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State v. Falk6/29/2000
aid was not the truth.
. In his signed statement Richard told the police the following details. During the night of Monday, February 10, Laura's crying woke him. While Shannon remained sleeping, Richard tried to feed Laura a bottle, but she would not eat well. He stated that he "got mad and frustrated" and he "grabbed Laura hard by both of her wrists and picked her up very roughly and started to yell at her." He then tried to burp Laura, holding her against him and hitting her on her back. He stated that he knew he was hitting her too hard. When Laura still would not eat, Richard laid her down to change her diaper, which was difficult because Laura was crying and kicking. He then stated:
I grabbed Laura by both of her legs very hard and pulled on them and picked her up by the legs as Laura continued to cry and kick. I know that I then twisted her legs a bit trying to get Laura to stop fighting me so I could change her diaper.
He then tried to wrap Laura in a blanket to keep her fingers out of her mouth. In doing so Richard stated that he had to "twist and force the arms into the blanket." He then put her back in the crib and went back to bed himself.
. Richard stated that Shannon asked him about a bruise on Laura's leg on Tuesday and he told Shannon that maybe it was from pulling Laura out of the swing, but he "really thought it was from what I did to Laura the night before when I had grabbed the legs and twisted them."
. In his statement Richard also described being awakened by Laura's crying on Wednesday night, February 12. He had just fed her two hours ago so he knew she was not hungry. He said he "grabbed her very hard along the side of the body in the rib area and squeezed her very hard and was telling her to stop crying." He then fed her a little and put her back in the crib.
. At trial Richard testified that the statement he made to Detective Schrank on March 5, 1997, was not true. The false confession was made, he testified, because he felt it was the only way to get his family back together. He said he realized he was covering for someone else, probably Shannon or Russell, but, at the time, he "really didn't think anything was done on purpose," and he thought that he "could probably handle [whatever the authorities decided to do] better than either [Shannon or Russell] could" because they are both very emotional people. Richard testified that at the time he made the confession, he was "under the understanding" he would not go to jail for his confessed actions, but would receive counseling. Richard testified that the week before he confessed he told four people-his father, his aunt and uncle, and his friend Doug Paul-that he planned to confess.
. Richard's explanation at trial for how he made up the details of the confession was that he "knew Laura's condition and what all was wrong with her" and he "made sure to include it all" in his confession. His mother had relayed to him what Chief Deputy Kim Gaffney of the Marquette County Sheriff's Department had told her about how the police thought the injuries had occurred. She had told him, he testified, about the "grabbing of the wrists and holding her only by the wrists and also by the ankles ... and the intentional breaking of the legs." Richard's mother corroborated this.
. Chief Deputy Gaffney testified he did tell Richard's mother how the injuries could have happened based upon the information he received from the doctors at that time, which may have included the possible actions of squeezing the baby's ribs and hitting or twisting the baby's legs. He also testified he told Richard's mother that there were probably two separate incidents and that t
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