State v. Jarnagin

Statements from an interrogation administered without a Miranda warning that provide the basis for a voluntary reenactment sufficiently taint the reenactment such that it is unconstitutional. Additionally, notifying the defendant of his Miranda rights after initial interrogations will not be held as an invalid reading of rights if there was a substantial break in time and change of circumstances from previous interrogations.

State appeals and Defendant cross-appeals from a pretrial order in a murder case suppressing evidence. Defendant was watching his girlfriend's 8 month old daughter when she appeared to be having a seizure; she was taken to the hospital and found to have severe injuries. Detectives asked Defendant to come to the police station to explain the sequence of events of the day and recorded the interview, assuring Defendant he was not under arrest; no Miranda rights were read. The next day, the police recorded a reenactment of the events as Defendant described them. Later that day, before being polygraphed, Defendant signed a consent form that contained his Miranda rights. The polygraph results showed that he had lied about not intentionally hurting the infant, to which he then admitted. The Supreme Court found that the statements taken at the police station were unconstitutional and that, because the reenactment was based exclusively on information from those statements, it was inadmissible. The pre-polygraph statements were valid because of the consent form, and there was nothing to interrupt the validity of the consent form's Miranda rights to warrant excluding the post-polygraph statements. Affirmed in part and reversed in part.