5th Amendment – Motion to Suppress

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WI Court of Appeals – District II

Case Name: State of Wisconsin v. Brian I. Harris

Case No.: 2014AP1767-CR

Officials: Neubauer, C.J., Reilly, P.J., and Gundrum, J.

Practice Area: 5^th Amendment – Motion to Suppress

Brian Harris appeals from a judgment of conviction for burglary, possession of burglarious tools, criminal damage to property, and criminal trespass, all as a repeater. He contends his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was violated when the circuit court denied his motion to suppress evidence and permitted the State to use at trial incriminating, un-Mirandized comments he made to law enforcement officers while in their custody. Harris made his initial comments while seated in the back of a squad car shortly after officers found him in the dark basement of a vacant townhouse, handcuffed him, and asked him preliminary questions of who he was and why he was there. Harris made another challenged remark in response to a detective inquiring at the Kenosha county jail if Harris would be willing to cooperate with the detective by providing a statement. We conclude the court properly denied Harris’s suppression motion and permitted the State to use his comments at trial because Harris’s initial comments were sufficiently attenuated from the officer’s questioning so as to purge any potential taint from the questioning, and with regard to Harris’s remark at the jail, the detective’s communication to Harris, which prompted the remark, did not constitute “interrogation,” and thus the detective did not err in failing to provide Harris the Miranda1 warnings. We affirm.

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