Interrogation Tactics Faulted In
Pr. George's County
Woman's Statement Is 4th Suppressed Since June
By Ruben Castaneda Washington Post Staff Writer Monday,
August 22, 2005; B01
Nearly five hours after Prince
George's County police arrested her on suspicion of fatally
shooting her on-again, off-again boyfriend in her Capitol
Heights home last January, Abere Karibi-Ikiriko became
emotional in a small interview room at police headquarters.
She sobbed and screamed as a police video camera recorded
her, according to a description by a defense attorney who
later saw the videotape. She began to collapse and was held
up by a county homicide detective. Karibi-Ikiriko asked the
detective: How could you live if you knew you killed
somebody you loved?
The Prince George's jury that decided Karibi-Ikiriko's fate
this month never saw any of it.
A judge threw out the entire interview because he
determined that Cpl. Bernard Nelson Jr., an 11-year veteran
of the homicide unit, violated a bedrock principle of the
criminal justice system: a suspect's right to an attorney.
It was one of four videotaped statements that circuit or
appellate judges have suppressed since June because they
determined the Prince George's police obtained them
improperly.
And it was the second time in four years that a judge has
tossed out a defendant's statement because Nelson
disregarded a suspect's request for an attorney. During
that time, Nelson also obtained a confession from a
teenager in a murder case that turned out to be false.
After viewing a portion of the videotape in
Karibi-Ikiriko's case, Circuit Court Judge Richard H.
Sothoron Jr. ruled that none of Karibi-Ikiriko's statements
during her 4 1/2 hours in an interview room were admissible
because she'd asked for an attorney four times, which made
the statements involuntary.
Karibi-Ikiriko's attorney Debra A. Saltz, describing the
tape in court, said she counted six requests for an
attorney in five minutes.
According to Saltz, Nelson told Karibi-Ikiriko she could
change her mind and talk to him after the first two times
Karibi-Ikiriko asked for an attorney. Karibi-Ikiriko again
asked for a lawyer, adding, "You understand, right?"
On Aug. 8, the jury acquitted Karibi-Ikiriko, 27, of
first-degree murder, which carries a possible sentence of
life in prison, and convicted her of second-degree murder,
which carries a possible maximum punishment of 30 years.
She is to be sentenced Sept. 9.
In a previous case, in July 2001, Nelson testified in a
court hearing that he ignored repeated requests by
defendant Michael Eugene Shipman to speak to a lawyer,
continuing to question him in the hopes of obtaining a
confession.
A Circuit Court judge ruled that the prosecution could use
the statements Nelson obtained only if Shipman testified at
his trial. He did not testify, and the trial ended in a
hung jury. Shipman later pleaded guilty to the lesser
charge of manslaughter.
Two weeks after he questioned Shipman in early August 2000,
Nelson conducted another interrogation that became
controversial.
On Aug. 24, 2000, Nelson obtained a false murder confession
from a teenager. It was one of three false admissions to
murder The Washington Post documented in a series of
articles in 2001.
Nelson did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.
Barbara Hamm, a police spokeswoman, would not specifically
address Nelson's conduct in the Karibi-Ikiriko case. In a
written response to a series of questions, she said, "The
prosecution determined that Ms. Ikiriko's statement was
sufficiently voluntary and free of Constitutional defects
that it sought to introduce it for admission as evidence.
Corporal Nelson's performance in this case and others is
subject to periodic critique by his supervisor and the
Commander of the Criminal Investigations Division. This
process should identify areas for enhanced training and
continuing education for investigators."
In general, she wrote in the response, "The fact that a
trial court suppressed a witness statement does not in
itself mean that the interrogating detective engaged in
wrongful conduct."
State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said a prosecutor is
available to detectives around the clock if they are unsure
about what they can do legally during an interrogation.
"Overall, I think the detectives are doing a good job,"
Ivey said, noting that 45 of 50 murder or manslaughter
cases this year have ended with a conviction, sometimes on
a lesser charge, or plea bargain.
A 1981 U.S. Supreme Court decision requires law enforcement
officers to stop questioning a suspect the moment he or she
asks for an attorney, several legal experts said. The
concept has become part of popular culture, with television
police dramas often showing scenes in which detectives stop
questioning suspects the moment they "lawyer up."
"This isn't particularly complicated. I think most police
agents know that when someone wants a lawyer, you cease all
interrogation," said Washington lawyer Aitan Goelman, a
former federal prosecutor who now represents white-collar
defendants.
A suspect could change his mind and waive the right to an
attorney, provided there's no prodding by an officer,
Goelman said.
Defense attorneys said they were troubled that a veteran
homicide detective would ignore a basic legal principle.
"I think the leadership of the police department tries to
divorce itself from what is going on in interrogation
rooms," said Joseph M. Niland, the chief public defender in
Prince George's. "If the leadership cracked down on this,
it would be stopped."
After the false murder confessions were documented, Prince
George's police in 2003 began videotaping statements in
homicides and other major cases.
State's attorney's officials have said the videotaping has
helped refute some allegations of police misconduct.
But the videotaping also has verified overly aggressive
interrogation procedures by detectives. In 2003, a Circuit
Court judge threw out the videotaped statement of murder
suspect Richard B. Gater because a detective threatened to
have a police raid conducted on the home of the suspect's
ailing mother.
The same judge threw out a videotaped statement by Gater's
co-defendant because two other detectives continued to
question the alleged accomplice after he had checked "no"
on a form asking whether he agreed to waive his right to
remain silent.
In a third 2003 case, a Circuit Court judge suppressed a
videotaped statement by a carjacking suspect because a
county police detective ignored the suspect's request for
an attorney.
And in June 2003, the Maryland Court of Appeals threw out
guilty verdicts in three Prince George's trials -- a murder
case and two armed robberies -- because county police
detectives violated rules against prolonged interrogations
of suspects.
Nelson isn't the only homicide detective to have a
videotaped statement thrown out in recent weeks.
On Aug. 2, Circuit Court Judge C. Philip Nichols Jr. did
not allow a videotaped statement obtained by homicide
Detective Gregory McDonald to be used.
About 11:45 a.m. Feb. 17, McDonald began interviewing
Robert Lee Humphries III. Less than two hours earlier,
Humphries, then 34, had forced his way into his wife's
apartment in Glenarden and fatally stabbed her despite an
attempt by a private security guard for the apartment
complex to protect her, according to a police charging
document.
Nichols suppressed the defendant's statement because
Humphries told McDonald at the beginning of the interview
that he had consumed 10 beers about an hour before the
attack. A blood sample taken from Humphries that day showed
no alcohol in his system. McDonald testified that Humphries
did not appear to be under the influence.
Humphries's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Denton
Lynch, argued that because of the 10 beers, his client was
incapable of knowingly and willingly waiving his Miranda
rights to remain silent and ask for an attorney.
"It would appear that, at least to me, there's evidence
from a witness for the defendant that he had been drinking,
there is a notation to the waiver [of rights] form that he
had in fact been drinking, and I'm just not prepared to say
that beyond a reasonable doubt his statement, what little
there is, was given voluntarily," Nichols said, explaining
why he suppressed the statement.
Humphries is scheduled to go on trial today.
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