Statements a Concord murder suspect made to detectives during a roughly 5-mile car ride from the apartment complex where Sabrina Galusha was killed to the police station will not be admissible at trial, a judge ruled.
However, the entirety of Daswan Jette’s interview at the Concord Police Department – which the same detectives conducted a short time later – is fair game, Merrimack County Superior Court Judge John Kissinger Jr. wrote in a recent order. Jette “voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently waived his Miranda rights in the interview room,” Kissinger said, but he had not yet done so when Detective Wade Brown began questioning him during the short cruiser ride.
“Mr. Jette’s statements in the back of the police car are inadmissible because they were elicited through custodial interrogation,” Kissinger wrote. “Detective Brown’s questions were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response because they strayed beyond standard background and veered into possible connections between the crime and Mr. Jette.”
Although a portion of the ruling came down in the defense’s favor, Kissinger said it is likely to have little effect on the prosecution’s case. He said investigators did not learn anything of consequence during the cruiser ride on May 31, 2017, that they didn’t obtain elsewhere, including Jette’s alibi.
When Jette answered officers’ knocks at his girlfriend’s apartment at Penacook Place that morning, he told them he had not left the residence the prior evening or overnight, and that he was there alone.
State prosecutors allege Jette stabbed Galusha, a lifelong Concord resident, multiple times during a marijuana deal gone bad outside Penacook Place apartments on the night of May 30, 2017. Witnesses say Jette tried to steal approximately a half-ounce of marijuana valued at about $90, prompting the altercation that led to Galusha’s death.
Jette, who faces alternative counts of first- and second-degree murder, had argued that Concord police unlawfully arrested him under the guise of executing a search warrant of the apartment where he was staying that morning, and continued to question him at the police station after he invoked his right to have an attorney present.
Several police officers served Jette at approximately 6 a.m. with two warrants – one to search him and the other to search his girlfriend’s apartment where he was staying. While Kissinger sided with Jette in throwing out statements from the cruiser ride, he ruled in prosecutors’ favor that police did not exceed the scope of the search warrant by taking Jette to the Green Street station, where they planned to scan his fingerprints and collect DNA evidence. He noted that certain equipment needed to thoroughly execute that warrant was only available at the police station.
“Moreover, Concord police had an articulate basis for suspecting that Mr. Jette perpetrated the murder because he allegedly fit the description of the perpetrator gathered from witnesses and other informants the police were aware of, as set out in the affidavits in support of the search warrant,” Kissinger ruled.
Jette’s attorneys had also argued on his behalf that he didn’t understand his Miranda rights at the Concord Police Department. Kissinger, however, said Jette never clearly invoked his right to have an attorney present.
At one point, Jette had asked Brown, “Just for my safety am I able to have a lawyer with me?” Brown told Jette that if he wanted a lawyer all questioning would stop, and yet Jette proceeded to sign off on the Miranda form and answer the detective’s questions.
“Mr. Jette’s statements are only expressions of doubt or uncertainty and, as such, cannot be considered a sufficient innovation of the right to counsel,” Kissinger said.
After Jette’s arrest more than two years ago, his attorneys asked the court to evaluate his mental competency to stand trial upon learning of a complex medical history that dates back to his infancy. Although Kissinger ultimately found Jette competent to stand trial and understand the criminal proceedings against him, defense attorneys continue to cite Jette’s prior mental health diagnoses as a cause for concern.
Kissinger said in his latest order that Jette showed a clear understanding of his Miranda rights.
“Although Mr. Jette has been diagnosed with certain mental health conditions, given the nature of the interview, Mr. Jette displaced sufficient understanding by expressing he understood both orally and in writing and by asking questions when he did not,” Kissinger wrote.
Jury selection in the murder case is scheduled for December, with an eight-day trial slated to begin Jan. 7 in Concord.
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319 or at adandrea@cmonitor.com.)