COURT OF APPEALS
DECISION
DATED AND FILED
September 8, 2010
A.
John Voelker
Acting Clerk of Court of Appeals
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NOTICE
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This opinion is subject to further
editing. If published, the official
version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports.
A party may file with the
Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of
Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10 and Rule 809.62.
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Appeal No.
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STATE OF WISCONSIN
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IN COURT OF
APPEALS
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DISTRICT I
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State of Wisconsin,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
Dominic Lamar Addison,
Defendant-Appellant.
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APPEAL
from a judgment of the circuit court for Milwaukee County: jeffrey
a. wagner, Judge. Affirmed.
Before Curley, P.J., Fine and Brennan, JJ.
¶1 PER CURIAM. Dominic Lamar Addison pled
guilty to first-degree reckless homicide, while using a dangerous weapon, party
to a crime. The sole issue on appeal is
whether the circuit court erred when it denied Addison’s
motion to suppress his statement given to police on February 6, 2004. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
¶2 On June 12, 2003, several gunshots were fired at a car
stopped at a traffic light. The occupant
of the car, Marques Messling, died from wounds suffered in the shooting. Four bullets were removed from Messling’s body—one
.38/.357 caliber bullet and three .38/9mm caliber jacketed bullets. A witness to the shooting told police that he
saw two men with guns run toward Messling’s car and reach into the car. The witness then heard three to four
gunshots. Messling drove off, and the
men continued firing, as they fled the area.
¶3 Police identified Addison as
a suspect in Messling’s killing, and he was arrested shortly after the incident. Police questioned Addison,
and he denied any involvement in the killing.
Addison was eventually released from
police custody.
¶4 On January 22, 2004, Addison
was again questioned by police. At that
time, Addison was being detained in the
Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility on an unrelated matter. Although Addison
continued to deny any involvement in Messling’s murder, he implicated Earnest
Knox, Michael Miller, and others in the crime.
¶5 On January 23, 2004, police interviewed Knox, who told them
that Miller and Addison had fired the shots
that killed Messling. According to Knox,
a friend of Messling had shot at a friend of the gang to which Knox, Miller, and
Addison belonged. When the three men learned of Messling’s
whereabouts, they decided to find him and try to find out who had shot at their
friend. Knox said that when they found
Messling, Miller and Addison got out of the car to talk with him. Knox told police that both men were armed,
Miller with a .380 semi-automatic gun and Addison
with a black revolver. Knox also got out
of the car and followed Miller and Addison
down an alley. When he got to the end of
the alley, he heard gunshots, and he ran back to the car. Miller and Addison also ran back to the car,
and they left the area. As they left,
Miller described Messling’s reaction to being shot.
¶6 On February 3, 2004, police interviewed Miller. Miller’s statement was consistent with
Knox’s, and he confessed to shooting Messling.
Miller told police that Addison was with him during the incident and
that Addison had a gun when he returned to the
car. Miller told police that after the
shooting Addison said, “I got him good. He ain’t going to make it.”
¶7 On February 5, 2004, an arrest warrant and criminal
complaint, charging Addison with first-degree
intentional homicide, while armed, party to a crime, were filed. Because the Milwaukee Secure Detention
Facility would not release Addison to police based on the warrant, police got
an Order to Produce directing Addison’s
release for transport to court for an initial appearance. The Order to Produce was obtained on February
6, 2004, and Addison was released into the custody of a Milwaukee police officer at 9:30 a.m. Addison was
taken to the central booking part of the jail, where he remained until
approximately 1:00 p.m. At that time, Addison was questioned by Detectives Hernandez and Hein,
from 1:20 p.m. until 7:10 p.m. During
that questioning, Addison confessed to
shooting Messling. Addison
was returned to the jail at 8:18 p.m., and returned to the Secure Detention
Facility at approximately 11:14 p.m. Addison did not make his initial appearance on this
charge until February 11, 2004.
¶8 Addison filed a motion to
suppress his statement. After
evidentiary hearings at which Addison and both detectives testified, the
circuit court denied the motion. Addison then pled guilty.
DISCUSSION
¶9 On appeal, Addison argues
that the circuit court should have suppressed his confession because police
“circumvented a court order requiring them to bring him before a magistrate,
and instead interrogated him for almost seven hours for the sole purpose of
extracting a confession to ‘sew up’ the case against him.” For the reasons stated below, we reject Addison’s argument and affirm the judgment of conviction.
¶10 A “sew-up” confession is a confession made during an
unreasonably long detention following an arrest. See Briggs v. State, 76 Wis. 2d 313, 323,
251 N.W.2d 12, 16 (1977). Police may not
detain an accused for an unreasonably long period of time in order to extract a
confession that will “sew up” the case. Id., 76 Wis. 2d
at 324, 251 N.W.2d at 16; see also Phillips v. State, 29 Wis. 2d 521,
534–535, 139 N.W.2d 41, 47 (1966). A
post-arrest detention is permissible, however, as long as there is a reasonable
purpose and the period of detention is not unjustifiably long. See State v. Hunt, 53 Wis. 2d 734, 742, 193 N.W.2d 858, 864
(1972). The determination of whether a
detention was reasonable is made on a case-by-case basis. See State v.
Estrada, 63 Wis. 2d
476, 490, 217 N.W.2d 359, 367 (1974).
This court will not upset the circuit court’s factual findings on the
reasonableness of a detention unless they are clearly erroneous. See State v.
Carter, 33 Wis. 2d
80, 90–91, 146 N.W.2d 466, 472 (1966).
¶11 Addison points to the fact
that he had been questioned about Messling’s killing several times over an
eight-month period and that the State already had enough information upon which
to base a criminal complaint. Addison contends, therefore, that the sole motive behind
the February 6, 2004, interrogation was to obtain a “sew-up” confession. We disagree.
“A confession does not become inadmissible as a ‘sew-up’ confession
merely because the [S]tate, prior to the confession, had information sufficient
to sustain a charge. The question
revolves solely on the point whether the delay was inordinate and the detention
illegal.” Krueger v. State, 53 Wis. 2d 345, 357,
192 N.W.2d 880, 886 (1972). Here, police
questioned Addison from 1:20 p.m. until 7:10
p.m., a period of five hours and fifty minutes. Addison does
not cite to any case in which that period of time has been held to be an
inordinate delay. In fact, the cases
suggest quite the opposite. See, e.g., Hunt, 53 Wis. 2d at 743–744, 193 N.W.2d at 864–865 (fifteen
hours is reasonable); Estrada, 63 Wis. 2d
at 490–491, 217 N.W.2d at 367 (fourteen hours is reasonable); Briggs,
76 Wis. 2d
at 324–325, 251 N.W.2d at 17 (fewer than twenty-four hours is reasonable).
¶12 Further, Addison expressly
“does not take issue with the trial court’s ruling that his confession was
voluntary.” While a “sew-up” argument is
distinct from the voluntariness of a confession and focuses on whether the
defendant was held for an unreasonable length of time, see Hunt, 53 Wis. 2d at 742, 193 N.W.2d at 864, Addison’s
concession is at odds with his suggestion that the overall impact of the
interrogation was coercive.
¶13 Moreover, there is no dispute that when he was interrogated on
February 6, 2004, Addison was in custody on an
unrelated matter. Addison’s
detention was not attributable to this charge and, therefore, it cannot be
considered unreasonable for purposes of a “sew-up” analysis. See McAdoo v. State, 65 Wis. 2d 596, 609, 223 N.W.2d 521, 529 (1974); State
v. Benoit, 83 Wis. 2d
389, 405, 265 N.W.2d 298, 305–306 (1978).
We agree with the circuit court that there was nothing improper in the
detectives choosing to question Addison after
he had been turned over to their custody by virtue of the Order to
Produce. The police were required to
process and book Addison for this charge. The detectives reasonably decided to question
Addison while he was in their custody. Addison does
not argue that the interrogation was improperly coercive solely because it took
place at the Detective Bureau rather than at the Secure Detention
Facility. In short, that the questioning
took place after the issuance of an Order to Produce is inconsequential.
¶14 Because Addison’s confession was not a “sew-up” confession, the
circuit court did not err when it denied Addison’s
motion to suppress the statement.
By the Court.—Judgment affirmed.
This
opinion will not be published. See Wis.
Stat. Rule 809.23(1)(b)5.