Admissibility of defendant’s confession; Custodial interrogation; People v Barritt; Voluntariness; Reinitiated contact by defendant; Waiver of rights; People v Clark; Effect of officers misinforming defendant of the extent of her Fifth Amendment rights; Defendant’s statements about considering abortion & lack of prenatal care during pregnancy; Relevance; Unfair prejudice

Holding that defendant’s confession and statements to police about considering abortion and lack of prenatal care during the pregnancy were admissible, the court in this interlocutory appeal affirmed the trial court’s denial of her motion to suppress. Over two decades after a baby’s remains were discovered at a campground, law enforcement officers used recent DNA technology advances “to identify defendant as the probable mother.” At issue on appeal was the admissibility of her statements to police officers confessing to being the baby’s “mother, disposing of the infant’s body, and of other conduct during the pregnancy.” She contended that her confession should be excluded because it was obtained in violation of her Fifth Amendment rights. The court disagreed, concluding she “was not subject to custodial interrogation, and her eventual statements during the second interview were voluntary.” The record showed that she “was not in custody during her initial encounter with officers at her home,” and she did not “make any inculpatory statements during that” encounter. The court also found that the totality of the circumstances showed that “she was not in custody during the first interview at the police station.” She agreed to go with the officers to the station, was advised of her Miranda rights, the officers honored her invocation of her rights, executed the search warrant for her DNA, and returned her “to her home without defendant saying anything incriminating.” As to the second interview and her confession, “defendant made the decision from her own home to reinitiate contact with the police officers voluntarily.” While the officers subsequently “gave her an erroneously limited explanation of the extent of her Fifth Amendment right to counsel[,]” the court found that this error did not invalidate her waiver because “a reasonable person would have believed that she could refuse to speak to the police and that the officers would honor her request to leave, just as they had done earlier that same day.” As to defendant’s other statements, the court held that they were “relevant and not unfairly prejudicial.”