By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
LITTLE VALLEY — Cattaraugus County District Attorney Lori P. Rieman has asked an appellate court to rehear a case involving a Salamanca man’s death they overturned last month.
The Appellate Division of the Fourth Judicial Department of State Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Derrick C. Marsh, 35, who was found guilty after a jury trial of first-degree assault in the Jan. 11, 2020 death of Chad Skoken, also of Salamanca, and ordered a new trial.
The appellate judges have scheduled a hearing on Rieman’s request for a rehearing of arguments in the case for Aug. 11 at 10 a.m. in Rochester.
The 4-1 ruling by the appellate court June 27, cited deficiencies in Marsh’s Miranda warning and denied the use of a videotaped interview with detectives.
“A defendant’s waiver of his Miranda rights must be knowing, voluntary, and intelligent,” and it is the People’s burden to establish “beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently waived his Miranda rights before being questioned,” the appellate ruling states. Justice J.J. Keane voted to affirm Marsh’s conviction.
A detective read Marsh part of the Miranda warning before questioning him in Chad Skoken’s death and handed it to him to read the rest. That, the court ruled, was not sufficient, as it appears in the videotape that Marsh did not read the entire Miranda warning.
In Rieman’s motion for a rehearing of the case, she notes Marsh and the victim were fighting on Waite Avenue when Jeremiah DesJarlais, 40, also of Salamanca, came up from behind Mr. Skoken with a garrote and began to strangle him.
Marsh said at that point, he then ran from the scene.
Mr. Skoken’s body was found the next day in a garage owned by DesJarlais’ wife.
DesJarlais and Marsh were questioned the next day by detectives at the Salamanca Police Department.
Marsh and DesJarlais, were both charged with second-degree murder, first-degree assault, tampering with physical evidence and concealing a corpse.
After their arrest and during his trial, Marsh’s attorney sought to have the videotaped police interview with Marsh disqualified from evidence due to Miranda questions. County Court Judge Ronald Ploetz allowed the videotaped interview.
Des Jarlais was convicted in 2021 on all counts, while Marsh was convicted of first-degree assault only and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
In the June 27 ruling, the majority wrote: “The detective did not observe (the) defendant read the form, and (the) defendant did not have the form in front of him long enough to read all of the warnings before he signed it. We remind the Government that a heavy burden rests upon it to prove that a person in custody did knowingly and intelligently waive [the] privilege against self-incrimination and [the] right to retained or appointed counsel [and] the preferred practice would include both an oral recitation of the required Miranda warnings coupled with the delivery of a written explanation thereof to the accused.”
Justice Keane wrote in dissent: “Although it would have been preferable if the detective had read the form aloud to defendant, there is nothing in this record to suggest that defendant was denied adequate time to read the Miranda warnings form or was pressured in any way to sign the waiver. No trickery or coercion of any form occurred.”
In the appellate ruling, the justices wrote: “Specifically, the (county) court determined that defendant was advised of his Miranda rights and ‘knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived them before providing statements’ to the detective. The court added that ‘Miranda’s safeguards were satisfied here.’ Based on our review of the videotaped interrogation, we come to a different conclusion.”
The district attorney filed the motion for a rehearing with the appellate court on July 21. She argued that the court did not sufficiently consider that Marsh was not in custody at the time of the interview with detectives.
In her motion, Rieman states: “Here, the law is plain: Miranda warnings are not required before “interviews that took place at the police station, inasmuch as they were noncustodial.” Rieman said in the motion: “Here, (the) defendant was unrestrained, had not been handcuffed, rode in the front passenger seat of the investigator’s car, and was questioned in a conversational and informal manner — as defendant himself has described. A reasonable innocent person plainly would not have believed they were in custody — as further evidenced by the discussion over whether (the) defendant needed a lawyer — which he plainly expressed that he did not feel he needed. Without a finding of custody, this Court need not have reached the Miranda issue.”
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All Rights Reserved. Star News LLC. Eric M. Firkel.
