Chapter 463

“We are shocked,” Samantha said as she stood up. “That opposing counsel would even consider the fact that a duly appointed member of law enforcement, highly trained and in a position of trust in their community, would fail to perform even their most basic of duties when speaking with a member of the public. Based on the testimonies of both Officer Sanchez and Mr Greg Tribonello, there was no arrest made and therefore Mr Tribonello’s discussion with Officer Sanchez required no declaration of Miranda Rights. If opposing counsel is contending that Officer Sanchez had placed Mr Tribonello under arrest, then we would very much like to hear this from the Officer or Mr Tribonello themselves.”

So it was the Miranda Rights case, and Gemma had been right.

For having an hour to formulate their attack, you had kind of been expecting more. During your ‘from the opponent’s point of view’ reviews over the weekend you’d come up with a couple more reasons they could have used - namely that Greg Tribonello had made a voluntary admission of guilt. Officer Sanchez hadn’t been asking him for a confession.

The problem was that Officer Sanchez might have said he was only detaining Tribonello, but that wasn’t quite the case.

“Rebuttal?” Judge Mathews asked, looking over at your table, and you stood up.

“Your Honour,” you said. “I believe that my friends have become somewhat zealous in their Defence and have forgotten to manage their expectations in terms of how the rule of law is applied outside of this courtroom. Officer Sanchez’s actions on the day in question very much reached the level of an arrest and therefore required the reading of Miranda Rights prior to any further questioning. Even though the word ‘arrest’ was never used, Officer Sanchez refused to allow Mr Tribonello his freedom of movement for an extended period without engagement, including ordering him to remain near the bumper of his police cruiser and then placing him inside the cruiser despite repeated requests by Mr Tribonello to leave. Two hours after arresting Mr Tribonello, Officer Sanchez then began an express line of questioning while Mr Tribonello was still in the back of the police cruiser, beginning a custodial interrogation by any reasonable reading of the definition. At this point, Mr Tribonello had been arrested, intimidated, and denied his rights. This may be civil and not criminal court, Your Honour, but we believe it is absolutely clear that anything Mr Tribonello said during the subsequent interrogation by Officer Sanchez is tainted beyond belief and should be suppressed.”

Judge Mathews was nodding along with your reasoning, then looked back to Samantha at the defence table. “Anything else to say, counsel?”

Samantha stood again. “Officer Sanchez placed Mr Tribonello in the police cruiser to get him out of the sun, not because he was under arrest. And the discussion Officer Sanchez engaged in had nothing to do with the admission of being at fault for the accident.”

“Not good enough, Miss Van Der Groot,” Judge Mathews said. “Not ‘meaning’ to kidnap someone doesn’t make it any less of a kidnapping when you grab them off the street, throw them in your trunk and drive away. I’m granting the suppression of Mr Tribonello’s testimony and the alleged admission of guilt due to it being taken during a custodial interrogation lacking Miranda warnings. Officer Sanchez is not barred from testimony, but if you try and bring in the testimony I will not be happy.”