Luis Tenezaca
April 26, 2003
Union City, New Jersey
Star-Ledger (NJ.com)
New Jersey, USA
Friday, December 21, 2007
Miranda blunder will force a retrial for murder convict
BY KATE COSCARELLI
Star-Ledger Staff
The New Jersey Supreme Court yesterday overturned the murder conviction of a Hudson County man who wasn't read his rights until officers had interrogated him for 95 minutes.
Calling the right to remain silent one of the most fundamental and venerated constitutional protections, the court said Michael O'Neill deserves a new trial because police used a "question-first, warn-later" approach. O'Neill was not given the so-called Miranda warnings until he had implicated himself in the 2003 shooting death of a cabdriver.
"The detectives exploited defendant's admissions from the initial unwarned questioning, undermining his ability to knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently waive the Miranda rights later given to him," Justice Barry Albin wrote for the unanimous seven-member court.
The ruling is in line with a 3-year-old U.S. Supreme Court finding that banned a two-step questioning technique, but the New Jersey court said state law offers even broader protections.
Criminal-defense lawyers said the ruling is an affirmation of the importance of Miranda rights, which stem from a 1966 ruling by the nation's highest court and are so well-known that they are part of popular culture.
"The principal message is that the giving of Miranda warnings is not a game. It is not a game of 'Gotcha,'" said Assistant Deputy Public Defender Stephen Kirsch, who argued the case. "The purpose of Miranda is that the suspect actually understands his or her rights. You can't try to give them at the most opportune moment when the guy has already cracked."
Prosecutors said they do not expect the ruling to have a major impact because police officers are already trained to give Miranda warnings to suspects once they are in custody.
"It's an unusual situation that occurred here," said Deputy Attorney General Deborah Bartolomey. O'Neill hadn't been a suspect in the killing, she said, and "they didn't think to Mirandize him."
Cabdriver Luis Tenezaca was shot in the head April 26, 2003. Two days later, a pair of Hudson County detectives arrived at the Harrison Police Department, where O'Neill, then 19, was being held on an unrelated outstanding warrant. Police believed he had a gun around the time of the crime.
Initially, the officers questioned him through the bars of a holding cell. They moved him to an office to continue the interrogation after he admitted he was at the Solda Espana bar in Kearny, the bar where the cabdriver had picked up his final fare. During this time they did not read him his rights.
The questioning continued for 95 minutes, during which O'Neill said he had gone to the bar to buy marijuana and then agreed to take part in robbing a cabdriver.
Only then did the officers read O'Neill his rights, according to court papers.
Despite the warning, O'Neill kept talking, saying he caught a cab outside of the bar and when the driver couldn't find a specific location O'Neill jumped out of the car.
Over the course of the next several hours, the detectives kept questioning O'Neill and took two taped statements from him. All told, the questioning lasted over six hours. Eventually, O'Neill confessed.
"Okay, you got me," O'Neill said. "It was an accident and I'll tell you what happened."
He went on to say that during a fight with the cabdriver over payment, O'Neill pulled out a stolen gun and -- with his finger on the trigger -- pointed it at the driver. As he got out of the cab, O'Neill claimed, the driver hit the gas and his finger hit the trigger. The cab crashed into a pole and O'Neill fled.
At his trial, O'Neill claimed he never meant to rob or kill the driver, but prosecutors used his statements to get a conviction. In 2006, a state Appellate Division panel upheld the conviction.
In overturning the ruling, the court said there was no way O'Neill was properly informed that he could remain silent and have an attorney present and that any statement could be used as evidence against him. The questioning was a "classic stationhouse interrogation" that the Miranda rights were designed to address.
O'Neill might have thought that, given what he already said before hearing his rights, it was pointless to keep quiet, the court said.
The court established a five-point test for evaluating what to do if Miranda warnings are given after an interrogation had produced incriminating information. Among the things that must be considered are the extent of questioning and whether the same officers were involved the entire time.
Those standards are meant to encourage "law-enforcement officers to honor scrupulously the rights of defendants and to not make end-runs around Miranda," wrote the court.
As for O'Neill, the ruling sends case back to square one, and he will be due in court for a bail hearing.
Kate Coscarelli can be reached at kcoscarelli@starledger.com or (973) 392-4147.
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newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--sconj-mirandarigh1220dec20,0,6285803.story
Newsday.com
Court rules detectives must give rights before interrogation
By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press Writer
1:33 PM EST, December 20, 2007
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J.
A man convicted of killing a cab driver is to get a new trial after the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that it was improper for police to question him before telling him he had the right to remain silent.
The unanimous court ruled in favor of Michael A. O'Neill in the case that was a test of the "question-first, warn-later" technique some investigators use to tell a suspect of his "Miranda" rights only after he's incriminated himself.
The U.S. Supreme Court has considered a similar case, but has not settled whether the technique is acceptable under the federal constitution.
But the New Jersey court was firm in its stance that the technique is inappropriate according to the state constitution, which offers suspects in crimes additional rights.
"No rule of law is better understood by law enforcement officers than the duty to advise a suspect subject to custodial interrogation of his right to remain silent and his right to the assistance of counsel," Justice Barry T. Albin wrote. "Indeed, the term 'Miranda rights' is now so familiar that it is part of our popular vocabulary and culture."
Two days after Union City cab driver Luis Tenezaca was shot to death, O'Neill was arrested in an unrelated case. Detectives knew he had a gun, though, and started asking him about his whereabouts at the time the cabbie was killed.
After 20 minutes of questioning in a holding cell, the detectives were interested enough in him that they moved him to a commander's office and continued the interrogation for more than an hour more.
During that time, O'Neill said he intended to lure a cab driver to a place where two other people would rob him. Only after he said that did detectives read O'Neill his Miranda rights.
After that, he gave a taped statement in which he repeated much of the same information.
Later, at his trial prosecutors used only statements he made after he was explained his rights. It was enough to convict him of murder.
An appeals panel upheld the conviction.
But the Supreme Court found that after implicating himself once, it would have been difficult for O'Neill to reverse course.
Stephen Kirsch, the assistant deputy public defender who argued the case, said the ruling sends a strong message to investigators in New Jersey.
"Giving warnings is not supposed to be a game where you drop them in," he said.
It's not clear when a new trial might take place, or whether O'Neill might accept a plea deal.
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On the Net:
The ruling: http://tinyurl.com/3cx7wn
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