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State v. Johnson3/16/1999
James W. Johnson appeals the circuit court's judgment convicting him of statutory sodomy in the sexual assault of his six-year-old stepdaughter. He contends that the circuit court erred in overruling his motion to suppress his statements to police in which he admitted the crime. He gave the statements both before and after police informed him of his basic constitutional rights. We affirm the circuit court's judgment.
In July 1996, Johnson's six-year-old stepdaughter confided to her mother that Johnson had made her sodomize him. A St. Joseph police officer interviewed the child who told her that Johnson "had peed in her mouth and then made her take a drink afterwards." Johnson denied the accusations and agreed to take a polygraph test.
On September 4, 1996, Johnson went to police headquarters to take the polygraph examination. Harlan Wood, a police detective who performed polygraph examinations, led Johnson through security doors to the testing room. Wood was dressed in plain clothes and did not display a badge or a weapon. Wood testified that Johnson was not under arrest and was free to leave or to refuse to continue the examination at any time.
Before beginning the examination, Wood talked with Johnson about the allegations, a customary step in a polygraph examination. During this pretest conversation, Wood told Johnson that, after reviewing the police reports, he believed that Johnson was guilty. Johnson asked, "How do you know?" Wood explained and, when Johnson was about to respond, Wood leaned forward, placed has hands on top of Johnson's hands, and told Johnson that "it wasn't a big deal, that he didn't force her, he didn't threaten her, that you could tell by reading the report that it was consensual between the two of them."
Johnson admitted to Wood that, when he had unzipped his pants, the victim had gone "right down to his penis as she had known what to do." At that point, Wood advised Johnson of his basic constitutional rights and asked no further questions. Johnson waived those rights, orally and in writing, and agreed to give a signed, written statement detailing the incident.
Wood did not place Johnson under arrest at that time but asked Johnson whether he would talk to another detective . Johnson agreed and accompanied Wood to another part of police headquarters where Johnson waited in an interview room for the other detective. Wood went to his desk to prepare documents. When the other police detective entered the interview room, he arrested Johnson.
In reviewing a circuit court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence of a defendant's statements, we will affirm the decision if it is supported by substantial and competent evidence. State v. Owsley, 959 S.W.2d 789, 794 (Mo. banc 1997), cert. denied, ___U.S.___ (1998); State v. Kelley, 953 S.W.2d 73, 87 (Mo. App. 1997), cert. denied, ___U.S.___ (1998). When a defendant raises the issue that his statement resulted from police coercion or was made without the benefit of warnings concerning his constitutional rights, the state must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the statement was voluntary. State v. Feltrop, 803 S.W.2d 1, 12 (Mo. banc), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1262 (1991). The test for the "voluntariness" of a statement is whether, under the circumstances, officers deprived a defendant of the choice of admitting, denying, or refusing to answer. Id. This includes whether officers used physical or psychological coercion to such a degree that they overcame a defendant's will. Id. We view the evidence in a light most favorable to the circuit court's decision, and we defer to the circuit court's judgment concerning conflicts in the evidence and the credibility
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