Desk Clerk (Answer): "I don't know."
Individual (Continuing):
"...had trouble getting a cab. Maybe she is a lesbian or something,
I don't know. Maybe I did right, I don't know. I didn't cut her
up. I was looking for a knife. I was going to throw her over the
fence or something. I didn't rape her though. She wanted it. I
gave it to her... Do you need anything there, you're doing a lot of
writing there?"
Desk Clerk (Answer): "No, just writing."
Individual (Continuing):
"Are they going to bring CID over here?"
Desk Clerk (Answer): "Yes, probably."
Individual (Continuing):
"What are they going to do, ship me to Mannheim from here or what?"
Desk Clerk (Answer): "I don't know."
Individual (Continuing):
"You know, killing someone is supposed to make you feel bad but it
doesn't make me feel bad. It only took a few minutes, too. She
tried to fight me off. If I go back to the company, I'll do another
one, SGT Ann Johnson, she's a whore, too. We only got three whores
in the company, but now there's only two left. If I don't get them,
somebody else will."
2. The statement made by this individual was introduced into evidence against
him in the subsequent murder trial.
On appeal, the court upheld the
conviction, holding that the desk clerk had not interrogated the individual.
Instead, there was an "active volunteering, if not compulsion" on the part of
the individual to tell what he had done. If anything, it was the individual
who was questioning the desk clerk and "trying to engage him in conversation."
His statement was, therefore, admissible in evidence, and a sentence of
confinement for life was upheld.
3. This is similar to what happened in U.S. v. Willeford, 5 MJ 634 (AFCMR,
1978). There, security police went to pick up a suspect in order to bring him
to the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) for questioning.
The police
knocked on the door to the accused's room.
The accused opened the door and
blurted out, "I've been expecting you; you've got my wallet; you've got enough
on me." The offender had left his wallet at the scene of the rape. The court
held that the suspect "on his own account, without prompting or interrogation,
made the statement concerning his lost wallet. Such a spontaneous statement,
involving neither an interrogation nor request for any statement... does not
permit, much less require, a preliminary warning under Article 31."
MP1020
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