An Arizona detective who extracted a confession from a mother on a charge of arranging the murder of her own 4 year old son will not be forced to give testimony at her retrial. With him unlikely to take the stand because of fear that he might incriminate himself, it is now more likely that the woman will be found not guilty for lack of further evidence.
The woman, Debra Milke, was found guilty in 1980 of paying two men to murder her son in the Arizona desert. She remained in jail since her trial on death row for nearly 24 years. However, this March, her case was heard by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the original trial decision was quashed and a retrial was scheduled for 2015 with a hearing due next month.
The reason for the Appeals Court decision was that the detective who recorded a confession after her arrest has been partly discredited by reported misconduct when interviewing suspects as a detective. Mrs. Milke has always claimed that she did not confess to her son’s murder when interviewed. The detective, Armando Saldate, did not record the confession and no-one else was present. It is basically his word against Milke’s that she confessed to the crime. It appears that the confession was virtually the only evidence that the prosecution had at the time against Milke. The two men who were convicted of carrying out the murder remain on death row in Arizona but have also appealed their sentences. They never testified against Milke during the original trial.
The Appeals Court heard that Detective Saldate had lied under oath on previous occasions and had also violated suspects’ rights on several occasions. Another bone of contention about the reliability of Detective Saldate is that Milke has always claimed that she had not waived her right for an attorney to be present at the interview. This was something that the detective claimed she had done.
Detective Saldate has been granted permission to take the Fifth Amendment to avoid having to take the witness stand at the retrial. It is thought that he might have been exposed to the danger of a criminal charge against him if he had. Prosecutors have told him that he is unlikely to be prosecuted if he takes the stand, but his own attorney, as well as the Judge who heard his application, are not so sure. The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department says that they have reviewed the Appeals Court hearing and do not think they have enough evidence to charge Saldate. However, it is possible that he could face prosecution for previous cases of misconduct. The Appeals Court heard that Saldate had denied several other people the right to remain silent while he pushed ahead with an interrogation. In another case, he interrogated a suspect who was strapped to his bed in a hospital and was apparently incoherent at the time.
The Maricopa Supreme Court Judge, Rosa Mroz, said that Milke’s defense attorneys could conceivably question Saldate if he took the witness stand about the 8 other cases of misconduct in an attempt to discredit his evidence and leaving him open to a possible criminal charge.
Milke’s defense attorney said that if the detective invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not act as a witness then they will likely request a dismissal of the charge because the prosecution had little other evidence except for the confession.
Debra Milke is at present out of jail on a bond.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.