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Cop’s statements in domestic violence case suppressed
Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho has suppressed the statements given by a Rota police officer facing domestic violence charges to two fellow officers.
In an order last week, Camacho said that based on the totality of the circumstances surrounding the two interviews conducted by police sergeant Noel Calvo and police detective Shaw Taisacan, the court finds that Taisacan’s Miranda warning to George A. Barcinas was ineffective.
Miranda warning refers to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that statements made by a suspect in police custody are generally inadmissible if the suspect has not been made aware of his or her Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
Camacho said that Taisacan’s interview was tainted by Calvo’s failure to Mirandize Barcinas.
The judge noted that Calvo improperly interviewed Barcinas under the guise of a “friendship talk” without administering Miranda warnings.
“Based on a totality of the circumstances, an improper two-step interrogation process was employed, and the Commonwealth failed to meet its burden of disproving the deliberateness of the two-step interrogation,” Camacaho said.
Further, the judge said, curative measures were taken by the officers to ensure a knowing and voluntary waiver of Miranda.
On the night of June 5, 2015, Calvo and Taisacan separately talked to Barcinas.
Barcinas, through assistant public defender Tillman Clark, moved to suppress all statements that he made to the Rota officers on the night of June 5. Defense attorney Joaquin Torres had since replaced Clark as counsel for Barcinas.
The Office of the Attorney General alleged that on June 5, 2015, on Rota, Barcinas pinned his wife to the ground and placed her in a headlock. He allegedly grabbed his wife’s keys from her car’s ignition against her will, preventing her from leaving his property.
Barcinas also allegedly used physical force to struggle with and prevent the victim from calling law enforcers after she informed him of her intention to do so.
The government charged the 35-year-old Barcinas with assault and battery, disturbing the peace, and interfering with a domestic violence report.
