The Denver Gazette

Supreme Court endorses use of illegally obtained evidence

BY MICHAEL KARLIK Colorado Politics

Even though police violated Ari Misha Liggett’s Miranda rights when they interrogated him, an Arapahoe County judge properly allowed prosecutors to use those statements against Liggett if he attempted to introduce evidence of his mental illness, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled recently.

The 5-2 decision implicated the ability of mentally ill people to pursue an insanity defense without giving up other legal rights. In Liggett’s case, the Supreme Court’s majority deemed it acceptable that Liggett had to decide whether to let 12 witnesses testify about his mental state, but at the risk of having jurors hear other testimony involving his damaging responses to law enforcement questions.

“As a constitutional matter, when a defendant presents psychiatric evidence supporting their insanity defense, they can open the door,” wrote Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright, to “evidence rebutting that defense, even if the evidence includes the defendant’s voluntary but non-Miranda-compliant statements.”

Justice Monica M. Márquez disagreed. She believed the majority had strayed far from the U.S. Supreme Court’s directives about the limited use of improperly obtained evidence, and the decision failed to deter police misconduct.

“Liggett’s mental status at the time of the offense went to the essence of his defense; thus, without the ability to present evidence in support of his mental status defense, he essentially had no defense,” Márquez wrote for herself and Justice Melissa Hart.

Liggett killed and dismembered his mother, Beverly Liggett, in 2012. He is currently serving a life sentence.

During his interrogation, an investigator read Liggett’s Miranda warning, which included his right to an attorney and to remain silent. Liggett asked for a public defender, but the investigator told him “no.” Liggett then proceeded to talk for three hours. A psychiatrist, Hal Wortzel, used Liggett’s statements in part to determine Liggett was capable of distinguishing right from wrong at the time of the murder.

The U.S. Supreme Court has developed the “exclusionary rule” for evidence gathered in violation of a defendant’s rights. Such evidence is excluded from trial in an effort to deter unconstitutional policing. At the same time, if a defendant’s statements to interrogators are voluntary, the evidence may be used for impeachment — meaning to cast doubt on the defendant’s credibility.

Liggett’s case reached the state Supreme Court for the first time in 2014. Although the prosecution admitted police had violated his Miranda rights, the court determined Liggett’s statements were voluntary. In response, District Court Judge Michelle Amico barred the prosecution from using Wortzel in its own case, but ruled that if Liggett presented evidence he was insane, prosecutors could call Wortzel to counter that testimony — because his opinion relied on the improperly obtained admissions.

Liggett’s lawyers indicated they were prepared to call 12 witnesses, mostly doctors, to talk about Liggett’s mental illness. Because of Amico’s ruling, they did not. Jurors convicted Liggett of murder.

In evaluating Liggett’s case, the Supreme Court looked to its own prior decision involving another high-profile killing: the 1993 murders of four Chuck E. Cheese employees by Nathan Dunlap. His appeal reached the Supreme Court in 2007, before any of the current members joined. The court held that if a defendant “places his mental capacity at issue,” prosecutors could use evidence that was obtained in violation of Dunlap’s Miranda rights as a rebuttal to mental illness testimony.

Boatright, in the May 15 opinion for Liggett’s appeal, echoed that principle in concluding there was no violation of Liggett’s rights in forcing him to choose to either let jurors hear about his mental illness or else exclude Wortzel’s opinions from the trial.

Márquez argued in her dissent that the majority was doing something the U.S. Supreme Court has not authorized: Allowing improperly obtained evidence to be used not to impeach the defendant, but to bolster the prosecution’s case regardless of whether the defendant testifies.

“Today’s decision disregards the narrow purpose and scope of the impeachment exception established by the Supreme Court,” she wrote. “And it chills defendants like Liggett from presenting their best defense (or any defense at all) through the testimony of others.”

The dissenting justices believed the decision in Dunlap’s appeal was also erroneous. Márquez added that prosecutors will now have license to introduce statements of mentally ill defendants, obtained through misconduct, “by simply funneling those statements through the testimony of a competency evaluator.”

The Supreme Court also addressed Liggett’s other challenge to the testimony of a professional counselor and a nurse who were involved in Liggett’s treatment. Under state law, there is no confidentiality for statements “made by the defendant to a physician or psychologist in the course of an examination or treatment.” Liggett advocated for a literal interpretation of the law, only applying to physicians and psychologists.

But in the majority’s view, statements made to other medical professionals lack confidentiality, too.

“This broad language is not limited to the physician-patient or psychologist-patient privileges alone,” wrote Boatright, while acknowledging the law “does not mention those (other) privileges specifically.”

Because Márquez and Hart would have reversed Liggett’s murder conviction based on the treatment of his insanity evidence, they did not address the confidentiality law.

The case is Liggett v. People.

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2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.denvergazette.com/article/281758453673314

The Gazette, Colorado Springs