Murder suspect wants to suppress statements
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By Brent Curtis Staff Writer - Published: July 13, 2009
A West Rutland woman accused of killing her husband last year is seeking to suppress statements she made to police on the grounds that they violated her Miranda rights.
In a motion scheduled for a three-day court hearing next month, an attorney for Wendy Pelkey-Grant, 43, argues that her rights were violated in multiple interviews with state police on April 19 and 20, 2008, the night of and the day following the shooting death of 36-year-old Sean Grant.
Pelkey-Grant remains behind bars awaiting trial for the shooting that police say amounted to murder, even though Pelkey-Grant has contended that she fired the three rounds that killed her husband to defend her children from Grant who she said was drunk and violent at the time.
Police have pointed to discrepancies in witness accounts about the circumstances that led to Pelkey-Grant picking up the .357-caliber handgun used in the shooting and detectives have said forensic evidence in the case is also at odds with witness statements.
Some of those statements came from Pelkey-Grant herself.
In a six-page filing and four-page supplement, defense attorney Matthew Harnett argues that police obtained at least some of the information they're basing their case on by interrogating Pelkey-Grant before reading her her Miranda rights and by continuing their interrogations after she had invoked her right to remain silent.
Harnett argued that interviews conducted at Pelkey-Grant's Smith Street home should have required Miranda warnings because, even though police hadn't formally placed her in their custody, she was under police control.
When police first arrived, they placed her in handcuffs — which were later removed. But even after the cuffs were removed, she wasn't free to leave, Harnett argued.
"(Pelkey-Grant) was guarded by a law enforcement officer at all times and was not released from the restraints until shortly before being interrogated by the two detectives. The VSP controlled her movements as well as the scene …. A reasonable person in her circumstances would not have felt free to leave or to decline to answer police questioning," he said.
The circumstances at the house are important, Harnett said, because previous court decisions have established that Miranda readings are required when "custodial interrogations" take place — as defined by questioning initiated by police after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of freedom of action in any significant way.
Statements taken later at the state police barracks should be suppressed as well, Harnett argued, because Pelkey-Grant invoked her right to remain silent.
But that right was disregarded, he said, by investigators who asked Pelkey-Grant to draw a map of her living room and then asked her additional questions.
"By their actions, the VSP failed to scrupulously honor (Pelkey-Grant's) invocation of the right to remain silent," Harnett said. "Even if it were permissible to draw a map of the living room in light of the invocation of the right to remain silent, any interrogation about the incident should have ceased. It did not."
In addition, Harnett argued that a follow-up interview with police on April 22 was based on statements illegally obtained because of the Miranda infractions and should likewise be suppressed.
But in a response to Harnett's motion, Rutland County State's Attorney James Mongeon argued that Pelkey-Grant was not in custody and therefore not subject to Miranda when she was interviewed at her home.
While she was initially handcuffed, Mongeon said the restraints were placed on her only as a safety measure while police searched her home to ensure there were no additional threats.
Afterward, Mongeon said Pelkey-Grant was willing to talk.
"(Pelkey-Grant's) conversation at her home was voluntary. She told them it was OK to talk to her," he said. "The evidence establishes that (Pelkey-Grant) was neither verbally threatened with charges or possible jail."
Later, he said Pelkey-Grant agreed to go to the police station to draw a map of the location of the shooting. At the station, Pelkey-Grant didn't have her glasses so she explained the layout of the room to a detective who drew the map, the state's attorney said.
"Even after she was told of her right to have an attorney and not speak to the police she continued to speak to the police …. At no time at the station was (Pelkey-Grant) arrested or deprived of her freedom of action in any significant way," Mongeon said.
brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com
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