In the Matter of Nathaniel Jamar Abraham, Minor; People v Nathaniel Jamar Abraham, __ Mich App __ (1999), #212099, March 30, 1999
Juvenile Review MenuThe trial court granted defendant's motion to suppress statements defendant made to police, but denied defendant's motion to quash the petition. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's order suppressing defendant's statements, affirmed the trial court's denial of defendant's motion to quash, and remanded for trial.
Defendant, who was 11 years old at the time, allegedly fatally shot one person and attempted to shoot another person. Police questioned defendant two days after the shootings. Defendant's mother was present during the questioning. After initially offering innocent explanations of his participation in the shootings, defendant told police that he had shot the victim who died. The prosecuting attorney designated defendant's case for criminal trial in the Family Division. At the "probable cause hearing," friends of defendant testified that defendant broke into a house, stole a rifle, practiced shooting balloons and streetlights, threatened to shoot gang members, and then boasted about having shot someone. The Family Division bound defendant over for trial on one count of first-degree murder, one count of assault with intent to commit murder, and two counts of felony firearm.
On appeal, the prosecuting attorney argued that the trial court failed to apply the correct legal standard of mental competency for a knowing and intelligent waiver of defendant's Miranda rights, and that the trial court over-emphasized defendant's lack of understanding that he was being questioned in connection with a murder investigation. The Court of Appeals agreed, concluding that, considering the totality of circumstances surrounding the waiver, defendant understood the rights he was waiving "well enough." "While we do not suggest that defendant had an especially sophisticated understanding of what police told him, we emphasize again that such an understanding is not legally required," the Court of Appeals stated.
Defendant's lack of "expressive language skills" and "abstract verbal reasoning and more practical problem solving skills," when compared with others in his age group, did not rise to the level of a mental impairment that rendered him incapable of knowingly waiving his rights. Defendant's actions leading up to the shootings, and his admission during the suppression hearing that he initially misled police during questioning to appear cooperative, indicated that he had sufficient ability to make a knowing waiver of Miranda rights. In addition, the police officers' failure to inform defendant that he was suspected of murder did not alone support the conclusion that the waiver was not "knowing and intelligent." The Court of Appeals emphasized that defendant's mother participated in defendant's waiver of his rights and was present during questioning.
The Court of Appeals also affirmed the magistrate's decision to bind over defendant on all charges. Although testimony showed that defendant shot at inanimate objects prior to his alleged shooting of the dead victim, other evidence sufficiently established his intent to kill to allow defendant to be bound over for trial on the first-degree murder charge. As to the charge of assault with intent to commit murder, the victim testified that he heard a bullet go past his head, and that he then saw defendant fleeing with what appeared to be a rifle in his hand. This testimony, coupled with defendant's alleged statement that he planned on killing someone, were sufficient to establish defendant's intent for purposes of bindover.
Doctoroff, J, concurred in the Court's affirmance of the trial court's bindover decision, but dissented on the issue of defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights. Testimony at the suppression hearing showed that defendant did not understand that he could refuse to talk to police at all, rather than only interrupting the questioning to talk with an attorney. The psychological testing of defendant, which was conducted to determine his competency to stand trial, indicated that defendant had the intellectual capabilities of a six to eight-year-old. According to the dissent, the trial court properly weighed defendant's intellectual capacity in suppressing his statements to polce.
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