hours after arrest. Although Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 10-912 prevents exclusion solely because of a presentment violation, noncompliance remains a factor in deciding whether a confession was voluntary.

Under Williams v. State, a deliberate and unnecessary delay undertaken for the sole purpose of obtaining a confession must receive very heavy weight in the voluntariness analysis. This is not a per se exclusion rule; the ultimate question remains whether the particular statement was voluntary under all the circumstances.

The suppression court made no specific factual findings and gave only a conclusory totality-of-the-circumstances ruling. More importantly, Williams, Hiligh, and Facon had not yet been decided, so the court could not be presumed to have applied Williams’s very-heavy-weight standard. Because Perez preserved the issue and his case remained on direct review, the Williams interpretation applied to his case.

The remand court must conduct a new hearing, resolve factual conflicts, and assess each statement separately. It must determine whether any delay was unnecessary, deliberate, and for the sole purpose of obtaining a confession; if so, it must give that delay very heavy weight while still considering all other circumstances bearing on voluntariness.

The court declined to hold that the heavy-weight standard necessarily applied to Perez’s statements as a matter of law. Evidence that police were following leads, evaluating the possible involvement of others, and investigating whether more than one person committed the crimes could bear on whether all or part of the delay was necessary and whether interrogation was its sole purpose. Those mixed factual determinations belonged initially to the suppression court.

A voluntary waiver of the right to prompt presentment may be valid under Maryland law. Like Miranda waivers, such waivers are relevant to whether a later statement was voluntary, but the court must examine whether the waiver itself was knowing and voluntary in the circumstances in which it was obtained.

Perez executed six Miranda waivers and two forms expressly addressing presentment. The record was unclear about whether he received charging documents or was otherwise advised of his presentment right before the two express waivers. Those facts may affect whether the waivers were voluntary and informed.

The express presentment waivers, signed after Perez had been in custody for nearly twenty-four hours, could waive only violations occurring after the waivers. They could not retroactively bear on the voluntariness of statements Perez had already made before signing them.

Even if a prior prompt-presentment violation contributed to the exclusion of earlier statements, a valid subsequent waiver could mean that a later confession was not automatically tainted. The suppression court therefore had to evaluate the timing, validity, and effect of each waiver and each resulting statement separately.

When a defendant challenges a custodial statement’s voluntariness at trial, the jury must be instructed to decide voluntariness beyond a reasonable doubt and to consider the relevant surrounding circumstances. The standard pattern instruction properly identifies delay in presentment as one such circumstance.

After Williams and Hiligh, however, an instruction must also tell the jury that it should determine whether a delay was unnecessary, deliberate, and designed to obtain a confession. If it finds those conditions, it must give the delay very heavy weight in evaluating voluntariness.

Perez had requested an instruction quoting Rule 4-212, including its twenty-four-hour outer limit. The court did not decide whether the original omission alone was reversible because it was already vacating the convictions. But where, as here, the delay exceeded twenty-four hours, including that benchmark would be advisable.

A twenty-four-hour instruction must not suggest that police automatically possess a twenty-four-hour period in which to interrogate an arrestee. Presentment must occur without unnecessary delay even before twenty-four hours have elapsed, and the delay is only one factor in the overall voluntariness inquiry.

Maryland Rule 5-804(b)(2) permits a homicide victim’s statement concerning the cause or circumstances of an impending death if the declarant believed death was imminent. Identification of the shooter may qualify under this exception.

The victim need not expressly say that she expects to die. Her belief in impending death may be inferred from direct or circumstantial evidence, including the severity of her wounds, her awareness of her condition, statements made in her presence, and conduct indicating that she had abandoned hope of recovery.

The proffer indicated that Mrs. Tharpar had been shot over both eyes and in the neck, suffered severe head trauma, lay near her murdered husband in a pool of blood, was in severe pain, and needed blood cleared from her mouth so she could speak. Yet she remained alert and repeatedly gave a consistent description of a single tall Black male. This evidence could support findings both that she understood the gravity of her condition and that her identification was reliable.

The trial judge asked for additional facts but quickly excluded the testimony without explaining why the proffer was insufficient and without apparently reviewing the written statements of three police witnesses. The appellate court could not determine whether the judge improperly required direct proof that Mrs. Tharpar knew she was dying rather than recognizing that circumstantial proof could suffice.

At retrial, the court should thoroughly consider all direct and circumstantial evidence relevant to the victim’s belief in impending death and clearly explain any ruling. The parties and court should also consider whether the statements may qualify as excited utterances.