Court: Motion to Suppress is Denied
Geauga County Court of Common Please Judge David Fuhry found accused Chardon High School shooter T.J. Lane “voluntarily waived his Miranda rights” after being arrested the morning of Feb. 27.
Geauga County Court of Common Please Judge David Fuhry found accused Chardon High School shooter T.J. Lane “voluntarily waived his Miranda rights” after being arrested the morning of Feb. 27.
“He was fully aware of the fact that he was making such a waiver and of the consequences of such a waiver,” Fuhry said in his court ruling. “That awareness continued throughout the entire interrogation. No statements made during the interrogation at the Geauga County Safety Center on Feb. 27, 2012 are suppressed. Motion is denied.”
Lane’s defense attorney Mark DeVan had argued Lane was not effectively Mirandized for his over five and a half hour long interrogation following the shooting that killed three students and injured three others.
DeVan said the initial warning was not “timely renewed” and Lane did not voluntarily waive his Miranda rights.
He also said the method of interrogation used, called the “Reid” method, was a form of manipulation and “subtle coercion” that could be “as devastating as a hammer blow to the head for someone who is mentally ill.”
“This was not a product of free will. This was a product of coercion,” DeVan said during last Thursday’s hearing.
Fuhry said the state had to prove the waiver was, in fact, voluntary and was the product of free and deliberate choice rather than intimidation, coercion or deception.
Prosecutors also had to prove Lane’s waiver was made with full awareness both of the rights abandoned and of the consequences of the decision to abandon those rights.
The court considered five factors in making its decision: the length of time between the giving of the first warnings and subsequent interrogation; whether the warnings and the subsequent interrogation were given in the same or different places; whether the warnings were given and the subsequent interrogation conducted by the same or different officers; the extent to which the subsequent statement differed from any previous statements; and the apparent intellectual and emotional state of the suspect.
Geauga County Assistant Prosecutor Nick Burling, who called four witnesses who were involved in Lane’s interrogation following his arrest, was able to show Lane was “alert and conversant while at the safety center” and appeared “thoughtful and open in his responses to the police,” Fuhry wrote.
“(Lane) was cooperative through-out. He indicated that he wanted to talk,” Fuhry said. “While the defense has claimed that the mental issues that (Lane) may have suffered from impaired his ability to give a voluntary waiver, none of that is evident from the evidence admitted. (Lane) himself admitted that at the time of the interviews, he had no psychological issues.”
Fuhry further concluded Lane’s performance at school was “more than adequate,” he was on track to graduate at the end of his junior year and he generally maintained a B average while taking senior courses.
“The state met its burden of proof,” Fuhry said. “The waiver was the result of (Lane’s) free and deliberate choice. There was no evidence of intimidation, coercion or deception.”
Visit geaugamapleleaf.com to read the full “Order of the Court.”
