Background
Karl M. Hess was convicted of two counts of first-degree intentional homicide after two victims were found shot to death in their Manitowoc home. The State presented surveillance footage of a Toyota Highlander matching Hess’s vehicle, cell-tower data placing his phone near the victims’ home and later traveling alongside a missing victim’s phone, and firearm evidence linking Hess’s nine-millimeter handgun to the bullets and cartridge casings recovered at the scene.
During a five-hour interview at Hess’s home on March 26, 2019, officers did not give Miranda warnings. Hess confessed before officers formally arrested him approximately two hours and forty-five minutes into the interview. His later statements from that interview were suppressed. The next day, after receiving Miranda warnings at a police station, Hess confessed again. Following his convictions and consecutive life sentences without eligibility for extended supervision, Hess alleged that trial counsel was ineffective for not pursuing suppression of the remaining confessions.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment and the order denying postconviction relief. It held that Hess was not in Miranda custody when he gave the portion of his March 26 confession admitted at trial. Although the interview was lengthy and officers made statements suggesting they might take action that day, the interview occurred in Hess’s home by prior arrangement, he was not physically restrained before his arrest, and the officers maintained a conversational, noncoercive tone. The setting therefore did not create the inherently coercive pressures associated with station-house interrogation.
The court also held that the warned March 27 confession was not obtained through the prohibited deliberate “question first” technique addressed in Missouri v. Seibert. The interviews occurred in different locations more than a day apart, there was no evidence that officers deliberately withheld warnings to undermine Miranda, and the intervening time and changed circumstances would have served as curative measures. Because suppression motions directed at the confessions would have lacked merit, counsel did not perform deficiently by declining to pursue them.
The court further concluded that Hess could not establish prejudice. Even without the confessions, the State presented compelling evidence connecting his distinctive vehicle, phone, and handgun to the crimes, including evidence that the missing victim’s phone traveled with Hess’s phone after the killings and that Hess had retrieved the murder weapon from a pawn shop shortly before the shootings.
Key Takeaways
- An interviewee’s inability or perceived inability to end questioning does not alone establish Miranda custody; courts also examine whether the environment involved pressures comparable to station-house interrogation.
- A later warned confession is not barred under Seibert absent circumstances showing a deliberate two-step strategy to circumvent Miranda, particularly when time and setting separate the interviews.
- Counsel is not constitutionally deficient for declining to pursue meritless suppression arguments.
- Hess could not show prejudice because extensive vehicle, cell-phone, firearm, and motive evidence independently supported the convictions.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates that Miranda custody turns on the total circumstances and the coercive character of the questioning, not merely on an officer’s refusal to postpone an interview or the suspect’s eventual arrest. Questioning in a suspect’s home, without restraints or an escalated tone, may remain noncustodial despite pointed accusations and a lengthy interview.
The unpublished, per curiam opinion also applies both the Seibert plurality’s objective considerations and Justice Kennedy’s narrower deliberate-strategy approach, concluding that Hess’s second confession was admissible under either framework.