STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS. MICHAEL D. WHITE (18-01-0079, GLOUCESTER COUNTY AND STATEWIDE)

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court." Although it is posted on the
internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-4039-18T2
STATE OF NEW JERSEY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
MICHAEL D. WHITE,
Defendant-Respondent.
____________________________
Submitted August 13, 2019 – Decided August 30, 2019
Before Judges Sumners and Moynihan.
On appeal from an interlocutory order of the Superior
Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Gloucester
County, Indictment No. 18-01-0079.
Charles A. Fiore, Gloucester County Prosecutor,
attorney for appellant (Elizabeth Katherine Tornese,
Assistant Prosecutor, on the brief).
Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for
respondent (Ronald Craig Appleby, Assistant Deputy
Public Defender, on the brief).
PER CURIAM
By leave granted, the State appeals from the motion judge's order granting
defendant Michael D. White's motion to suppress two statements he gave to
detectives to which he presented himself after learning he was suspected of
involvement in a shooting in the apartment complex in which he lived; and from
the denial of its subsequent motion for reconsideration. It argues:
POINT I
THE SUPPRESSION ORDER AND DENIAL OF
RECONSIDERATION MUST BE REVERSED AS
THE TOTALITY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES
DEMONSTRATE THAT DEFENDANT KNEW WHY
HE WAS SPEAKING WITH DETECTIVES AND
VOLUNTARILY WAIVED HIS MIRANDA RIGHTS
TWICE.
POINT II
THE TRIAL COURT ERRONEOUSLY APPLIED
THE FIVE-FACTOR TEST SET FORTH IN STATE
V. O'NEILL WHEN THE FACTS DICTATE THE USE
OF THE TRADITIONAL TOTALITY OF THE
CIRCUMSTANCES ANALYSIS.
Unpersuaded by these arguments, we affirm.
When reviewing a judge's ruling on a motion to suppress, we defer to those
factual findings that are supported by sufficient record evidence but disregard
findings that are clearly mistaken. State v. Hubbard, 222 N.J. 249, 262 (2015).
We, however, review the judge's legal conclusions de novo. Id. at 263.
A-4039-18T2
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From the motion judge's supported findings, we glean defendant was
arrested when he reported to the Glassboro police department approximately
twenty-four hours after a complaint-warrant, see Rule 3:2-1; Rule 3:2-3, was
filed on October 28, 2017, by a Glassboro police detective charging defendant
with crimes related to the shooting death of Michael Fleming, including first-
degree murder.1 Police investigation following discovery of the victim on
October 28 revealed the victim's girlfriend, who knew defendant for "at least
seven years" prior to the shooting, identified defendant as the person who shot
and killed Fleming.
There is no evidence defendant was processed on the complaint-warrant
or advised of the charges by the arresting officers. A little more than an hour
after defendant arrived at the police department, the Glassboro detective and a
Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office detective administered Miranda2
warnings and took a statement from defendant. Neither detective advised
1
The complaint-warrant is not part of the appellate record so we do not know
the exact charges set forth therein except as set forth in the motion judge's
opinion.
2
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
A-4039-18T2
3
defendant of the charges against him. That failure necessitates the suppression
of the statement defendant gave to them.
In State v. Vincenty, our Supreme Court restated its holding in State v.
A.G.D., 178 N.J. 56, 68 (2003), that "[t]he government's failure to inform a
suspect that a criminal complaint or arrest warrant has been filed or issued
deprives that person of information indispensable to a knowing and intelligent
waiver of rights." 237 N.J. 122, 125 (2019) (alteration in original) (quoting
A.G.D., 178 N.J. at 68). The detectives who questioned Vincenty advised him:
he had been identified from a video recording, photograph and DNA evidence
as one of the assailants in an armed attempted robbery and attempted murder of
a victim;3 the judge had already charged him after police showed the judge
evidence; the charges included gun charges. Id. at 126-28. Detectives also
showed Vincenty "a list of the charges and explained to him that he had been
charged with attempted homicide, robbery, and conspiracy to commit robbery."
Id. at 128. The Court disagreed with our ruling that the record showed Vincenty
was advised of the charges against him and, instead, determined the failure to
3
Vincenty "acknowledged that he looked like one of the assailants." Vincenty,
237 N.J. at 136.
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advise Vincenty of those charges "deprived [him] of the ability to knowingly
and intelligently waive his right against self-incrimination." Id. at 126.
No doubt mindful of its holding in State v. Nyhammer, 197 N.J. 383, 404
(2009) – that "[t]he issuance of a criminal complaint and arrest warrant by a
judge is an objectively verifiable and distinctive step, a bright line, when the
forces of the state stand arrayed against the individual" – the Court reiterated
the basis for suppression as enunciated in A.G.D.:
This Court held that the defendant's confession should
have been suppressed, A.G.D., 178 N.J. at 69, because
the "government's failure to inform a suspect that a
criminal complaint or arrest warrant has been filed or
issued deprives that person of information
indispensable to a knowing and intelligent waiver of
rights," id. at 68. If suspects are not informed that a
criminal complaint or arrest warrant has been filed
against them, they necessarily lack "critically important
information" and thus "the State cannot sustain its
burden" of proving a suspect has knowingly and
intelligently waived the right against self-
incrimination. Ibid. Because the detectives failed to
inform the defendant that an arrest warrant had been
issued, the defendant in A.G.D. was simply unable to
execute a knowing and intelligent waiver of his right
against self-incrimination. Ibid.
[Vincenty, 237 N.J. at 133-34 (emphasis added).]
The Vincenty Court explicated that charged defendants may waive their
right against self-incrimination, but,
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[a]s that chain of events demonstrates, Vincenty's
ability to knowingly and intelligently decide whether to
waive his right against self-incrimination was
fundamentally altered when he was informed of the
criminal charges filed against him. Rather than inform
Vincenty fully of the charges at the outset, the
detectives told him at various points during the
interrogation that some type of charges were filed
against him. It was not until late in the interrogation --
well after the detectives read Vincenty his rights and
asked him to waive his right against self-incrimination
-- that the detectives detailed the actual charges
Vincenty was facing. At the point when the detectives
asked Vincenty to waive his right against self-
incrimination, they failed to inform him of the specific
criminal charges filed against him. Withholding that
"critically important information" deprived Vincenty of
the ability to knowingly and voluntarily waive the right
against self-incrimination.
[Id. at 135 (emphasis added).]
The Court's holding makes clear, as the motion judge perceived, the failure of
police to advise a defendant of the specific charges set forth in the filed
complaint-warrant leaves the State without ability to prove that the defendant
knowingly and intelligently waived his or her right against self-incrimination.
See ibid.
In State v. Henderson, 397 N.J. Super. 398 (App. Div. 2008), aff'd as
modified, 208 N.J. 208 (2011), police advised a defendant they had an warrant
for his arrest and were taking him to the homicide unit; the defendant responded
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he knew "what it's all about." Id. at 404. We "decline[d] the invitation to hold
that the principles announced in A.G.D. extend to also informing an accused of
the basis for the arrest warrant, particularly . . . when defendant well-understood
why he was arrested." Ibid. The Vincenty Court did not so decline and required
that police advise a defendant of the details of a defendant's particular charges .
See Vincenty, 237 N.J. at 134.
It was not enough, as the State contends, that defendant knew he was a
suspect in Fleming's shooting when he walked into the police department. As
the motion judge found, the State failed to present clear evidence that defendant
knew from the accusations he heard prior to going to the police department that
the victim of the shooting was dead. Even if he did know, police were still
obligated to explicitly advise him of the charges lodged in the complaint-
warrant. Like the "defendant in A.G.D.[,] [defendant] was purposely kept in the
dark by his interlocutors of this indispensable information." Nyhammer, 197
N.J. at 404-05. The State's failure to offer evidence that defendant was fully
informed of those charges leaves it unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
that defendant waived his right against self-incrimination, necessitating
suppression of the statement he gave to the Glassboro and Gloucester County
Prosecutor's Office detectives.
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The motion judge also suppressed the statement defendant gave to a New
Jersey State Police detective which commenced about two-and-one-quarter
hours after the first statement ended. That detective had been called in to
administer a polygraph examination to defendant. After it was determined the
polygraph could not be administered because defendant had self-inflicted cuts
on his arms, defendant and the detective, according to the motion judge,
"continued to talk about the shooting [and] [e]ventually[] [defendant] confessed
that he shot and killed . . . Fleming." Notably, at the start of the second
statement, defendant was re-Mirandized and advised by the Glassboro detective
"of the charges in the compliant[-]warrant, most specifically the murder."
The State argues the motion judge erred by applying the five-factor test
set forth in State v. O'Neill, 193 N.J. 148, 180-81 (2007), instead of the totality-
of-the-circumstances test set forth in Nyhammer, 193 N.J. at 404, in
determining that the "spill over" from defendant's first statement required
suppression of the statement to the State police detective. We are unconvinced.
The Nyhammer Court recounted:
In O'Neill, we applied the totality-of-the-circumstances
approach to the "'question-first, warn-later'
interrogation procedure," in which the police first
question a suspect in custody without the benefit of
Miranda warnings and, after eliciting incriminating
statements, then issue Miranda warnings and resume
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questioning for the purpose of eliciting incriminating
statements admissible at trial. 193 N.J. at 154-55. We
held "that when Miranda warnings are given after a
custodial interrogation has already produced
incriminating statements, the admissibility of post-
warning statements will turn on whether the warnings
functioned effectively in providing the defendant the
ability to exercise his state law privilege against self-
incrimination." Id. at 180-81. In O'Neill, we
specifically eschewed a bright-line rule and instead
followed a traditional multi-prong test requiring a
consideration of all relevant factors. Id. at 181.
[Nyhammer, 197 N.J. at 404 (second emphasis added).]
In O'Neill, the Court held, as a matter of State law,
when Miranda warnings are given after a custodial
interrogation has already produced incriminating
statements, the admissibility of post-warning
statements will turn on whether the warnings
functioned effectively in providing the defendant the
ability to exercise his state law privilege against self-
incrimination. In making that determination, courts
should consider all relevant factors, including: (1) the
extent of questioning and the nature of any admissions
made by defendant before being informed of his
Miranda rights; (2) the proximity in time and place
between the pre- and post-warning questioning; (3)
whether the same law enforcement officers conducted
both the unwarned and warned interrogations; (4)
whether the officers informed defendant that his pre-
warning statements could not be used against him; and
(5) the degree to which the post-warning questioning is
a continuation of the pre-warning questioning. The
factual circumstances in each case will determine the
appropriate weight to be accorded to any factor or
group of factors.
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[O'Neill, 193 N.J. at 181-82.]
The Court recognized Miranda's five required warnings "ensure that an
individual would have a meaningful opportunity to exercise his right against
self-incrimination," and that the burden is on the State "to demonstrate not only
that the individual was informed of his rights, but also that he has knowingly,
voluntarily, and intelligently waived those rights, before any evidence acquired
through the 'interrogation can be used against him.'" Nyhammer, 197 N.J. at
400-01 (quoting Miranda, 384 U.S. at 467). "The essential purpose of Miranda
is to empower a person—subject to custodial interrogation within a police-
dominated atmosphere—with knowledge of his basic constitutional rights so
that he can exercise, according to his free will, the right against self-
incrimination or waive that right and answer questions." Id. at 406.
Similarly, the requirement that a charged defendant be apprised of the
charges in the complaint-warrant – what Judge Arnold described as a sixth
Miranda warning added by our Supreme Court in A.G.D.4 – provides
information, without which accused defendants "cannot knowingly and
intelligently determine whether to waive their right against self-incrimination
4
32 N.J. Practice, Criminal Practice and Procedure, §17.4, at 250-51 (Leonard
N. Arnold) (2018 ed.).
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. . . ." Vincenty, 237 N.J. at 134. Thus, we perceive no reason why the O'Neill
analysis should not be followed here.
We discern no difference between the scenario in O'Neill where police
failed to initially administer Miranda warnings and this case where they failed
to initially advise defendant of his charges. The O'Neill Court determined the
"principle established in . . . A.G.D.—that police officers conducting a custodial
interrogation cannot withhold essential information necessary for the exercise
of the privilege—is equally applicable here" where detectives, prior to
administering Miranda warnings, questioned the defendant and "extract[ed]
damning admissions." O'Neill, 193 N.J. at 179.
The two-step, "question-first, warn-later" interrogation
[utilized by the detectives in O'Neill] is a technique
devised to undermine both the efficacy of Miranda and
our state law privilege. As in . . . A.G.D., we must set
clear standards that will discourage law enforcement
agencies from engaging in conduct that will deny a
defendant subject to a custodial interrogation a true
opportunity to assert his right against self-
incrimination.
[Id. at 180.]
The failure to inform defendant of the charges against him was the type
of "end-run[] around Miranda" decried by the O'Neill Court, O'Neill, 193 N.J.
at 184-85; as such, it is the equivalent of a failure to advise defendant of his
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Miranda rights. Unlike State v. Yohnnson, 204 N.J. 43, 61 (2010), relied upon
by the State, where the investigators had no reason to believe that the arresting
officers did not Mirandize the defendant, the Glassboro detective prepared the
complaint-warrant and, as the motion judge found, the State presented no
evidence that defendant was advised of the charges after he presented at the
police department and before that Glassboro detective first contacted him.
We fully agree with the motion judge's relation of his findings to the five
O'Neill factors. Much like the defendant in O'Neill who "had delivered to the
detectives a motive, opportunity, and personal involvement in a crime that the
detectives were able to exploit in further questioning defendant," id. at 182,
defendant, in his initial statement provided detectives with inculpatory
information, including, as the motion judge found,
knowing the victim, being present in the . . . apartment
complex on the evening of the murder, engaging in
prior drug transactions with the victim, having a prior
dispute with the victim over a motor vehicle [which
dispute also involved the mother of the victim's
girlfriend who identified defendant as the shooter], and
believing that someone from the apartment complex
who knew of his drug distribution habits set him up for
the home[-]invasion robbery which took place in his
apartment and in front of the females and children that
resided with him
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after defendant stopped buying marijuana from a supplier to whom he had been
introduced by the victim.
The judge also found the State Police detective questioned defendant
about two-and-one-half hours after the first statement was taken by the
Glassboro and Prosecutor's Office detectives "under basically the same
circumstances and environment": under arrest in the same police station, in the
same or similar room. Although the judge acknowledged different detectives
conducted the two interviews, the Glassboro detective "introduced the second
session by advising [d]efendant of the charges against him." The judge also
noted the subject matter of both interviews "was identical" save for the
discussion about the polygraph and that the State Police detective was briefed
by the other two detectives "and the briefing would most definitely have
included the statements made by [d]efendant during the first session." The judge
further found there was no evidence defendant was informed that any statement
he made during the first interview could not be used against him; defendant,
therefore, "proceeded with the second interrogation session with the knowledge"
that the inculpatory statements he made during the first session could be used
against him. Lastly, the judge found, notwithstanding the break between the
first and second statements, the second statement "was a continuation of the
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earlier interrogation" with the subject matter, environment and defendant's
custodial status remaining the same.
Under the tenets announced in O'Neill, we see no error in the judge's
determinations.5
Affirmed.
5
Although we determine the O'Neill factors should be used in analyzing the
admissibility of defendant's second statement, we note the motion judge also
concluded that although most of the traditional totality of the circumstances
factors – defendant's personal characteristics and prior experience with the
criminal justice system, police techniques and the length of the statements –
supported a finding of voluntariness, the second statement's inextricable link to
the first mandated suppression of the latter statement.
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